With all the excitement and top-class racing of last weekend’s very successful Volkswagen Rally in the Eastern Cape still fresh in the memory, aficionados of the not so gentle art of special stage rallying on loose gravel roads in stately forests have some six weeks to wait for their next fix.
The Garden Route Rally, round six of the eight-event SA Rally Championship, marks the eagerly awaited return of national championship rallying to an area that last reverberated to the sweet sound of well-tuned high-performance racing engines some 16 years ago. The area was last used by the Volkswagen Rally when it started in George and ended in Port Elizabeth.
The elegant new Garden Route Mall, conveniently situated close to George airport and the junction of the N2 highway and Knysna Road, will host rally headquarters on Friday, August 26, and the rally will start there from Entrance 3 at 12:00 after documentation and scrutineering.
Spectators will have a great opportunity to get up close and personal with the teams on Friday morning as they prepare for the start of what route director Joe Fourie describes as a virgin rally in terms of the special stage roads that are predominantly through forests.
The first day’s action will consist of four brand new gravel special stages covering some 70 km, which will set the tone for what can be expected to be another searching test for South Africa’s top rally teams contesting what is turning out to be one of the best rally seasons for some years.
A short opening stage of five kilometers is situated just 400 metres from the start and adjacent to the Garden Route Mall. It will take competitors across the N2 and on to three challenging stages in the forest between George and Knysna.
The day ends with a short 1-km spectator stage in the popular seaside resort of Knysna, wedged between the Outeniqua Mountain range and the Indian Ocean.
The central service park for the national championship Garden Route Rally will be situated at the village of Karatara, some 55 km from George and 45 km from Knysna.
The overnight halt and parc ferme will be at the magnificent 325-hectare Simola Estate, which boats a spectacular panorama view encompassing the full expanse of the Knysna Lagoon, the famous Knysna Heads and the ocean beyond.
The restart on Saturday morning will be at 08:00 at Simola Estate and the first of the day’s five stages, covering some 100 km, will be run after a 10-minute service stop at Karatara Village, another opportunity for the fans to see the cars and crews up close.
The first two stages will be a repeat of two of the previous day’s stages and will be followed by two more all-new gravel stages before the rally ends with a final spectator stage at Simola Estate at around 15:00 on Saturday.
We are really looking forward to this, should be awesome!
This will be exciting, hopefully it will be a bit warmer…