Johannesburg – The 2021 Intercontinental GT Championship returns this Saturday, and the global motorsport fans will witness an exclusive grid contest where history will be made with the appearance of the very first African team of drivers.
The Intercontinental GT Challenge is a sports car racing series that was established by the SRO Group and is now heading to South Africa.
Fielding a team with the championship standings, two drivers who grew up in the rural villages in the Eastern Cape and one from Soweto will stand a chance to be crowned winners.
The series consists of international endurance races, where the 2021 challenge is the sixth and final season.
Taking his first shot at this much-anticipated tournament clash, the Umtata-born Xolile Letlaka, aims to bring inclusivity to a white-dominated sport.
Letlaka, Tschops Sipuka and Philip Kekana will be the first black teams to compete at the GT Challenge.
The final round of the Intercontinental GT will see Letlaka, Sipuka and Kekana take on the best GT3 racers in the world behind the wheel of their team “Into Africa Mining” Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo.
Showing the team’s potential to take the IGTC National Class honours; Letlaka and Sipuka have already raced their Huracan GT3 Evo to two victories.
And they secured a second-place finish from their four starts in the 2021 South African Endurance Series.
The duo are on their way to winning the second round of the SA Endurance Championship.
But at the end of the day, it is the boyhood dreams of a young motorhead who, despite growing up in a rural farm village, has forged his way in life to see them all come true.
Letlaka has now achieved his life’s goals, both in business and motorsport, and now he wants to start giving back to those less fortunate.
“I hope that even 10 or 15 kids watching the 9-Hour will ignite a dream that one day they could be on the grid of a race, or even be part of the technical crew fielding one of these magnificent machines,” said Letlaka.
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