Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove dominated proceedings on the Osram Rally, round 6 of the Sasol South African Rally Championship to not only finish as the top two-wheel drive car for the third time this season, but also put the Class A6 Championship out of reach of their main title rivals with two rounds remaining after claiming their fifth consecutive win in their IMPERIAL Toyota RunX.
In the all important 1600cc Championship, Poulter and Dearlove have a 0.2 point lead over Ashley Haigh Smith and a clear five point lead over Craig Trott. Both Haigh Smith and Trott still have to drop their worst score of the season, leaving Poulter and Dearlove with a net point lead of 19.4 points.
Run in the Southern Drakensberg mountains around Barkly East in the Eastern Cape, the Osram Rally – formerly called the Mountain Trial and an acknowledged power event – saw Poulter and Dearlove end 13th overall, a fraction under 8 seconds ahead of the 2 litre factory VW Polo of Gugu Zulu and Cindi Harding.
Run at altitudes in excess of 1700 metres above sea level, the 1600cc IMPERIAL Toyota RunX should have been breathless against their bigger-engined opposition but that didn’t stop Poulter and Dearlove from blowing the socks off their challengers.
Poulter and Dearlove beat the A7 class VW Polo of Gavin Cronje ( the current Le mans Series Champion) in the first stage, all the A7 runners in stages 2, 3 4 and 6, a phenomenal achievement on first acquaintance of the mountains.
It wasn’t all plain sailing for the championship hopefuls as they suffered rear brake failure in the first stage, after the left rear brake pipe was damaged, and carried that problem through stage two as well, until the well–oiled Race Prep team could carry out repairs. The team incurred a 20 second penalty – their first of the year – for leaving the service park two minutes later than the allowed service time.
The stages are gravel mountain stages which Poulter found daunting. “I didn’t enjoy the first two stages without rear brakes and we had a few close calls”, said the former production car and karting star. The fast crests were scary as we were flat in 4th and 5th gear throughout stage three and that’s when you need complete faith in your co-driver. For a right five corner, I would usually brake and change down, but here you go flat. Next time we come here, I’m going to enjoy it a lot more”.
It was also the first experience of the mountains for Henry Dearlove. “It’s not as scary as it’s made out to be but perhaps that’s because I have complete trust in Leeroy and you need that confidence that he heard my instructions!”.
“The stages without rear brakes were ‘interesting’”, smiled Dearlove. “Otherwise we had a clean run”.
Team Manager Rod Hering said: “We’ve achieved out first objective of the year, putting the class A6 championship out of Tjaart (Conradie)’s reach. Even if Leeroy fails to finish both the last two rallies and Tjaart wins them, Leeroy would take the title with five wins to three, so it’s game over. Our next objective is the 1600cc Championship, which is going to go all the way to the last stage of the last round”.
The next outing for the IMPERIAL Toyota Rally Team is the Swartland Rally on the West Coast on 17 and 18 September.
– Credit: Race Prep Motorsport Solutions.