Kelly’s very different report on the 2026 Simola Hillclimb – “bear with me, because this piece about the Simola Hillclimb requires a bit of backstory first.”
In 2007, I joined what was then South Africa’s leading motoring media title. I was the first female motoring journalist on that masthead, later joined by Juliet McGuire, who has since built a name for herself independently in the industry. Motoring journalism wasn’t my first choice of beat, but it came with the territory: if you were going to write about cars, you needed to at least understand motorsport. So I knew about the Simola Hillclimb. Knew about it, but never attended. Invitations to those events were rare for Julz and I back then, and being offered a driver’s seat? That didn’t even register as a possibility.
To be fair, there were women racing in South Africa over the years. Clare Vale, whom I was fortunate to meet – and took me drifting. Cindi Harding, a rally navigator making her mark, Fabienne Lanz and Paige Lindenberg – to name a few, plus others competing in regional races. They were professionals, and they were doing it. But it was genuinely rare for a female motoring journalist to be asked to race anything.
Racing up the hill in Knysna never crossed my mind as something meant for someone like me. Read into that what you will. Motorsport is expensive, and expensive means inaccessible, and inaccessible has a way of quietly closing doors in your mind before you’ve even tried them. Racing was never a dream of mine anyway, but that’s beside the point. Because over the roughly seven years I’ve been attending the Hillclimb (one gap year aside), I’ve watched things shift. More female drivers than ever before. And thanks to manufacturers like Suzuki, more ordinary women, not seasoned racers, are getting the chance to take a shot at the hill.
This year, Suzuki put two women behind the wheels of two Suzuki Swifts.
(Full disclosure: my husband Calvin Fisher produces content for Suzuki during the Hillclimb. That has nothing to do with what follows.)
I have to give Suzuki credit for that decision. Two women of colour. That matters in a way that’s hard to overstate. I may not be embedded in the industry the way I once was, and I have no ambitions of strapping into a racecar, but somewhere out there is a young black or brown girl who does. For her, seeing Ziphorah Masethe and Girlie Lukhele take on that hill is the whole point. Yes, Ziphorah lost control to a tank slapper. But she climbed out safely, gave a big wave, wore a big smile, and showed everyone that sometimes things go sideways and you enjoy the ride anyway.
Over the years, the Simola Hillclimb has grown beyond a racing event. It’s become a proper social occasion, the kind where the crowd is as much a part of the atmosphere as the cars. And as the driver line-up has grown more representative, it’s also become a place where women and girls can look out onto that hill and see someone who looks like them doing something extraordinary. That matters too.
There are other reasons we keep coming back, year after year.
King of the Hill. There’s always something compelling about watching who can get up that hill fastest by the end of the weekend. You can make educated guesses about which vehicle has the edge, but it comes down to the driver in the end.
The Friday night parade. The streets of Knysna close, the cars come out, and the whole town turns into a stage. Burnouts, drifting, donuts, and an energy that’s impossible not to get swept up in.
Classic Car Friday. We don’t always arrive in time for this one, but when we do, it delivers. There’s something about a beautiful old car that gets to you in a way a modern machine rarely does.
The experience on the hill itself. I usually attend as media, which comes with its own rhythms and privileges. This year was different. We brought the family, bought spectator tickets, and I spent much of Sunday on the other side of the barriers. The vibe there is something else entirely. People paid to be there, showed up out of genuine love for motorsport, and radiated that love openly. It’s a good reminder of what all of this is really about.
Every year, the Simola Hillclimb finds a new way to get me. A different angle, a different feeling, a different reason to be glad I came. This year, it was Ziphorah’s wave and an afternoon in the crowd.
Next year? No idea. But I’ll be there.
