The fourth round of the South African Rally Championship, the Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally, which ended at the RallyStar Motorsport Academy near Bapsfontein on Saturday afternoon, was very much like a good curry. It had all the ingredients that make up a spicy and appetising offering, even to the sting in the tail – in fact, several stings.
After two days and some 160 km of high speed special stage rallying in the Carnival City and Bapsfontein areas, it was the privateer class S2000 Sasol Ford of Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton that took a convincing victory after leading throughout the event and taking the honours in six of the 14 stages.
Privateers Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich (class S2000 Basil Read/bizhub Ford Fiesta) completed a remarkable comeback after finishing Friday’s five stages in seventh position to claim a surprise second place, 1 min 30,3 sec behind Cronje and Houghton. They dominated the day’s proceedings, winning six of the nine stages to go with the single stage win they had on Friday.
Wilken and Godrich in fact crossed the finish line at the final control at RallyStar in third place, 31,4 sec behind the factory Castrol Toyota Auris of Johnny Gemmell and Scotland’s Drew Sturrock. Gemmell had pushed the S2000 Toyota to the limit in a storming second-day drive that saw him recover from sixth at the end of the first day to finish 58,9 sec behind the winners. Officials subsequently handed out time penalties to a number of drivers for cutting corners, including Gemmell, and the Toyota crew was demoted to fifth place after collecting a two-minute penalty.
The penalties have been appealed and the final results of the rally will depend on the outcome of the appeals.
Promoted from fourth to the final spot on the podium after the penalties were applied was the first of the four-strong factory BP Volkswagen Polo team, defending national champions Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson in an S2000 Polo Vivo. They finished 1 min 36,8 sec behind the winners and 50,8 sec ahead of VW team-mates and former champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries. Sixth place went to the privateer Pirtek Peugeot 207 of Hein Lategan/Johan van der Merwe in their best result of the season.
While a recipe of tasty ingredients like gravel roads, hairpin bends, jumps, water crossings, mud and slippery grass grabbed the attention of the competing crews and entertained the hundreds of enthusiastic fans that lined the route, Saturday’s dramatic events unfolded.
S2000 debutant and reigning S1600 champion Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee were well positioned to finish in second place after starting the day third overall with two stage wins on Friday. A problem with the Toyota’s brakes saw them lose valuable time on special stage 11 after they had taken over second place from the factory VW Polo of Giniel de Villiers and Ralph Pitchford on stage nine.
The delay dropped them to seventh and, despite rolling the Toyota on the final super special stage at RallyStar, they finished seventh only to be demoted to 10th as a result of the corner-cutting penalties.
Promoted to seventh was the S2000 Grandmark International VW Polo of Nicholas Ryan and Armand du Toit, who finished 4 min 48,2 sec behind the winning Ford. Eighth was the second Pirtek Peugeot of Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman, who rounded off a season’s best combined performance for the team in their new French rally cars.
Privateers Japie van Niekerk and Simon Vacy-Lyle (New Africa Developments S2000 VW Polo) were awarded ninth place after the penalty shootout, 4 min 57,9 sec behind the winners.
Two of the factory BP Volkswagens failed to finish after both had made a good start. Multiple former champion Jan Habig and Robert Paisley went out on stage three on Friday after losing a wheel and damaging the suspension.
Red Bull Mobile’s Giniel de Villiers and Ralph Pitchford, competing in their first season of rallying together, were having their best outing of the year to date and were second at the end of day one. They held this position in the face of stiff competition until stage nine on Saturday, when they started dropping back with a misfiring engine and then gear selection problems. They finally retired on the very last stage with broken engine mountings after landing heavily over a jump.
Another significant non-finisher was the S2000 Green Fuel Ford Fiesta of championship leaders Conrad Rautenbach and co-driver Nicolas Klinger. After completing day one in a disappointing 10th place overall, the Zimbabwean/French combination went out on Saturday’s stage 11 with terminal engine problems.
Another Ford Fiesta, the Sasol Ford of former world junior rally championship contender Jon Williams and Cobus Vrey, crashed out of the rally in dramatic fashion on stage 12 after completing day one in eighth place.
Class A7 honours went to Rocky Reyneke and Christo Ackerman in a VW Polo, who were the only finishers.
Provisional results for the Junior overall classification (combined classes S1600 and S1400) saw Guy Botterill/Schalk van Heerden score a maiden win in a class S1600 Yato Tools/LiquiMoly Toyota RunX ahead of the S1600 Silverton Engineering Toyota Auris of Tjaart Conradie/Kes Naidoo and the S1600 Team RSi Toyota Corolla of Hans Himmel and Tommy du Toit.
The all-woman crew of Megan Verlaque and Lirene du Plessis (BP VW Polo) were declared provisional winners of the S1400 class ahead of the Q8 Oils VW Polo of Henk Lategan and Pierre Jordaan and the React Ford Fiesta of Ashley Haigh Smith and James Aldridge.
The next round of the championship is the Volkswagen Rally on July 15 and 16.