With the BMW ///M Performance Parts Race Series NA Cup starting its last three rounds of the 2026 season this coming weekend (9-10 October) at Red Star Raceway, everyone will look to catch up to points leader Andre van Vuuren.
The weekend will mark this year’s second visit to the circuit, albeit the first which will utilise the clockwise circuit layout.
Despite a host of valiant efforts in the past few months from all the major contenders, Van Vuuren has steadily consolidated his NA Cup lead heading into Round 7. His consistency in Class B is one of the contributing factors to his dominance. Eight wins thus far, with at least one in each round, see him holding a 23-point advantage over the new second-placed contender, Richard Gerntholtz. The latter does have one odd in his favour, though. While Van Vuuren has all the ATS Motorsport Pole Positions at Zwartkops Raceway, Gerntholtz is the driver who locked them out thus far away from the Pretoria circuit, with one of them converted into his sole win for the year. Ignus du Plessis lost the lead to Van Vuuren at the last Red Star Raceway visit, when he broke out of Class C. He trails Gerntholtz by eight points, and would like to improve on his three podiums since moving up. Olerato Sekudu finds himself a further 12 points adrift, and after a solid start to the season that saw him take two wins, he’ll head into the weekend on the back of a lean spell. Nine points behind him is Bernard de Gouveia, a driver who ended his lean spell with his first win of the season in the last outing.
A driver making his way back this weekend will be Eddie Rodrigues, His return comes at the circuit where he had a horrific accident earlier this year in his BMW E92 M3, and he could well cause a few upsets in Class B.
Class C leader, Nicholas Herbst, does find himself in a slightly better position on the NA Cup points table, albeit just one point closer to Van Vuuren. On paper, he might also appear to have another advantage over Gerntholtz, in that his battle with Van Vuuren is not directly on the circuit. Despite only having three Class C wins this year, two at Red Star Raceway, he holds a sizeable advantage of 30 points over the rest of the Class C field. He also managed to pick up four of six pace-related points in the second half of the year, but the driver who triumphed in the class in that period is second-placed Claudio Jardim, who picked up his first 2026 win in the last outing. He will look to keep the momentum going in his quest to extend his seven-point lead over Tihan van Rooyen, whose best finish thus far was a second-place finish at Red Star Raceway. Also, part of that battle now is Ruan van der Walt, four points adrift and on the back of his first Class C win. Fifth-placed Kent Swartz is a further nine points adrift, and finding his podium-finish form again.
Regular contenders Cobus Bohmer, Dirk van Loggerenberg, Ferdi van Staden, Mitch Coetzee, Morgan Jacobs, Philip Mostert Jnr, and Shane Grobler, will also look to challenge for honours. Karabo Malemela, who missed the last two outings, will also be back on the grid.
Reinhardt Miller heads up Class D and is the first driver to top a class in both the NA and Turbo Cup simultaneously. With a 39-point deficit to Van Vuuren, he’s NA Cup hopes might appear to be as good as over, but a factor to take into account is that there is still dormant Class A. Should Van Vuuren break out in the remaining rounds, Miller could find himself back in the mix. For now, his focus will be to stay on top of his class, where he retook the lead from Henry Platt last time around, and holds a six-point advantage. However, after four wins in the first six races this season, including one at Red Star Raceway, it has been a pretty lean spell for him, with only 20 points since June, although he did miss one of those three rounds. Justin Brown is a further four points adrift and has been staying in contention, with one 2026 win to his name. Another single race winner is Chloe Stuart, 15 points adrift. Craig Platt trails her by 22 points, with his best weekend of the season coming in the last outing.
Arri van Heerden, Giulio Airaga, Mariaan Emmenis, Mariska Smith, and Philip Mostert Snr will also be back. Philip Emmenis is set for his first 2026 outing, while Varish Ganpath is set for his NA Cup debut, piloting a BMW E36 328i. Like Miller, he will also compete in both Cups on the weekend.
Saturday’s first race, consisting of 8 laps, will start at 09:20, with the second 10-lap encounter scheduled for 12:40. The full Extreme Festival race programme will be broadcast live on the Extreme Festival website, and will start at 08:50.