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Photos: Piet van Wyk
The Drive & Camp Bull Run was held for the 11th time in October 2022, and it was also the biggest one yet.
Vanwyksvlei is not a place you simply happen to stumble upon. This special village is not en route to anywhere and you don’t really drive through it on your way to somewhere else.
No, if you are at Vanwyksvlei, it’s because that’s exactly where you want to be. Every year in October, on the final weekend of the short school holidays, Vanwyksvlei is typed into hundreds of GPSs belonging to petrolheads from all over South Africa.
Because then it’s time for the annual Drive & Camp Bull Run, a unique car festival that attracted the most teams yet this year.A whopping 160 teams signed up to participate, and in the end 145 teams made it here for a weekend of roaring engines, lekker socialising with old friends and many new faces.
This year, there was also a proper music festival with acts including Gian Groen and the Hugo Veldsman Trio entertaining the participants and spectators until late at night.
As per tradition, participants compete in vehicles older than 1985 with a value of less than R40 000.
The event is divided into two sections: on Friday, there’s a rally on the farm roads where participants stop at various points to join in various activities, including spitting bokdrolle (antelope turds) and target shooting with catties.
The fun on the pan itself happens on Saturday. Here, speed rules, and if you’re not racing against someone on the drag strip, you’re taking part in other timed activities.
On Saturday evening, when all the points were tallied, the Eastern Cape team of Pierre and Simóne du Plessis, Geo Malan and Jakoos Scheepers in Datskar – a 1980 model Datsun 140Y – walked away with the top honours for 2022.
It was the first win for this veteran team with nine Bull Run events under their belt.As a foreshadowing of their victory, the members of Datskar briefly stole the trophy from last year’s winning team, Geel Apteek, on Thursday.
Team Geel Apteek was worried about the trophy and when they finally got it back, they didn’t spot the Datskar sticker on the bottom of the trophy. There is no doubt that Pierre, Simóne, Geo, and Jakoos knew something that the rest of us did not.
Nonetheless, a well-deserved and well-received victory. Well done!
Of course, it is not possible to host such a successful event without help and sponsors.
Our sincere thanks to Gerrie van Eeden, Thys de Jager and the track officials who come to help out as volunteers very year. Also to Rudi Oberholzer and the organising committee in Vanwyksvlei who are such excellent hosts every year.
And a hearty thank you also goes to our sponsors: Stanley, Northern Cape Tourism, Albertinia Furniture Removals, Imperial, Kampi and Under Canvas.
We are already planning 2023’s event and have ideas on how to make it even bigger and better.
We cannot wait!
