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Sarel van der Merwe
Nationality	South Africa
Retired	2002
Championship titles
1975, 1977-1985, 1988 1994 1994, 2001	South African Rally Drivers Championship South African Saloon Car Championship South African Modified Saloon Car Championship
Awards
1976 1997 2002	Springbok Colours South African National Colours MSA Lifetime Achievement Award

Sarel Daniel van der Merwe (born December 5, 1946) is a South African former rally driver, who was a multiple South African Rally Drivers Champion.

Van der Merwe won the South African Rally Drivers Championship a record eleven times in 1975, from 1977 to 1985 and in 1988. Van Der Merwe also drove one Nascar Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen in relief of Darrell Waltrip in 1990 where he finished 24th. He also held the SA Saloon Car Championship (1994), SA modified Saloon Car Championship (1994 & 2001), and won the 1996 Castrol International Rally in Swaziland. He received his Springbok Colours in 1976 and his South African National Colours in 1997. In 2002, van der Merwe was awarded the Motorsport South African (MSA) Lifetime Achievement award.

Van der Merwe began his racing career in 1967 racing saloon cars. His international career took off in 1983 in the IMSA series in the USA, with his most notable win in the 1984 24 Hours of Daytona race driving for Kreepy Krauly Racing, an all-South African team in a March 83G-Porsche. He shared the win with Graham Duxbury and Tony Martin. Van der Merwe did exceptionally well in the 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans where he finished 3rd on debut. In the 1986 Le Mans race, Sarel pulled in a lap early and Jo Gartner took over. A lap later the suspension broke and the car veered off the Mulsanne Straight in the middle of the night and Gartner was killed.

He retired from competitive motor racing on November 23, 2002 after Round 12 of the Vodacom Power Tour at Kyalami.

References

1. http://www.nascar.com/drivers/dps/svanderm00/cup/index.html
2. "MSA Handbook 2007" (PDF). MOTORSPORT SOUTH AFRICA. Retrieved 2008-10-22.
3. "Sarel van der Merwe". HISTORIC RACING. Retrieved 2008-10-22.

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