Story: Evan Rothman
Pictures: Motorpics
The long and challenging sweeps, hairpins and blind crests of the Longmore Forest’s stages for this year’s Volkswagen Rally, highlighted the bravery of South Africa’s fastest two-wheel drive rally crews. Leaving braking points to the very last metre possible, it was a pleasure to watch the likes of Leeroy Poulter and co-driver Henry Dearlove (Imperial Toyota RunX A6) set mighty impressive stage times against the faster Class A7 crews.
The Volkswagen Rally 2010, round five of the South African Rally Championship, was played out in and around Port Elizabeth at the end of last month (HANDBRAKES & HAIRPINS featured the event review in last week’s issue, and you can read this article here: http://ow.ly/2kjDu). The overall victory was well deserved by the crew of the Castrol Team Toyota Auris S2000 piloted by Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock. The BP Volkswagen Polo S2000s of Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson and Jan Habig/Ralph Pitchford claimed second and third spots respectively.
The two-wheel drive classes, Class A7, A6, A5 and N3, were well represented by Toyota and Volkswagen machines in each class, but on their home event it seemed that Toyota dominated proceedings in all classes.
It was rally rookie Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove that outperformed their rivals at this event, as they have done in the previous four rounds of the Championship. They beat off the quicker Class A7 cars in most of the 11 stages, but at the end of Day Two no Class A7 cars managed to reach the final time control…
In a measured drive, Poulter bested his Class rivals Tjaart Conradie/Riaan Ersamus (Silverton Engineering/Hencom Autobody Toyota Auris A6) once more by 02min 01,1sec. In only one stage did Conradie beat Poulter in stage times, but for the remainder of the rally it was a Poulter Show. A battle royal, however, was expected, but Conradie suffered poor luck throughout the weekend: in SS2 he hit a rock that destroyed his power steering and CV joint, and then on Day Two he struggled with a failing clutch.
Third in Class A6 once more were Craig Trott/Robbie Coetzee (Team Total Toyota RunX A6). Finishing nearly five minutes off Poulter’s lead, Trott and Coetzee are still very much in the Class title chase.
Cape Town teenager Ashley Haigh-Smith and talented co-driver Hilton Auffray (React Toyota Yaris A5) drove to another well-earned and well-deserved Class win in Class A5. Haigh-Smith powered to the finish on Saturday afternoon with a Class winning margin of 10m 01,8s over Chad Lambert/Herman Groenewald (Lambert Steel Toyota Yaris A5). Haigh-Smith’s biggest competition thus far in the Class A5 Championship has come in the form of Andre Cleenwerck/Kes Naidoo (BP Volkswagen CitiGolf A5), but this crew rolled heavily in what was described by Cleenwerck as his biggest crash in his rally career to date on SS1 in the Longmore Forest. Fortunately, the crew was relatively uninjured by the massive off.
Class N3, with four competitors taking to the first stage, was in for a big battle for the Class win. A Championship fight between Megan and Oliver Verlaque (Toyota RunX N3) and Abduraghman Amlay and Yusuf Ganief (Toyota RunX N3) was set to rage on in the Eastern Cape, but the Verlaque crew were sidelined near the finish of SS1 with a broken fuel pipe and Amly/Ganief were ruled out after SS6. This meant that Stefanie and Willem Hugo (Toyota RunX N3) and Robson Maganezi/Shaun Visser (Linking Africa Ford Fiesta ST N3) were left to battle for Class honours. Hugo drove her best to claim the Class win on Saturday afternoon.
The next round of the South African Rally Championship is the Osram Rally, which is held in and around Barkly East on 21 August.