I suppose there are certain things that one become used to and accept as being inevitable, and that is the fact that you can safely put your money on the fact that any round of the SA National Rally Championship can and will be won by the Ford Performance Ford Fiesta driver, Mark Cronje. And that is what he did on the Natal Rally that ended in Scottburgh today.
The other thing that can also start getting used to is the fact that it is equally possible that second overall will be the Team Castrol competitor, Leeroy Poulter. Poulter started the day some 23 seconds behind Cronje, and at the finish of the final stage, stage 11, the winning margin after five stages today, was 44.6.
The young Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo driver, Henk Lategan, put up a good fight and scored some good times, but the leading cars were just that much better and he finished third 1:12.8 behind Cronje. What was important that this time around he kept the car on the road and got it to the finish.
With the demise of Hergen Fekken from the Toyota team, Giniel de Villiers took over the role of driving the second Team Castrol Toyota Yaris.He finished fourth overall 2:31.6 behind the leader. One cannot but wonder when South Africa’s Dakar hero will start putting his stamp on local rallying.
Japie van Niekerk in the NAD Ford Fiesta who entered the event with a new navigator, Gordon Noble, from the United Kingdom, but somehow he did not come up to expectations in the Ford finishing fifth overall 4:20.1 off the pace.
Sixth place went to the last S2000 car to finish the rally. Gugu Zulu in a Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo finished 4:21.0 behind the winning car.
Class S1600 was won by Paulus Franken in a Volkswagen Polo when the leader in the class, Ashley Haigh-Smith’s Ford Fiesta R2 cried enough two kilometres from the end. Second in the class was Matthew Vace Lyle in a Toyota Etios R2 followed by the current S1600 champion and overnight leader, Guy Botterill, also in a Toyota Etios R2.
The Natal Rally was the first round ofthe SA National Rally Championship. It was contested over 11 special stages with a total distance of 178km.
A full wrap of the event will be published later as soon as it comes to hand.