The 2010 Volkswagen Rally victory went to the Castrol Toyota team of Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock on Saturday. The pair just managed to stay ahead of Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson in their BP Volkswagen Polo to claim a 1.5 second victory.
Third across the finish line after two days and 11 stages of hard rallying was the BP Volkswagen S2000 Polo of Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford.
“This national championship is more exciting than WRC (World Rally Championship),” exclaimed Gemmell, prompted by the narrow 1.5 second margin of victory. “The VW Rally is a tough event, you can’t slack off, you have to be flat-out from the start.
“We had a good car on this event, everything worked 100 percent and we had a consistent run with no problems.”
For Gemmell and Sturrock this is only their fourth event as a team, but the pair clearly work well together.
The 2010 Sasol National Rally Championship has been a tough nut to crack this year – and it appears this is a trend that will continue to be for the rest of the season. Whichever rally team manages to claim the 2010 title is going to have to work for that honour on every stage along the way.
Living up to its reputation as being especially hard on the home team, the VW Rally struck early in the BP Volkswagen camp. The defending champions, Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries were eliminated in the first stage of the event on Friday and there is a list of teams that suffered misfortune over the two day rally.
For BP Volkswagen racers André Cleenwerck and Kesevan Naidoo the event will be one to forget. The pair rolled their class A5 BP Volkswagen Citi Golf, ending its long national rally history, but both walked away with minor injuries after a very big accident.
Gugu Zulu and his navigator Cindi Harding were also victims of the 2010 VW Rally when their car lost drive and other competitors found themselves with problems such as broken clutches or fuel lines, damaged suspensions and broken gearboxes. This the usual collection of things that can go wrong when there are rocks and stones hammering against the under-carriage of a rally car while competitors race through stages as fast as possible.
While Gemmell and Sturrock claimed overall victory and the S2000 victory, it was Gavin Cronje and Van Aardt Schoeman that took class A7 honours, Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove who proved victorious in the A6 class and Ashley Haigh-Smith and Hilton Auffray who were the class A5 victors while the N3 win went to Stefanie and Willem Hugo. The privateer team award was taken by Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh who finished fourth overall in the event behind the wheel of their Ford Fiesta S2000.
The 2010 VW Rally saw competitors tackle the Longmore Forest, Port Elizabeth Oval Track Raceway, Winterhoek in Uitenhage, Aldo Scribante Raceway and the ever-popular Kings Beach stage in their quest for honours. For the successful campaigners there were trophies and congratulations – for the unsuccessful there is a chance to try again next year.
The national rally championship has now passed the halfway mark of the season and the points gained here are a crucial step to victory for all competitors. The next challenge for the national rally field is the Osram Rally which takes place on 21 and 22 August.