Team Total drivers currently occupy three of the top four places in the privateer class of the Sasol National Rally Championship as the series heads for the Southern Drakensberg and Barkly East in the Eastern Cape for round six this weekend (August 21).
Cape Town’s Jean-Pierre Damseaux and Johannesburg-based co-driver Carolyn Swan (class S2000 Toyota RunX) currently lead the points standings with Cape Town’s Fernando Rueda and Dave Lewkowicz from Pretoria (class S2000 Toyota RunX) third. Durban veteran Craig Trott and Robbie Coetzee (class A6 Toyota RunX) are fourth.
Multiple former class champions Damseaux and Swan are seventh in the overall championship as well as in the premier class S2000 for modified four-wheel drive cars. Rueda, a former African Rally Champion, and Lewkowicz are sixth overall and 10th in class S2000, while former class champion Trott and Coetzee are third in class A6 for two-wheel drive 1.6-litre cars and also third in the competition for class A6 and A5 (1.4-litre cars) combined.
The fourth member of the privateer Team Total challenge is the pairing of Tzaneen businessman Mohammed Moosa and Grant Martin (class S2000 Toyota RunX), who have endured a difficult start to their first year in the top class, including a high-speed crash in the opening round and missing round two as a result.
The reigning class A6 champions have recovered well to finish in the top six overall in round four and were in the top 10 in the most recent event, the VW Rally in the Eastern Cape last month. They will be keen to improve on their current 16th place overall and 14th in class S2000.
The Osram Rally, popularly known as the Mountain Trial, usually includes a testing section over the daunting Joubert’s Pass, but will not include this challenge in 2010 and will instead take in the Heuningneskloof. This has made it possible for the organisers, the Sports Car Club of Bloemfontein, to keep the event compact (it is the only one-day rally in the calendar) and employ a central service park in Barkly East.
It is nevertheless expected to offer the usual combination of high speed gravel stages over mountain roads and spectacular views with scary drops for the unwary.
The day’s eight-special stages start from the Barkly East Golf Club at 07h00 on Saturday and the first car is expected at the finish back in Barkly East at about 15h30.
– Credit: Team Total South Africa.