The Nine Hours of Kyalami is an

endurance Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from an ...

sports car race contested at

Kyalami Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit (from ''Khaya lami'', ''My home'' in Zulu) is a motor racing circuit located in Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa, just north of Johannesburg. The circuit has been used for Grand Prix and Formula One races and has ho ...

Midrand Midrand is a former municipality in central Gauteng, South Africa. It is situated in-between Centurion and Sandton and now forms part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. History Midrand was established as a municipality in 1 ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. The first races were held from 1958 to 1960 at a circuit at the

Grand Central Airport Grand Central Airport is a small privately owned airfield which is open to public air traffic. It is located in Midrand, halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa. Prior permission to land at Grand Central is not required for l ...

near Midrand before moving to Kyalami in 1961. The event was a mainstay until the late 1980s, including hosting three rounds of the

World Sportscar Championship The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992. The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance, and road racing events in Europe and ...

, however was only held three times between 1989 and 2018. The event was revived in 2019 as part of the 2019 Intercontinental GT Challenge.

History

From 1965 to 1973, the race was the centerpiece of the South African Springbok Trophy Series. In 1974, the event was part of the

, switching to a 6 hour/1000 kilometre format. From 1975 until 1979, the race was held for

touring cars Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition with heavily modified road-going cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not mo ...

. The race returned to sports cars and its 9-hour duration in 1981 and 1982, before being shortened to 1000 km and becoming part of the World Sportscar Championship once more in 1983 and 1984. After not being held in 1985 due to circuit construction, a 500 km event was contested from 1986 to 1988. After a ten-year hiatus, it was revived as a 2-hour, 30 minute, race as part of the SportsRacing World Cup from 1998 to 2000. On 27 July 2018, circuit officials announced the nine-hour distance event would return to the calendar starting in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

as part of a revamped

Intercontinental GT Challenge The Intercontinental GT Challenge is a sports car racing series developed by the SRO Group in 2016. It consists of international endurance races for grand tourer racing cars complying with the FIA's GT3 regulations. Format The series is aimed ...

series from the

Stéphane Ratel Organisation SRO Motorsports Group (formerly the Stéphane Ratel Organisation) is an international sporting organisation best known for promoting and running a variety of racing events and series, including the Total 24 Hours of Spa, Intercontinental GT Chal ...

. The event will be the final event of a global series of GT3-focused events alongside the Bathurst 12 Hour,

California 8 Hours The California 8 Hours is a sports car endurance race for GT3 and GT4 specification cars held at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California, as part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge. The first annual race was run in 2017. TCR ...

Spa 24 Hours The 24 Hours of Spa is an endurance racing event for cars held annually since 1924 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium. It is currently sponsored by TotalEnergies. History The Spa 24 Hours was conceived by Jules de Their ...

and

Suzuka 10 Hours The Suzuka Summer Endurance Race is an annual motorsport event for sports cars that has been held at the Suzuka International Racing Course, Mie Prefecture, Japan since 1966, and the oldest automobile endurance race in Japan. From 1966 to 2017, t ...

. The race was originally scheduled for 3 November, but moved to 23 November to avoid a date clash with the

2019 Rugby World Cup The 2019 Rugby World Cup was the ninth edition of the Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's rugby union teams. It was hosted in Japan from 20 September to 2 November in 12 venues all across the country. The opening match ...

Grand Central

Kyalami

External links

Racing Sports Cars: South Africa archive
*World Sports Racing Prototypes

{{Automobile endurance races Auto races in South Africa Sports car races Endurance motor racing World Sportscar Championship races