Castrol Toyota Hilux crews continued with their winning ways on the recent Toyota Kalahari Botswana 1000 Desert Race, round three of the Donaldson Cross Country Championship, and at the halfway mark in the season have all but turned the Production Vehicle championship into a two horse race.
Leeroy Poulter/Rob Howie and reigning champions Anthony Taylor and Dennis Murphy shared victories in the two races that made up the only marathon event on the Donaldson calendar. More to the point, however, is that between them the two works Castrol Toyota crews have done all the winning so far this season.
Poulter/Howie won the first two events of the season and with a win apiece for the two crews in Botswana, the opposition have not been allowed a look in. Taylor/Murphy scored a second in race one on the Desert Race with Poulter/Howie third in race two, and the Castrol Toyota dominance is carried over into the championship standings.
Poulter/Howie enjoy a 14 point lead over Taylor/Murphy in both the overall championship and in the premier Class T category which caters for cars above four litres with independent rear suspension. There is a 53 point gap between Taylor/Murphy and third placed Gary Bertholdt and Siegfried Rousseau (Atlas Copco Ford Ranger) and Lance Woolridge/Ward Huxtable (Ford Performance Ranger) and the championship situation is looking a little bleak for the teams chasing the Toyota crews.
With 60 points up for grabs over the weekend the Desert Race again demonstrated its ability to revive flagging championship fortunes. Without a point going into the race weekend Berthold/Rousseau snared 41 points via a third in race one and a second in heat two, to join Lance Woolridge and Ward Huxtable in joint third place overall and in fourth place in the Class T standings.
By contrast it was a miserable weekend for Woolridge and Huxtable, and an opportunity to maintain a strong title challenge was lost. The Ford Performance pair did not score a single point towards the overall championship, but a four point return in Class T was enough to keep them ahead of Bertholdt/Rousseau.
There were also slim pickings for former champions Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst in the second Ford Performance Ranger. But while they slipped down the pecking order in both the overall and Class T standings rookies Gareth Woolridge and Boyd Dreyer, in the Neil Woolridge Motorsport Ford Ranger, prospered on their Botswana debut and grabbed the opportunity to climb up both championship ladders.
Woolridge’s father Neil is a three-time winners of the Desert Race, and the Pietermaritzburg youngsters showed a great deal of maturity on the way to a fifth overall in race one and fourth overall in race two. It was an impressive weekend from the pair and vaulted them into fourth place in the overall championship, and fifth in the Class T stakes.
A non-finish in heat two was a missed opportunity for Jason Venter and Vince van Allemann in the 4×4 Mega World Toyota Hilux. In the overall standings only two points now separate Venter/van Allemann from the ever steady Jacques and Lizelle van Tonder (Uni Freight Ford Ranger) and Johan van Staden and Mike Lawrenson in a second Regent Racing Nissan Navara.
Jurgen and Max Schroder were another crew to score their first points of the season, and there was more evidence of the Desert Race kick starting a championship challenge when Heine Strumpher and Henri Hugo, in the 4×4 Mega World Toyota Hilux, produced what many might think of as the outstanding performance of the
race. The North West crew revelled in the conditions and in scoring a fourth and a fifth overall totally dominated Class S for cars up to four litres with solid axle rear suspension.
It was a display that saw Strumpher and Hugo leapfrog into the Class S championship lead with a 12 point advantage over Portuguese crew Rómulo Branco and João Serôdio in the Regent Racing Nissan Navara. The Portuguese pair found the going tough in the conditions, and in both races finished behind the 4×4 Mega World Toyota Hilux of Deon Venter/Jaco van Aardt, who also used the race to breathe life into their championship campaign.
Without a point before the race two second places saw Venter and van Aardt jump into fourth place in the Class S standings. They trail the husband/wife pairing of Freddie and Sune Kriel, in the Uni Freight Ford Ranger, who again put together two workmanlike races.
Toyota’s strong hand in the championship stakes is just as evident where the South African Manufacturer’s Championship is concerned. With 318 points Toyota have a more than commanding lead over Ford, who have 192 points, and Nissan with 71 points.
The next event on the Donaldson Cross Country Championship calendar is the Nkomazi 450, in Malalane in Mpumalanga, on August 7 and 8.