The 6th round of the Sasol SA Rally Championship, the one day Osram Rally in the Southern Drakensberg around Barkly East presents something of a dilemma for the Class A6 IMPERIAL Toyota RunX pair of Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove – neither driver nor co-driver have any experience of the high speed stages they will encounter.
Dearlove, in spite of 14 years in the left hand seat of rally cars and two championships, has never run the stages formerly known as the Mountain Trial. “I ran the Dewetsdorp-based Osram Rally, but I’ve never run in the mountains so I’m looking forward to it, in spite of the scary stories people tell me about the event”.
The IMPERIAL Toyota pair has a nine point lead in the Class A6 Championship but their main target is the inaugural 1600cc Championship, where they are two points behind Ashley Haigh Smith (Toyota Yaris), who scores points at a 1.2 factor to equalize engine size. Haigh Smith still has to drop his worst score, leaving Poulter and Dearlove with a nett 14 point lead at this stage of the season.
For Poulter, it is again virgin territory, something he has easily adapted to this year. “Every rally is new for me so this one is nothing special. I won’t have the benefit of Henry’s experience here, so we’ll take it easy in the first two stages to figure out what the road conditions are like before stepping up a gear or two”, said the production car racer, enjoying a highly successful debut season in rallying.
“The trick will be to stay as close to Tjaart Conradie as possible if we are behind him but our strategy will be to go as fast as possible and stay on the road and listen to my navigator very carefully!”, Poulter added.
For Dearlove there is some extra pressure. “Usually I have notes from the previous years which I can fine-tune, but I’m starting from scratch this time, so I’ll pay more attention to what Leon Botha has to say. The Heuningneskloof stage is one I’ve been warned about – there’s a section with really big drops but otherwise it’s a fast and flowing route that again should suit Leeroy’s precise driving style”.
As a pure power rally, Race Prep Team Principle Rod Hering has realistic expectations. “I don’t see Leeroy and Henry finishing much higher than around 13th or 14th overall assuming everyone stays on the road. While it’s great to be the first two-wheel drive car home, we have our sights on the two championships so there won’t be any heroics from inside the car. We are able to tweak the ride height a bit because the roads are usually quite smooth and I hope there will be a lot of cars between us and Ashley”.
The ultra-fast Osram Rally starts from the Barkly East Golf Club at 7am and takes in eight stages, where Class A6 speeds average around 135km/h and often hit terminal speeds of 170-180km/h.
– Credit: Race Prep Motorsport