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• The first all-black team will compete in the 2021 Kyalami 9-Hour.
• The race is the final round of the Intercontinental GT Championship.
• The three drivers form part of the Into Africa Mining team.
• For more motoring stories, visit Wheels24
History will be made on 4 December 2021 when the first all-black African team will line up to start the Kyalami 9-Hour race. As before, the race in Gauteng will be the final round of the Intercontinental GT Championship, but all the hype is around the Into Africa Mining team.
Racing a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, the three drivers to pilot the car is Xolile Letlaka, Tschops Sipuka and Philip Kekana. They will take on the best GT3 racers from around the world and will be hoping to secure a strong result at the event.
The team is no strangers to Endurance Racing as Letlaka and Sipuka secured two victories and a second place from their four starts in the 2021 SA Endurance Series. At the Kyalami 9-Hour, the Into Africa Mining team will look to win the National Class.
Drivers' comments
Xolile Letlaka said about how he will feel when standing on the grid with his teammates while the National Anthem is played: "It will probably be one of the proudest days of my life. Fielding a team with two drivers who grew up in rural villages in the Eastern Cape and one from Soweto speaks to my motto of 'we lift as we rise'."
Letlaka is a 48-year-old businessman became the first man of colour to win a round of the Endurance Series in 2020. The victory came in his first race in a pukka GT3 car.
Tschops Sipuka won the Polo Cup title in 2002 and 2003 before progressing into production cars in a factory-backed Audi. After a seven-year absence from the sport, he returned to GTC racing in 2019, winning the East London round. The 43-year old Sipuka raced a Mercedes Supertruck and tested an Indy Lights car during his varied career.
He said: "It will be an honour to showcase ourselves on an international stage. Consistency and speed will be our watchwords. The Kyalami 9-Hour is going to be a very special moment for our team."
55-year-old Phillip Kekana will make his GT3 racing debut after a long hiatus from motorsport. He began racing Group N cars in 1997, winning the title in 2002.
He said: "It's going to be a steep learning curve for me; I have to become accustomed to the car - understand how the machine works and how far I can push it. I was very excited when Xolile called to offer me the drive. I've been training hard since then."
Kekana hopes the Into Africa Mining team will inspire young black children to take a bigger interest in motorsport, especially engineering.
