A solid performance by the Castrol Team Toyota Hilux of Duncan Vos and Rob Howie as well as charges by a brace of privateer Hilux SPs further extended Toyota’s lead in the Manufacturers’ Championship in the ABSA Off Road Championship. With four of the eight events now completed Toyota’s lead is backed up by first and second places in the Driver’s championship as well.
Delayed by punctures in the final kilometres of the prologue for the Sun City 400, Vos and Howie started the event on Saturday with a three-and-a-half minute time deficit to make up on the leaders. True to form the Sun City event produced its notoriously dusty conditions in the early part of the event to frustrate the progress of Vos but he was able to close down the qap to finish as fourth overall in the Production Vehicle category after starting 13th on the road. The points scored in this event saw Vos and Howie move from fourth in the series up to second place with a total of 46 points.
Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst had a similar charge through the field to recover from a 26 minute penalty incurred when they rolled their Hilux SP in the prologue. In the process of working his way up to seventh in the SP category Visser set the fastest racing section time, four minutes clear of any other competitor on the day. This against the odds recovery saw Visser increase his points total to 59 as the Championship leader.
Anthony Taylor and Robin Houghton in the second of the Castrol Team Toyota Hilux SPs had to retire from the event whilst firmly in command of the SP category when one of the Special Vehicle competitors misjudged an overtaking move in the dust and collided with the Hilux side-on with the full force of the impact taken by the right front wheel.
“True to form the Sun City 400 delivered an exciting event with changing fortunes for many of the competitors as the dust and punctures took their toll,” says Castrol Toyota team principal, Glyn Hall. “Anthony and Robin were really unlucky. They had the event pretty much under control until they were forced out through no fault of their own or the vehicle for that matter. It was a racing incident, but a pretty cruel one. The vehicle that crashed into them wasn’t a direct competitor. After they fell out the event turned into a lottery with the SP as punctures took their toll on the leaders in turn.”
Gary Bertholdt and Andre Vermeulen eventually ended up as the lead Hilux in second place in the SP category behind Terence Marsh and Buks Carolin. Berthold missed out on the win by just 23 seconds after four punctures in the racing section.
Class D in the Production Vehicle category was a Hilux benefit with the 4X4 Megaworld entry of Deon Venter and Ian Palmer taking the classw in followed by the Northam Toyota entry of Dewald van Breda and Johann du Toit.
– Credit: Toyota of South Africa.
