Duncan Vos and Rob Howie won Saturday’s Megaworld 4X4 400 Off Road race at Carnival City in their Castrol Team Toyota Hilux SP with an emphatic eight minute margin. Production vehicle championship leaders Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst were second in their Hilux SP.
They were followed home by Hannes Grobler and Hennie Ter Stege (BMW) and Anthony Taylor and Robin Houghton in the second of the Castrol Team Toyota Hilux SPs. First second and fourth positions for Hilux secured the Manufacturer’s award in this event for Toyota.
The results of the 70 kilometre Friday prologue showed that the two Castrol Team Toyota crews would be hard to beat over the weekend. Reigning off road champion Vos set the quickest production vehicle time some 30 seconds ahead of team mate Taylor. They were in turn a minute quicker than the Nissan Navara of Thomas Rundle with Chris Visser completing the top four line-up.
“We knew that the Castrol Hilux had the speed and the durability to translate into a race winning performance,” said a delighted Vos. “We just had to get a good clean run from a reasonable starting position. After the prologue we had just the space frame special of Colin Matthews ahead of us at the start. Reasonable winds played a role in helping to disperse the dust and once we were clear of Matthews we set about building a lead that would give us a margin of safety if we had a puncture.
“We were able to build a four minute cushion by the end of the first loop. Our Hilux was just that good that we were able to extend that to eight minutes at the finish without working the car too hard.”
The performance of the lead Castrol Hilux was matched by Anthony Taylor and Robin Houghton in the second works Toyota. For the early part of the first loop they held station in a comfortable second place but were hampered by restricted vision when a flying rock damaged their windscreen. They then lost time with a double puncture after contact with an unsighted rock and settled for fourth place.
“The Castrol Hilux SPs have shown promise right from the start of what has been an incredibly competitive Off Road season so far,” says Castrol Team Toyota Team Principal, Glyn Hall. “Our biggest problem up to this event has been getting to run in clean air after the Friday prologue. The team has worked really hard at making a number of incremental improvements that all really came together for this event. It was a great result for Toyota Motorsport and our partners Castrol, Imperial, and the Innovation Group. We are looking forward to chasing down the championship together with them with three events still to run and with Duncan and Robbie just seven points behind Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst.”