Drivers

Trevor Blokdyk

From a small farming community to the west of Johannesburg, Blokdyk made his name first in speedway, winning the South African championship, and then going to England to race there in the late 1950s, when he was in his early twenties. He then returned to South Africa and began racing in a Cooper T52.

He quickly graduated to Formula 1 machinery and in 1961 raced in F1 for the first time in the non-championship Rand GP at Kyalami. A week later he finished eighth in the Natal GP at Westmead. He did the same races a year later with the Hoffman Racing Cooper-Alfa Romeo team but failed to score in any decent events. He then went back to Europe to race in Formula Junior, quickly becoming one of the frontrunners in a very competitive era.

He was back in South Africa at the end of 1963 and took part in his only World Championship Grand Prix at East London in December that year, finishing 12th in an outdated Scuderia Lupino Cooper-Maserati, which dated back to 1959.

He returned to Europe the following summer and raced in Formula Junior. In 1965 he failed to qualify for the South African GP in another old Cooper but back in Europe he enjoyed some success in a DW Racing Enterprises Brabham BT16 Formula 3 car, winning a heat at Monza and taking outright victories at Magny-Cours and Nogaro.

In 1966 he was given the chance to race with Ron Harris's Team Lotus Formula 2 team alongside Pedro Rodriguez and Peter Arundell and he finished sixth at Rouen. He continued to return to Europe in 1967 when he raced in Formula 3 for Pygmee and in 1968 when he was in a Titan. Eventually however he concluded that at 33 he was not going to make it in the big time. He retired to South Africa, only appearing in occasional sportcar events after that.

He took up farming in the Hekpoort Valley, near Krugersdorp and continued to do so until his death from a heart attack in 1995 at the age of only 59.