BP Volkswagen rally team – Hard Driving Display

The 3rd round of the Sasol South African Rally Championship is the Sasol Rally, which runs in the Sabie, Nelspruit and White River on the weekend of 23 and 24 April.

THE BP Volkswagen rally team experienced a dramatic second round to the 2010 national rally championship. The event, which took place in the Western Cape on Friday and Saturday, was all about high speeds and the fight for position.

After two days of tough competition the BP Volkswagen crew crossed the finish line for second and third place overall. Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson claimed second with defending champions SAM’s Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries in third. The two BP Volkswagen Polos finished behind the Ford Fiesta of Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh.

Fekken and Arries went straight into an early lead, claiming the first stage victory. It looked as though the duo were on form and ready to deliver another winning performance. Things started to come undone, however, in stage two when their power steering system failed.

No power steering makes things very difficult to control for the all-wheel drive BP Ultimate-powered rally drivers and without precise steering inputs at high speed, anything can happen. For Fekken and Arries it was a flat wheel caused by impacting a roadside bank that cost them around 40 seconds.

That is a long time that on an event that is all about maintaining high speeds. With all the competitors racing at maximum pace, there is very little place to find those valuable seconds to claw back a place amongst the front runners. With Fekken and Arries in eighth after these two problems, it was this chase for time that saw the duo deliver an epic rally performance.

To understand just how closely fought this rally is, the stage times must be considered. When Fekken and Arries won the first stage, their teammates, Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford were just 0.6 of a second slower for second place. Mark Cronje and Robert Paisley in their Toyota Auris were third just 0.2 of a second behind Habig and Pitchford. These are splits normally seen on a race track, not a rally event.

Fekken and Arries were the 13th car, in terms of time, in the second stage but, once repairs to the steering had been effected, they crept up the ladder, claiming stage victories again toward the end of the event. When the event finished they were back on the podium, claiming third place overall, just 21 seconds off the leaders.

“It is amazing when you’re working so hard,” says Fekken’s navigator Arries. “You get into a rhythm and things just flow. You’re going so fast you just have to trust each other and your notes. There isn’t time for anything else.”

For Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson the event proved equally challenging. The pair got off to a relatively slow start but had built up stage-winning momentum by stage four, emerging fully three seconds ahead of their nearest competitors.

Through the tough action on stage, it was the time lost during a spin, and hitting an animal in the closing stages of the rally, that put paid to the Kuun/Hodgson dream of victory. Those vital seconds lost totalled enough – five seconds – to relegate them to a second-place on the podium.

“It was a hard rally,” says Kuun. “Things were really tight out there, it is tough when everyone is racing so close, but that is good for rallying.”

For Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford the Toyota Dealer Rally looked like it was their time to shine. From the outset the pair were on pace, on form and clearly a dominant force.

They completed the first three stages as the second-fastest car in the field, claimed the fastest stage time in stage five and were third in stage six. This put them in the lead overnight and they were charging hard for a good result.

It all came undone on the first stage of Saturday when their car ground to a halt with a problem getting drive to the wheels. This brought their campaign to an abrupt end, eliminating them from the event.

For Gugu Zulu and navigator Shaun Visser their debut in class A7 could have gone better. The pair put in an excellent performance in their first outing in a new BP Volkswagen Polo and, considering this is just their second rally together as driver and navigator, were posting excellent stage times and even managed a stage win in their class on the third stage.

This was a promising performance for the duo and they were in a strong position in the field – right up to the moment an electrical fault brought them to a halt. Their car was reluctant to start in parc ferme on Saturday morning and they took three minutes in lateness at the start of day two. This, combined with the car cutting out in the open section on the way to stage eight, undid all the hard work they had already done to finish in third place in class overnight.

For André Cleenwerck and Kesevan Naidoo it was also a punishing event. They had worked hard through every section of the 11 stage event, chasing A5 leaders Ashley Haigh-Smith and Hilton Auffray to finally overtaking them on the penultimate stage and lead into stage 11 by seven seconds.

This was thanks to some excellent driving as they had suffered a gearbox problem earlier the day that made gear selection all but impossible and later they also broke a shock on stage nine. Their reward was the seven second lead into the final stage of the rally when, with just six kilometres to go, Cleenwerck and Naidoo suffered an engine failure ending their event and their podium dreams.

The focus is now on round three of this eight round championship as the BP Volkswagen team heads to the Sasol Rally in late April to consolidate their points and ensure they are in a good overall position as the 2010 championship heads to the halfway mark.

LADY LUCK DESERTS CASTROL TEAM TOYOTA IN TOYOTA DEALER RALLY

Lady luck showed her most cruel face in the 2010 Toyota Dealer Rally when she reshuffled the pack after special stage seven robbing the Castrol Team Toyota drivers Johnny Gemmell and Mark Cronje of first and second places in the event.

With just four stages to run Gemmell held a comfortable 21 second lead over Cronje, who was seven seconds ahead of the VW of Enzo Kuun with the Auris S2000 showing a healthy turn of speed. At this time the Fiesta S2000 of Conrad Rautenbach was back in fourth place.

As Cronje left the stop control at the end of stage seven a joint on the prop-shaft let go. Cronje and navigator Robert Paisley were able to remove the front section of the prop-shaft and drive to the service area in two wheel drive but incurred a penalty of a minute and fifty seconds in the process. This effectively ended their challenge in the event, dropping them back to sixth place.

Just minutes later, part way through special stage eight, Johnny Gemmell had a puncture that cost him and navigator Drew Sturrock a little over a minute. With just three more stages to run there was just not enough stage distance left to recover this time and they had to settle for fourth place.

This opened up an opportunity for Enzo Kuun (VW) and Conrad Rautenbach in the Fiesta, to take up the challenge for the lead. In the end it was Rautenbach from Kuun by just 4,6 seconds with Hergen Fekken placed third a further 16 seconds back, followed by Gemmell.

The gap between Rautenbach in first and Gemmell in fourth was a minute and three seconds; less than the advantage held by Gemmell before he had the puncture. Had it not been for this misfortune Gemmell would likely have won the event. Hein Lategan brought his Team Pirtek Auris home in fifth place followed by Cronje.

Class A7 was won by Ettiene du Toit and Patrick Vermaak in a Toyota RunX. Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove won Class A6, also in a RunX, while class A5 was won by Ashley Haigh-Smith and Hilton Auffray in a Yaris. Abduraghman Amlay and Garth Ritch took the honours in class N3 in their RunX RSi.

“As expected the S2000 class produced an extremely close battle in the Toyota Dealer Rally,” says Castrol Team Toyota team principal, Glyn Hall. “From the outset Johnny Gemmell and Mark Cronje were right on the pace with Johnny ending the first day in second place just one second behind Jannie Habig with Mark in third place.

“This put us in a really strong position for the second leg of the event on Saturday. The Auris was right on the pace with Johnny setting a really quick time to take the lead on the first stage on Saturday with Mark backing him up – then we just ran out of luck.

“The encouraging aspect of this event for the sport of rallying was that we saw a very good spread of stage wins with Johnny Gemmell and Hergen Fekken taking three stages each, Enzo Kuun two, and Mark Cronje, Conrad Rautenbach, and Jan Habig one stage apiece.

“This indicates the closeness of competition in the top class that we are likely to see right through the season. Our intention is to tip that balance a little bit more in favour of Toyota and our sponsors Castrol, Innovation Group, and Imperial through the rest of the season.”


SAM’s Heinrich Lategan and Johan van der Merwe flies Team PIRTEK’S flag

This past weekend saw no less than 31 of South Africa’s top national rally teams descend on the Overberg town of Caledon. From the start, the atmosphere was frenetic; the pace was going to be blisteringly fast and the tolerance margin of error – zero. At stake were more points on the score board for the likes of Hergen Fekken to further entrench his lead, or in the case of Team PIRTEK those elusive opening points.

The Western Cape Toyota Dealer Rally was second of eight events on the SASOL South African National Rally Championship calendar. Battle was done on 11 gravel stages ranging in length from a crowd pleasing 1.3 kilometers laid out in the rugby grounds of Caledon to stages of up to 22 kilometers long. In line with the World Rally Championship formula, a central service park was set up on freshly prepared farm land midway between Caledon and Riviersonderend. The land owners are just waiting for the first of the winter rainfall to begin sowing the wheat and canola seeds that make for one of the most spectacular vistas in spring, thanks must go to those farmers, firstly for their relentless contribution to agriculture and food sustainability and secondly to facilitate the availability of suitable and challenging roads to compete on.

Team PIRTEK knew that amends had to be made after their Tour Natal Rally technical challenges. Driver’s Heinrich Lategan and Visser du Plessis were ready and felt confident that the preparation efforts put into the teams two Toyota Auris S2000’s would pay dividends.

Heinrich Lategan and navigator Johan van der Merwe immediately stepped up to the plate and set about achieving stage times that placed them consistently amongst the factory works teams. Hein quotes: “To beat the factory teams I need to increase my fear factor! I need to drive smarter and harder, I need to find those time saving lines. Forcing my brain to accept the fact that driving the S2000 on the edge permanently feels like it is hopping and skipping about and is going to roll at any moment; it does not, it just goes through the corner, the grip is amazing”

Hein continues: “In Natal we were about a second a kilometer off the pace, this rally has seen that deficit reduced to within a quarter of a second per kilometer, despite some technical and mechanical challenges on the rally, our testing and development program is definitely achieving the desired results and moving us in the right direction – it is mission continuous improvement”

PIRTEK teammates Visser du Plessis and his navigator Gerhard Snyman took a more cautious approach to the rally. Visser’s seat time is severely lacking in the S2000 Auris, and to further exacerbate the lack of seat time, no testing had been done either. The suspension setup was “cloned” from Hein’s car just before the shakedown stage – the learning curve was like that of a Cobra waiting to strike.

Visser quotes: “The Auris S2000 is amazing, aim it and it goes there, step on the loud pedal and it leaps forward, jump on the brakes and the negative g-forces attack with vengeance”

Visser quotes further: “I need to get to grips with the handling characteristics of the S2000, it is just so different to my previous N4 car. The N4’s turbo stopped pulling after 5200 rpm, the S2000 is only arousing from its sleep close to 7000 rpm and at the 8500 rpm rev limiter it is a live wire and something to be experienced. Braking mistakes and overshoots cost Gerhard and I at least two minutes, even with the marvels of the 6 speed sequential gearbox my gear selection is not yet up to standard and negatively impacting on my corner entry and exit speeds. I am committed to do focused goal orientated testing to address these challenges by the SASOL Rally”

Applause must go to the Zimbabwean team of Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh for narrowly winning the Toyota Dealer Rally. The arrival of the stunning M-Sport Ford Fiesta S2000 has elevated South African rallying and has benchmarked the S2000 class to the next level. The very real possibility of the arrival of a second Fiesta, should surely lay down the gauntlet for other manufactures to advance on the technology and development front. The second Ford will be dependent on the South African M-Sport Fiesta S2000 pioneer Charl Wilken successfully securing a new Fiesta after his first one was sadly destroyed on the Tour Natal Rally.

Team PIRTEK’ s objective of having both cars finish in the top ten was achieved. The point’s scoreboard has been opened and the virtual silverware saved in the “display cabinet”.

The next event is the mighty SASOL Rally, taking place in the Sabie, White River and Nelspruit area of the majestic Mpumalanga province on 23 and 24 April 2010.


Dramatic second rally for SAM’s Gavin Cronje & Van Aardt Schoeman

His second ever national championship rally could not have been more dramatic and incident-filled, but Gavin Cronje and co-driver Van Aardt Schoeman completed the Toyota Dealer Rally run over 11 stages and 180 km in the Western Cape at the weekend.

The result was a lot better than in the recent Total Tour Natal, where Cronje and Schoeman lasted just two stages before being forced out with mechanical problems. This time they challenged for the lead of class A7 in their Volkswagen Polo, winning two stages on Friday and one on Saturday and leading the event until four stages from the finish on Saturday.

They eventually finished second in class behind Etienne du Toit and Patrick Vermaak (Toyota RunX) after a series of problems on Saturday that included a broken throttle cable (and a broken spare), a broken shock absorber and a fire caused by power steering fluid catching alight on the exhaust. Just to keep Cronje even more on his toes, the driver’s door was damaged when it was caught by the wind as he opened it to attend to the throttle problem. As a result, he had to drive for a distance with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding the door closed, restricting him to one gear only.

“I didn’t think so many things could go wrong on one event,” said a rueful Cronje afterwards. “And as a result we picked up a lateness penalty of 1 min 30 sec. After all that we were relieved to finish. It was disappointing, but I have to thank Volkswagen, without whose help we would not have been able to repair our car.”

Cronje and Schoeman started well on Friday, winning the first two stages and leading from Gugu Zulu, the reigning class A5 champion and Shaun Visser in a VW Polo Vivo, and 2008 class A7 champions Chris de Wit and Dean Redelinghuys (Toyota RunX). Despite suffering a burst shock absorber on stage four, which slowed them over the last three of the day’s six stages, they reached the overnight stop in Caledon in first place in the class, 3, 8 seconds ahead of Du Toit and Vermaak and 21,4 seconds in front of Zulu and Visser.

A big win in the first stage on Saturday, where he increased his lead over Du Toit to 41,6 seconds, was the perfect start for Cronje, but things went downhill from there. With all their problems they eventually reached the finish in Caledon 17 min 47 sec behind Du Toit and Vermaak.

“We had a really good run at times and I thoroughly enjoyed our rally,” added Cronje, who is more used to driving an open prototype sports car or a Formula Volkswagen single seater (he is the reigning international Formula Le Mans and a former Formula Volkswagen champion). “The high-speed gravel stages suit my driving style and I can’t wait for the next round (the Sasol Rally in Mpumalanga on April 23 and 24).”


SAM’s Conradie and Rabe out of luck in Toyota Dealer Rally

The second round of the Sasol South African National Rally Championship was held in the Overberg this past weekend. The event attracted over 40 entries from all over the country and the crews were no doubt looking forward to a very fast and challenging rally! Tjaart Conradie and Tiaan Rabe headed into the event fresh from a maiden Class A6 victory on the Tour Natal Rally in their Silverton Engineering/Hencom Autobody/Sasol Toyota Auris.

There were five cars entered in Class A6 with ourselves, Craig Trott & Robbie Coetzee (Toyota RunX) and Leeroy Poulter & Henry Dearlove (Toyota RunX) being the main contenders for class honours. We were expecting another tough battle between the different teams and a calculated approach was going to be needed to secure victory. The farm roads in the Caledon area are fast and flowing with some tight sections thrown in to really test the teams’ driving skills.

We went into Friday’s first special stage and found a good rhythm from the start to set the fastest time in the class and we immediately went into a handy lead of 14 seconds. We also survived a rather scary moment near the end of Stage 1 when we approach a tight left hander after a blind crest with too much speed and we went off the road into an open field. Luckily no damage was done!

In the second stage, Leeroy Poulter hit back and beat us by 7 seconds. This brought our lead down to 7 seconds and it was clear that we had a fight on our hands. Over the next two stages we upped our pace and managed to win both Stages 3 & 4 and our lead grew to around 30 seconds. In Stage 3 we slid wide on one corner and clipped a fence which caused some minor cosmetic damage to the driver’s side of the car. Then towards the end of Stage 4, we broke the right front shock absorber and also damaged the side shaft in the process. Fortunately, there was a 35 minute service after Stage 4 and we managed to replace the shock and side shaft and clocked out of service only one minute late. For this, we incurred a 10 second penalty, but over the last two stages on the day, we consolidated our lead to just under 30 seconds again.

On Saturday, another 5 special stages awaited us and on the first stage Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove set a very good time and cut our lead over them to 15 seconds. On the next stage, we pushed hard and beat them by 7 seconds. Leeroy then hit back again and beat us by 6 seconds… We were fighting tooth and nail and trading stage wins on every stage!

Going into the last two stages (10 & 11), we had a 15 second lead and we knew we had to keep up the pace to secure the class win. Then at the start of Stage 10, disaster struck when the one side shaft on the Auris broke and we had no drive to the wheels… Our challenge came to a very premature and abrupt end and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.

Poulter and Dearlove kept everything together and walked away with their first win in Class A6. Craig Trott and Robbie Coetzee drove a consistent rally and even though they are not the quickest combination at the moment, they are leading the class championship with 12 points while ourselves and Poulter/Dearlove are joint second on 9 points each.

The next event on the calendar is the Sasol Rally in Mpumalanga on 23 & 24 April and this rally will present us with a different set of challenges on the forest roads in the Sabie, White River and Nelspruit areas.

We would like to thank our sponsors Silverton Engineering, Hencom Autobody, Sasol and NGK for their continued support.


Hutchison and Coetzee impress on Toyota Dealer Rally

Motorite Racing’s Evan Hutchison and Elvene Coetzee followed up their successful class S2000 debut in the national championship season-opening Total Tour Natal rally three weeks ago with an impressive performance in the Toyota Dealer rally in the Western Cape on Friday and Saturday.

In one of the fastest rallies on the calendar, Hutchison and Coetzee did very well to complete the 11-stage 180-km event in their Motorite Racing Volkswagen Polo in eighth place overall and ahead of seven other S2000 cars.

But for a 10-second penalty for unwittingly accepting an incorrect time from a marshal, they would have finished seventh ahead of the experienced Theuns Joubert and Carl Peskin (VW Polo), who they beat in seven of the 11 stages.

“We had a very good run,” said Hutchison. “The pace was much quicker than the previous rally in KwaZulu Natal, but it suited my driving style. I can really get used to driving the S2000 Polo – it’s a rocket ship! The car gave no problems at all and apart from a few overshoots, Elvene and I worked well together. The S2000 pace is so much faster than class A7 (which the Motorite pair won last year in a Toyota RunX) and the instructions come a lot faster from the co-driver. We’re getting the hang of it and improving with every outing (they were 11th overall on the Tour Natal rally). I’m very happy to have brought the car home in one piece in both rallies so far and to have scored some championship points.

“We’re pushing hard and trying our very best, but we’re still a second a kilometre off the pace of the top guys up front. We’re working on this and looking at where we can improve. As we gain in confidence, we’ll close the gap.”

Hutchison and Coetzee made a good start on Friday, recording the eighth fastest time on stage two, and finished the day’s six stages in ninth place, behind the five Volkswagen and Toyota S2000 factory cars and three of the top S2000 privateers. They pushed hard on Saturday and finished strongly with seventh, ninth and eighth fastest times in the closing stages.

Former World Rally Championship driver Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh of Zimbabwe scored a debut win together in a Ford Fiesta, finishing 4,6 seconds ahead of former champions Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson (VW Polo) and 20,8 seconds ahead of reigning champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries (VW Polo).

For Hutchison, as the only driver competing in both the national rally and off road championships, the pressure is still on as he prepares for the second round of the Absa Off Road Championship in three weeks time. He and co-driver Achim Bergmann, the defending Special Vehicle champions, will tackle the Toyota Dealer 400 in the Lydenburg area of Mpumalanga in their Motorite Racing BAT Spec 3.

Motorite Racing is the motor sport division of Motorite Insurance Administrators, the largest independent mechanical breakdown insurance and full maintenance plan service provider and administrator in South Africa.


Leeroy Poulter bags maiden win on Toyota Dealer Rally

Leeroy Poulter, the multi-talented motorsportsman, and co-driver Henry Dearlove powered their Randburg Raceway/Ferodo Toyota RunX to a solid class A6 win on the Toyota Dealer Rally, overcoming a host of mechanical issues on the super-fast stages that characterize the second round of the Sasol South African Rally Championship.



In just his second gravel outing, Poulter and Dearlove started Friday’s leg of six stages with a down on power engine which got progressively worse as the day wore on. The car started cutting out, leaving Poulter and Dearlove 29 seconds in arrears to the class leaders Tjaart Conradie/Tiaan Rabe’s Toyota Auris.

The Race Prep team sprung into action in Saturday’s first service, replacing the alternator and the left front shock absorber, as well as sorting out the electrical issues.
With the Randburg Raceway/Ferodo RunX restored to full power, Poulter set about making up lost time and slashed the time loss by 16 seconds in the day’s first stage. Conradie hit back in stage 8, beating Poulter by 7 seconds before the pendulum swung back to the RunX pair in stage 9 with another win by six seconds.

“I knew the fight was on and we could still win”, said Poulter. “Stage 7 was due to be re-run as stage 10 and I figured we could win that one again. It was shaping up nicely to be a fight to the finish”.
It was not to be for the Race Prep team’s rivals stopped 200 metres into the crucial penultimate stage, allowing Poulter and Dearlove to cruise to their maiden win, over three minutes ahead of former class champion Craig Trott/Robbie Coetzee’s similar RunX and the VW Polo of locals Charl Strydom/Sakkie Bosman.

“We were a bit despondent on Friday”, admitted Dearlove. “I didn’t think we’d lose so much time. Andrew and Donovan (Race Prep technicians) did a great job to get the car running properly again. We were taking time and it was shaping up nicely, but after we saw Tjaart we cruised to the finish”.

“I’m enjoying rallying”, said the circuit racer. “We overcame a lot of problems and came out strongly. I knew I could do a great time again in stage ten and was looking forward to a good scrap”.
The next outing for the Randburg Raceway Ferodo Toyota team is the Sasol Rally on 23 and 24 April.