Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich staged a dramatic come-back on day two of the Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally to take the runner-up spot in their Basil Read/bizhub Ford Fiesta S2000. Godrich takes the lead in the co-driver’s championship at the season’s halfway mark, while Wilken is tied in 2nd place on the driver’s log, just two points off the top spot.
In a tough, drama-filled rally held around Brakpan and Bapsfontein, the route was made even more challenging with winter rains two days before the event. Running 4th on the road on day one, Wilken and Godrich found the going very slippery, while the event stewards investigated allegations of short-cutting by some of their rivals, the Basil Read/bizhub pair finished the day in 7th position after taking the fastest time in stage 5. “The car felt good and we made no mistakes”, reported Wilken.
On Saturday, Wilken raced to six fastest stage times out of the nine tackled, leaping onto the bottom step of the podium in the process. Officials applied time penalties to Toyota’s Johnny Gemmell which elevated Wilken and Godrich into 2nd spot on the provisional results.
Wilken continued: “On Saturday we pushed very hard and pulled back a lot of time. We had a puncture in stage 13 and lost 20 seconds and slid wide in mud in the last stage but overall I’m happy with the result”.
Greg Godrich is pleased to be leading the co-driver’s championship: “it’s great that a privateer team can be competitive against a factory team. I’m proud of the way Charl drove and it was an exciting comeback from seventh to second. Now we must take this pace into the forest stages”.
Team Director Flip Wilken said: “The roads on Friday gave us and the other front running teams no opportunity to perform to full potential. On day two, where the roads were more suited to rallying, the competition was more equal. I believe the organizing club made a huge mistake changing the excellent format from last’ year’s event, which included the most demanding stage in rallying. By doing so they destroyed what was an excellent event”.
The next outing for the Basil Read/bizhub Ford team is the Eastern Cape-based Volkswagen Rally on 15 and 16 July.