Ashley Haigh-Smith is a rising talent in the South African Rally Championship, campaigning in the Class S1600 Championship in a Ford Fiesta R2. Handbrakes & Hairpins will be throwing their spotlight on this youngster to report on his SASOL Rally experience.
Ashley Haigh-Smith reports: “Our event started early this time with us leaving on Tuesday from home in the Western Cape, as this was a round of the FIA African Rally Championship and meant we were allowed to do a recce run of the stages.
“Wednesday was an early morning for all who were to recce, and I can only say the day was tough. Who would have thought that running through the stages would be easy! Just trying to make sure our loan car would not be destroyed going through SS2, let alone SS4. But, we had a successful day and I can really say doing a recce does help.
“My crew arrived early on Thursday morning and we headed to the Shakedown Stage. During shakedown, things didn’t go according to plan with us ending up on the side of a bank… After being towed out, we washed the car and headed to the Ford Nelspruit dealership where, with their help and my team, we were able to sort the problem out.
“Friday was an early start to the 20th edition of the SASOL Rally. Our first event, the Total Tour Natal Rally, was not a real show of what to expect throughout the year as believe it or not it was a” survival” rally; funnily enough, this rally was now attack, attack, and attack, and also being the second event of the season competitors should be comfortably settled into their cars and this would mean that the pace would be upped quite a lot.
“We started the rally with a game plan, and after the first stage everything was going accordingly as we claimed the first win in our Class by a tight margin from Tjaart Conradie, Craig Trott, Christoff Snyders, Clint Weston and Guy Botteril. But, coming out of the first stage I thought we were totally off the pace as I had a terrible stage with brake failure for most of the time and had to stop because of cows.
“In the second stage, we knew the fight was on between myself and Tjaart Conradie and we had to push hard, but 3km from the end of the stage we came to a standstill behind Craig Trott. We found out that Tjaart had taken out his front suspension on a bridge and blocked the road. I hope it was only minor damage and that we see Tjaart in the next event. After an hour we went in convoy to the beginning of SS3, all was going well and our split times in between showed we were 15 seconds faster than we were the first time through that stage (SS1), but then on a straight at around 13km into the stage, our left front CV snapped in half. We don’t know why this happened (after examining the shaft we think we should have changed the shafts before the event as they have a life span), but this being our first new season with the Ford Fiesta R2 we have had to learn the hard way. We drove on for about a kilometre before an uphill and we just could not get up it. I would’ve loved to have been in the fight on the second day with Mornè Janse van Rensburg, Craig Trot and Christoff Snyders, as I think it would have been spectacular rallying. We have still got a lot to find out about the car as I am sure after this last race we will have to step it up.
“I would like to thank SASOL and all the organisers of the event: it was amazing, especially seeing all the spectators, and the amount of effort that went into this event. I cannot wait until next year! I would also like to thank Lazarus for their generosity and help and a big thank you to the Ford dealers in Nelspruit for the use of their workshop and their time: we cannot thank you enough for being able to work in the dry! To my sponsors Castrol-BP, React, Pro-motor, Regent, Top Gear and my team and all our supporters, thank you very much for supporting us.”