By Johan Laubscher
The two Audi teams (JFR and Terry Moss Racing) worked flat out in order
to prepare the cars for the season opener, but both teams missed the deadline. The
old Audi A4 cars were used at the first round. Terry Moss Racing had their cars
ready before JFR and they showed the pace of the new cars at the following
rounds. Johan Fourie was stuck with his old car until the fourth round of the
series. He did very well with the old car, but could not match the pace of all
the new cars. At round four his new Audi S4 was ready and took a debut win in the
endurance event.
The team was focused on the 2012 season when they lost their main
sponsor. Without the sponsor the team had to withdraw from the opening round of
the championship. It was a very sad sight not to see the JFR Audi S4 at the
event.
With sponsor talks continuing an agreement was reached and Johan Fourie
was back for round two in Cape Town. Johan put on a massive showing for his
home town fans as he took two victories on the day, proving he and the team
deserve to be in Class A. Following the event his sponsor withdrew for a second
time. With this occurrence JFR sourced another sponsor and his Audi S4 was seen in plain white colour
at the next event, after his previous long time sponsor’s orange colour had
been removed.
Just over a month later, a few days before round six of the series the
sad news broke cover. Johan Fourie Racing would be closing its doors and Johan
Fourie would be taking a sabbatical from Motorsport. Very sad news for Johan’s
many fans, both in South Africa and internationally.
Johan Fourie Racing is one of the most successful South African teams,
a team everyone has gotten use to seeing at every event, and at the front of those events. Not seeing this team and their truck in the paddock will be a
hard fact to swallow.
The fans say thank you to JFR for many years of great racing, the team
and its driver will be sorely missed.
Round 5 of the 2011 season saw Johan Fourie at his very best. He absolutely
dominated the race weekend in his Audi S4. The race highlights from that round
are included bellow. It is exactly this drive and pace from Johan Fourie Racing
that we will all miss on future race days.
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011 Audi A4
2011 Audi S4
2012
All images are hosted at motorpics.co.za