Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (Class S2000 Sasol Ford Fiesta) made the most of their 10th starting position on a route that was very muddy and adversely affected the front runners to complete day one of the Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally in provisional first place after five special stages and some 60 km of gravel road racing this afternoon.
Second, 18,7 sec in arrears in their best opening day performance of the season so far were Red Bull Mobile’s Giniel de Villiers and Ralph Pitchford in a factory BP Volkswagen Polo Vivo.
Third was the factory S2000 Castrol Toyota Auris of Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee, 26 sec behind the leaders
Cronje stamped his authority on the fourth round of the South African Rally Championship early by winning the two opening stages, albeit by just 0,5 sec from Poulter, who shared the spoils in the short first stage in the Ke Ditsilana Cultural Village in Vosloorus, some 35 km from the official start at Carnival Toyota.
While Poulter took a 5,6 sec lead from Cronje by winning stage three, the Toyota driver suffered a punctured left front tyre on stage four and lost over 30 seconds, dropping back to third place behind Cronje (who won the stage) and De Villiers, who was showing great pace in only his fourth ever rally.
The fifth and final stage went to Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich (Basil Read/bizhub Ford Fiesta) from Poulter (who took back 2,4 sec from Cronje), Hein Lategan and Johan van der Merwe (Pirtek Peugeot 207), Cronje and Poulter’s team-mates Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock in a second Toyota Auris. Gemmell also lost some 20 sec with a flat wheel on stage two and suffered from being second on the road.
Fourth overall for the day went to defending champions Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson in a BP VW Polo (+31,7 sec), who were followed by Lategan/Van der Merwe (+39,4 sec) in fifth and Gemmell and Sturrock (+42,0 sec) in sixth.
Making up the top 10 were Wilken/Godrich in seventh, Jon Williams/Cobus Vrey (Sasol Ford Fiesta), Jean-Pierre Damseaux/Carolyn Swan (Team Total Toyota Auris) and Conrad Rautenbach/Nicolas Klinger (Green Fuel Ford Fiesta), who paid the price of being first car on the road and opening up the route.
The only major mishap among the front runners was the retirement of Jan Habig/Robert Paisley (BP VW Polo) on stage three after taking a big hit on stage two and damaging his suspension and breaking a wheel. He changed the wheel between stages, but eventually removed it and then, while travelling slowly on three wheels, bogged down in the mud.
Provisional results for the Junior overall classification (combined classes S1600 and S1400) put brother and sister Christoff and Celeste Snyders in front in their class S1600 Sabertek VW Polo, followed by Guy Botterill/Schalk van Heerden in a class S1600 Toyota Run (+50,7 sec) and Tjaart Conradie/Kes Naidoo in an S1600 Toyota Auris (+1 min 28,9 sec).
Leading crew among the S1400 class was the combination of Henk Lategan/Pierre Jordaan (Q8 Oils VW Polo), who finished sixth in the Junior category and 6 min 02,1 sec ahead of the only other car in the class, the BP VW Vivo of all-woman crew Megan Verlaque and Lirene du Plessis (10th in the Junior category).
Saturday’s action starts at 07.30 from Carnival Toyota and consists of nine special stages in the Bapsfontein area with the finish at RallyStar near Bapsfontein in the form of a final super special stage.