The Basil Read/bizhub Ford Fiesta made a welcome return to the Sasol SA Rally Championship in time for round 4 of the series, the Rally of South Africa in Ermelo, but it was to be another event that caused frustration for the team, but still pointed to the team’s competitiveness on day 2, which bodes well for the second half of the season that kicks off in late July.
Running the first pair of stages, Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich got off to a steady start before entering the fateful stage 3 of 56km.
Wilken takes up the story: “At the halfway mark, we were only about 20 seconds from the leaders, which wasn’t bad. I picked up the pace a bit and with 6km to go, we hit something in the road, I still don’t know what it was but it split the rim in half. I tried to drive to the end of the stage but the tyre wrapped itself around the brake caliper which literally brought the car to a stop”.
“We tried to get the wheel off the car but after 20 minutes it was hopeless and we were out”, added the disappointed double Production Car champion.
“We re-entered the Super Rally on Saturday as it was a good chance to drive in competitive conditions and tried various techniques. We set competitive times, but in stage eight, I bent the front suspension and decided not to continue.
Wilken continued: “There’s still a lot to come from me and a lot from the Fiesta. It’s a pity that the next rally is so far away”.
On the road conditions faced by the teams, Wilken has very strong views: “The roads were unacceptably rough in places. The damage caused to cars in stage 3 alone was massive and overall the damage caused by the event to cars was unacceptably high with five top teams falling out and five more suffering serious problems on this one stage alone”.
The next outing for the Basil Read/bizhub Ford Rally Team is the Volkswagen Rally in the Eastern Cape on 23 and 24 July.
– Credit: Wilken Communication Management.