Johannesburg - When Gugu Zulu died on Kilimanjaro he was about to take his motorsport career to the next level as a works driver in the new GTC series.
And nowhere is he more keenly missed than by the motorsport crew at longtime sponsor Volkswagen, to most of whom he was both friend and mentor.
So they've joined forces with the governing body of motorsport in South Africa to find the brightest in home-grown South African racing talent - not to fill Zulu's shoes, but to follow in his footsteps.
The programme will be called VW Driver Search and will be administered by the MSA's official training partner, Motorsport Training Africa, with some funding from the FIA, the world body of motorsport.
They'll select sixteen candidates of colour, roughly between the ages of 16 and 25 and with some motorsport background, to take part in an intensive motorsport boot camp in October 2016. While the racial requirement is bound to be contentious, it can be argued that Zulu's standing in South African motorsport was at least in part due to the barriers he broke down to get to the point where his race was no longer an issue.
“MSA’s Got Talent”
It'll be run along similar lines to the MSA's recent Motorsport Development Academy, with the addition of a 'Clutch and Gears' module to bring younger drivers whose experience is limited to karts up to speed with full-sized power trains; don't knock it, most of the world's top drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and all three Schumachers, started their racing careers in karts!
The Driver Search candidates will go through a fitness assessment, theoretical classes at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre and practical training at the Gerotek test facility, after which the top eight will move on to a racetrack shootout.
Sheer ability on the track will whittle the contenders down to the final two, each of whom will get guest drives in a few regional races, and the driver with the better results will be rewarded with a works drive in the 2017 Volkswagen Polo Cup.
And if that sounds like a script for "MSA's Got Talent", it should, because the principles are exactly the same.
Entry will be by invitation, but if you or somebody you know meet the criteria, you're invited to send the relevant details to [email protected] by no later than 26 August.
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