The Off Road racing focus shifts to Bloemfontein this coming weekend with the staging of the penultimate round of the ABSA South African Off Road Championship.
This seventh event of the eight round series promises excitement for spectators and teams alike with the Production Vehicle category poised for a showdown with three competitors well placed to take championship honours with just 12 points covering the Toyota Hilux of Chris Visser, the Castrol Team Toyota Hilux of Duncan Vos, and the BMW of Hannes Grobler.
“It’s a case of maximum attack for us,” says Castrol Team Toyota’s Duncan Vos. “We are just 11 points adrift of Chris Visser in the championship but the way the scoring works we simply have to go all out for the win in Bloemfontein to close the gap to Chris for the final event. We also need to protect ourselves against any threat from Hannes. He is just one point behind us and we really need to open that gap up.
“This event will be very interesting for everyone. It will be the first time that a national championship off road event is staged in this area with the organisers promising an interesting and challenging route. Our focus will be on having a clean and quick run in the prologue to ensure a good start position and then follow that up with a trouble free run in the main event on Saturday.”
In the recent Toyota 1000 Desert Race the Castrol Team Toyota Hilux SPs were the class of the field when it came to outright speed, winning the prologue and setting the pace for most of the two days of the racing section. “At the Desert Race we saw the full benefit of all the hard work the team has put in since the start of the season to steadily improve the Hilux,” says Glyn Hall, Castrol Team Toyota team principal. “In Botswana the Hilux showed that it had the handling and the speed to fight off challenges in the Production Vehicle Category.
“In the Desert Race we were tripped up by a relatively minor problem that we had not seen any evidence of right through the season. That has been addressed through our philosophy of constant improvement for the run up to the end of the season with the last two events critical for the outcome of the championship.
“Both Duncan Vos and Anthony Taylor are really fired up for this event. Both need to run up at the front to minimise the points opportunities for our opposition and take the championship challenge through to the last round on home ground for our partners Castrol, Imperial, and the Innovation Group. We can expect a fast and furious event in Bloemfontein which will be a lot of fun for the spectators with really good access to the event given the close proximity of the race to the city.”
– Credit: Toyota of South Africa.