Day two of the Imperial Toyota Rally at Cullinan started well for Mark Cronje, but it was not a good start for Guy Botterill in the Toyota Etios R2 in Class S1600 and Giniel de Villiers in the Imperial Toyota Yaris. And Japie van Niekerk scored his first stage win in the NAD Ford Fiesta.
Mark Cronje, who started the day in 6th position and has his sights set on a podium position kicked the day off in the same way as he started yesterday, with a stage win. This time round however, there was no rock in the way of the Ford Dealer Team Ford Fiesta. He had Japie van NNiekerk in the in the other Ford Fiesta on his tail and finished the stage 1.2 seconds quicker than Van Niekerk.
Hans Weijs in the Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo was 0.2 slower in third and Poulterer0.3 seconds slower. Closer than that you don’t get easily on any rally.
On the next stage, stage 8, Japie van Niekerk put his foot through the floor and won the stage in die NAD Ford Fiesta, with Poulter second on the stage and Cronje third.
Overall after stage 8 Poulter in the Team Castrol Toyota Yaris, was still in the lead. Fekken who second all day yesterday, dropped down to 4th overall after he did not have such a good stage. It is not known at this stage what his problem was. After his heroics on the first two stages, Japie van Niekerk in the Ford Fiesta has taken over second place, 23.2 behind Poulter.
Third was Weijs on 24.4 seconds behind the leader and Fekken slotted in in 4th overall 26.5 behind his teammate. Again the times are close and the battle for second or third on the podium is going to turn out to be an interesting one.
In 5th overall, where he spent most of yesterday, was the young Henk Lategan in a Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo a bit further back on 59.6. He has been relieved of having to run first on the road and this job has now landed in the lap of the leader of the rally, Poulter. One will have to wait and see if sweeping the stages will have an effect on Poulter, although he won’t have a dust problem.
Weather news from the rally is that it is overcast in Cullinan and that in the Bronkhorstspruit area a soft drizzle has started to fall but just enough to wet the top layer of dust.If it starts raining hard, the competitors may be in for a few wet stages problems.
In spite of winning the first stage and being third on the next stage, Mark Cronje in the Ford Fiesta Ford Fiesta was still battling in 6th place to make a major dent in his time behind Poulter. He is 1:24.5 behind the leading Toyota.
In 7th overall is Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo’s Gugu Zulu 2:58.2 off the pace, followed by Wilro Dippenaar.from Namibia, in the S2000 Challenge Cup Toyota Auris on +3:12.0. Thilo Himmel, also from Namibia, was 9th overall +4:34.4. Rounding off the top ten was the only other S2000 Challenge Cup entrant, Piet Bakkes in a Toyota RunX quite far behind on 7:16.3.
The big fight in Class S1600 between Chad van Beurden in the Volkswagen Polo and Guy Botterrill for the lead, came to an end this morning when Botterill withdrew from the event with a broken driveshaft. Second in S1600 as a result of Botterill’s demise is Ernie van der Walt in a Ford Fiesta R2. He is trailing Van Beurden by 51.8 seconds.
Botterill and Vace-Lyle was hoping to get a fifth win in a row on this event. But that was not to be.