Lee Thompson celebrated his 21st year in motor racing by winning the Masters' category of the 2011 Engen Volkswagen Cup, one of the most popular and closely contested national championships in South African circuit racing.

The 32-year-old from Garsfontein east of Pretoria in Gauteng, who won the VW Cup in 2007, dominated the Masters' category with 18 pole positions and 14 wins in 18 races. His outstanding achievement was a tribute to his consummate driving skills honed over more than two decades of racing and also to the professional preparation and almost faultless performance of his Ferodo-backed Volkswagen Polo.

The one-make formula, which invariably delivers the best racing on the national championship WesBank Super Series programme, is divided into two categories, an under-27 class and an over-27 Masters' division. The winner of the under-27 division is declared the national champion.

This will all change for next year, when there will be no divisions and all the drivers will compete against each other on an equal footing.

Had this been the case in 2011, Thompson would have been the overall champion, beating the actual champion, 19-year-old Devin Robertson, by 215 points to 188.

Thompson, who runs his own race car preparation and driver training business from Zwartkops Raceway west of Pretoria, won his first motor racing championship in 1992 when he took the honours in the Transvaal Formula M 125 cc category. In 2001 he was regional and national Formula Vee champion and followed this up with the VW Polo Cup championship in 2007, the forerunner to the current Engen Volkswagen Cup.

In 2009 he was class A and overall champion of the Northern Regions Goldwagen Volkswagen Challenge and won class A again in 2010.

"There are many people without whom I could not race," said the modest and unassuming Thompson. "I have to thank Chris Hillier and Ronnie Erasmus of Federal-Mogul, Brad Anassis of Portable Shade, Mike Rowe of Volkswagen Motorsport and the Van der Linde and Bonafede families, for their valuable support and encouragement throughout the year."

Thompson and former national and international single-seater champion Etienne van der Linde have teamed up to form a new racing driver school, Racecraft, which is based at Zwartkops Raceway.

"We're very excited about our new venture, which is based along the lines of the famous Jim Russell Driving School in the UK and the Skip Barber School in the US," said Thompson. "Etienne and I will be the instructors and training will include both theory and practical. We will also have our own state-of-the-art driving simulator in January."