Gaining some valuable seat time following the completion of the Sasol SA Rally Championship last month, Motorite Racing’s Evan Hutchison and Elvene Coetzee convincingly won the MLC Computer Solutions All Tar Rally in Gauteng on Saturday.
Competing in the final round of the Northern Regions Rally Championship in their Motorite Racing class S2000 Volkswagen Polo, the pair completed the six special stages covering 104 km in a time of 1 hr 8 min 6 sec, a minute and 15 seconds ahead of fellow national championship competitors Theuns Joubert and Greg Godrich in their S2000 VW Polo.
Third were Chad Lambert and Dave Ledbitter in a class S4 Toyota RunX in a time of 1 hr 10 min 48 sec.
The rally consisted of four special stages at the Gerotek vehicle testing facility west of Pretoria, where competitors tackled two runs each (in opposite directions) over the Hillclimb stage and the Dynamic Handling track. The day’s racing ended with two stages at Zwartkops Raceway at Erasmia, with the first over 13-km within the circuit’s precincts and the second, in the dark, over 16 km.
Hutchison and Coetzee won the first four stages from Joubert and Godrich, but came to grief on stage five at Zwartkops when, leading on the road in their four-wheel drive Polo, they had to contend with a streaming wet track on slick tyres and finished 14th. Their nearest rivals Joubert and Godrich, second on the road, were also caught out by the conditions and finished 13th. As the tarmac dried out with each competitor’s run, the faster two-wheel drive cars that started later benefitted and top honours were taken by Mark du Toit and Ryan Quan Chai in a class T2 Honda Civic V-tec.
“We had a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyed having another go at the Gerotek and Zwartkops stages,” said Hutchison. They had sampled the very same challenges on day one of the final round of the national rally championship, the Toyota Gauteng Dealer Rally in October.
“We had no problems with the car and were very pleased to come out on top in our close battle with Theuns and Greg and improve on our stage times in the national event in the process. This was valuable experience for Elvene and I ahead of next year’s national championship.”
Schalk Burger junior and Armand du Toit finished fourth overall in their class S4 Toyota Corolla for Burger to wrap up the Northern Regions Drivers’ Championship after closest rivals Michael Otto and Tommy du Toit (class S4 Toyota Corolla) dropped out on stage four. Armand du Toit sealed the co-drivers’ title earlier.
Motorite Racing is the motor sport division of Motorite Insurance Administrators, the largest independent mechanical breakdown insurance and full maintenance plan service provider and administrator in South Africa.
– Credit: Peter Burroughes Communications.