The Toyota Cape Dealer Rally will not see a Toyota on the podium after both the Team Castrol Toyota Yaris entries exited the rally on stages nine and ten. The first to go was championship contenter, Leeroy Poulter, who rolled the Team Castrol Toyota Yaris on stage nine. On stage ten Giniel de Villiers rolled out of the event in the second Toyota Yaris.
Poulter who started the rally as championship leader with Mark Cronje in the Ford Performance Ford Fiesta fought back magnificently this morning after causing sever damage to the Toyota Yaris yesterday afternoon that put him more that two minutes behind Cronje who was leading the event. After a super human effort last night the Toyota was fixed and Poulter started day two of the rally with a win on the first stage.
He reeled in the one competitor after the other and was 5th overall when it all ended and withg it probably his chances of defending his SA Championship title.
Cronje was still leading the rally on stage 10, but had increased his lead to 49 seconds over Giniel de Villiers, when de Villiers lostr control of his Toyota and greeted the rally.
He had inherited second position overall this morning after Henk Lategan received one minute penalty that dropped hom down to 4th overall in the Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo behind his team mate Hergen Fekken.
He has been fighting back and has won two stages to take back second position from Hergen Fekken at the end of stage ten. Fekken was third followed by Zulu also in a Volkswagen Polo in 4th after stage ten.
The Toyota Cape Dealer is the seventh round of the SA National Rally Championship and with two stages to go will end in Malmesbury this afternoon.
A full report on today’s rallying will be published here later.
Top six times overall provisionally after stage ten:
Cronje 1:24:00.7
Lategan +51.7
Fekken +1:08.2
Zulu +2:53.1
Van der Walt +5:08.9
Kuun +7:27.06