Here’s a round of auctioneering you don’t often see. Watch the bidding floor as Porsche SA purchases Kyalami for R205Million.
Thanks, Porsche for keeping Kyalami out of our Lost Tracks series.
Tag: Kyalami
David Piper owned the day. Both as a co-driver in the winning Ferrari 250 LM and as the owner of the GT winning 250 GTO. 250 LM and 250 GTO.
LM and GTO. Say it with me… LM and GTO.
Do you think the people sitting along Sunset Bend or grabbing a pint in the Grand Prix Club knew, and fully appreciated, that they could experience 9 hours of two of the most beautiful Ferraris that would ever roll out of Enzo’s workshop?
1964 Kyalami 9 Hours Program of Events 
Many thanks to Andrew Duncan who has been sharing his program collection gathered as a boy growing up near Kyalami. See more of the Duncan Collection here.
The Fifth Rand Grand Prix at Kyalami foreshadowed the international stage that Kyalami, only a year after its construction, was quickly becoming. This Non-Championship race in the ’62 Formula 1 season drew top talent from the British Formula 1 teams in particular with Jim Clark, Graham Hill, and John Surtees along with American Richie Ginther competing on the grid on a December afternoon. Clark won from pole, with Lotus team mate Trevor Taylor three-tenths of a second behind him.
Thanks again to Andrew Duncan who has been sharing with us scans of his program collection from his boyhood visits to Kyalami. See more of the Duncan Collection here.
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1959 Johannesburg 9 Hours Program
“Kyalami” loosely translated from Zulu is “My Home”. It’s a lovely name; evocative of the region and there’s something about the sentiment of it that I love. For Andrew Duncan though, it’s damn-near the literal truth. Andrew grew up a few miles from Kyalami and attended a variety of events with his father. He’s been scanning the programs from his collection and has graciously shared them here.
This event, however, pre-dates the opening of Kyalami by two years. This second 9-Hours endurance race was held on the then aging Grand Central Circuit. In the pre-Kyalami years the race was much more of a local affair, with nearly all of the entrants being South Africans.
Locals Chris Fergusson and Hugh Carrington took the win in Carrington’s Dart-Climax (via). It’s fun to consider when we look upon these pages that the 9 Hours was on the brink of becoming a major international event.
Thanks again, Andrew. There’ll be more scans from his collection here soon. In the meantime, check out previous posts from the Andrew Duncan Collection.
Andrew wrote in to say, “I grew up in Johannesburg and luckily for me, my father was a racing fan. Kyalami was eleven miles from our doorstep and we seldom missed events. Annual highlights were the 9- hour endurance race , the first week in November and the Grand Prix. I have programmes from the early 60’s and early 70’s that I’m scanning and would love to share them with you guys if you’re interested.”
Yes. Yes, I’m interested.
These scans from the 1966 9 Hours at Kyalami are a favorite. I suspect that most collectors would see the tattered pages and missing corner and pass it right by. But it’s these tattered corners that make it so great for me is Andrew’s story. “I remembering my dad saying that he’d lost his programme and Ran under the grandstand a half hour before the finish to find this one!”
This program. This one right here. That’s what makes it so perfect.
Ordinarily, I might celebrate the victory of David Piper and Richard Attwood in their Ferrari 365 P2/3. But if you ask me, the winner of the day was Andrew’s father; finding reclaiming his tattered program from beneath the bleachers.
Thanks for sending this, Andrew. We’ll be sharing more scans from the Andrew Duncan Collection in the coming weeks.