The start of the 16th BMW ///M Performance Parts Race Series season this coming weekend (30-31 January) at Zwartkops Raceway will see the biggest field to date start their campaigns in the separate Turbo Cup and NA Cup championships.
As announced by the Series earlier this month, the 2026 season will mark a new chapter for the Series, operated by BMW Car Club Gauteng, and backed by BMW South Africa. Effectively, this means that Renier Smith, who became the first driver to take two consecutive series titles, is also the last driver to have taken a combined title in the Series.
Turbo Cup
The Turbo Cup has a somewhat similar look to the top half of the combined field in 2025, with most of the turbocharged cars already grouped here. A total of 34 cars will line up on this grid. This group will be headed up by the Class A brigade, still competing on Dunlop slick tyres. Leon Loubser, who won Class A in last year’s edition for the third-consecutive time, will be one of the frontrunners. He will be joined by Bob Neill, making a welcome return to the line-up, while Nishal Singh also joins the slick-shod brigade in 2026, now competing in a BMW E92 M3 Turbo. Kashen Naicker will also compete in Class A.
Class B sees Smith making his return, along with regular rivals Anton Pommersheim, Lenard Archer, and Andreas Meier. Also back on the grid will be Carlo Garbini.
The Class C champion, Hein van der Merwe, will look to establish his dominance early on, but may find just as challenging a task as before, given the host of drivers he will compete against. These include Anand Naidu, Bennie Luyt, Cameron Christian, Ethan Coetzee, Johan Miller, Nick Naidoo, Nicky Dicks, Oz Biagioni, Salvi Gualtieri, Sheldon Chetty, and Varish Ganpath.
Class D will see an open contest, with the likes of Craig Herbst, Eugene Gouws, Gerald Anthony, Javelin Ramsamy, Kyan Boodaya, Michael Grobler, Mike Grobler, Neil Reynolds, and Wessel Mostert in contention. Alan Hilligenn makes his return to the series.
The Turbo Cup will see three BMW ///M Performance Parts Race Series debutants. Ronald Lenters, from the Netherlands, will make his debut for the Pablo Clark Racing outfit. Sayen Moodley and Theo Chetty will also debut.
NA Cup
Although there are no entrants in Class A, the rivalries will be fierce throughout the field, with 39 entries on the list competing in the NA Cup.
Last year’s Class D champion, Bernard de Gouveia, will look to be one of the drivers heading up the Class B battle. His rival from the second half of the season, Andre van Vuuren, now competing in a BMW E36 M3, will also be back to recommence their battle. Dawie Olivier, Oleratu Sekudu, Richard Gerntholtz, Trevor Long, and Troy Cochran will also be some of the contenders in this group. Pieter Lombard also makes his return to the series.
Class C will see Chloe Stuart, Claudio Jardim, Cobus Bohmer, Deve Rehse, ignus du Plessis, Karabo Malemela, Kent Swartz, Mitch Coetzee, Nicholas Herbst, Philip Mostert JNR, and Tihan van Rooyen compete for the early advantage.
The Class D field will see 2025’s Class F champion, Henry Platt, looking to establish an early lead, but he may well be up against the most unpredictable group of rivals in the Series’ history. Arri van Heerden, Desmond Bloem, Ferdi van Staden, Henry Harber, Justin Brown, Mariska Smith, Philip Mostert SNR, Shane Grober, Zaheer Seedat, and Zeyad Ismail will all start the season in this class. Paulo Cavelieri, one of the most experienced race drivers on the grid, will pilot the BMW Car Club Gauteng OG Taxi.
It is not like all the debutants in the group are inexperienced either. Morgan Jacobs comes in following a successful debut season in Silver Cup 2.0, and Ruan van der Walt has been a Lotus Challenge stalwart for years. Craig Platt, Dirk van Loggerenberg, and Donovan Mannaru are the locally-based debutants, while Maurizio Bianco, an Italian driver residing in Switzerland, is the Pablo Clark Racing team’s second international guest driver.
Saturday’s races will form part of The 25th Passion For Speed Programme, and are scheduled for the following times:
08:15 – NA Cup Race 1 – 10 Laps
09:55 – Turbo Cup Race 1 – 10 Laps
13:05 – NA Cup Race 2 – 10 Laps
14:20 – Turbo Cup Race 2 – 10 Laps
Spectator tickets can be purchased via Computicket, or at the Zwartkops Raceway entrance gate.