They – whoever “they” are say that “all is fair in love and war!”
That my dear friend do not apply to rallying and even more so to boxing. To participate in the latter you have to get up early every morning like Rocky, run up and down the steps of the Union building, turn around when you reach the top and then chase whomever grabbed you Ipod. This chase usually takes you over the mountain to Riviera, where you will give up turn around and run back again to Waterkloof. On your way you pop into a few butcheries make mincemeat a few of carcasses, talk funny with people and then get into the ring on fight-night.
There “they” play the national anthem, your eyes fill with tears and you are so emotional that you do not hear the part where the referee says, “and defend yourself at all time!”
The gong sounds and you wipe your eyes for a last time, move forward – still thinking about the fact that you will live or die for your country (before it was crocked up) and the opponent whose anthem was not all that emotional, aims and hits you hard enough to make your pants hangs around your ankles and your feet point inwards before you fall with such force that even the referee yells like an old lady!
You wake up on a stretcher between two guys running to an ambulance.
Rallying is not all that bad but there you sit inside a car with your navigator before an event, driving over the roads you will be doing on the rally. You use some notes of the previous year, some made by a machine this year while you and your navigator and driver squint your eyes, look at a jump and both smile simultaneously when you shout “flat sticks” and give each other the 53rd high five,while the car swerves a little bit over the narrow road.
On rally day the navigator decides that maybe some of the “flat sticks” calls should be down tuned to “not so flat sticks” but Billy Boy Andretti next to him believes that the shocks dad or old “so and so” who believes he runs the team, put in this time, can handle anything the human put on a road on earth, flat out.
The rev limiter kicks in while the car flies through the air. Tthere is a theory (and by the way it works if you half know that you are doing) that says if you rev the engine while in the air, the nose will lift a bit. This works if you also remember to tap the brakes just before you lift off to get the ass down a bit – but then in the current cases at the price the talent Uber-Alles pays for the cars these days, one would expect the stupid computer to do all this.
So after all the money, the trouble, the preparation and all that jazz that goes into the rally effort everyone wakes up screaming when someone tells them what it will cost to repair the car that was so good looking before the little rock that no one saw or big jump they high fived each other so enthusiastically for on the recce run!
I would love to know the total damage to cars on this and a few other events this year so far? All the pace-note masters digging deep into their pockets for more fun!
After a good night’s rest – the rally teams arrived at the Cullinan scene for day two, where there was a high activity of orange shirts running around looking like live pylons.
Cronje had a 10 second lead over Poulter and he knew that well managed that should take him to a win after what was expected to be a hell of a fight with Poulter.
I am sure that there has never in the past two years been a doubt in his mind that he was competing against one of the fastest drivers in the business.
That may still have been Ok, but to cap it all, the Toyotas got quicker and quicker and even worse than that – they now also proved extremely reliable.
So the fight would be on, no matter what the circumstances.
A worrying factor had to be the fact that a number of “regional” cars would also join the rally on Day Two and that would make any wear-and-tear on the sandy roads worse than it would have been if only the national cars went over the first time.
Poulter somehow must have felt a bit more confident than Cronje at the start of day two. He had the psychological advantage over the Ford driver after his double barrel wins in Bela-Bela and Port Elizabeth.
Then to place a worry-cherry on top of the cake – no matter if that had an effect on Cronje or not – Poulter was currently also winning in the Donaldson Off Road series – driving a completely different vehicle. In short Poulter was getting used to winning!
So to Stage 5 we go.
Cronje lost 9 seconds to Poulter before the sun even got its aim in for the day! The gap he worked on for the whole of Friday shrunk to 3 seconds!
Lategan – with no pressure on him, won the stage, showing again what I have always believed in – his overload of talent, that he can unfortunately not maintain when it really counts. To be honest I would not have been half surprised if he won every stage on the second day – but neither Cronje nor Poulter even looked at the times he posted as he was not a factor.
Poulter was 9 seconds slower over the stage than Lategan, but Cronje only managed 5th – 9 shy of Poulter.
Giniel de Villiers drove like a robot. On the pace he decided he would go, kilometre after kilometre, posting third fastest time like he did almost all day long the day before.
Himmel was 4th and Fekken 6th, with Japie van Niekerk making a bit of a comeback posting 7th quickest, Gugu 8th followed by van der Walt and then Dippenaar.
Paulus Franken won in the 1600 class, with van Beurden second quickest and Marko Himmel third quickest. Botterill did not have a good stage at all, but maintained his lead.
Overall Ford suddenly was under serious pressure from Toyota and behind them were three Volkswagens ready to pounce if anyone in the top three made a mistake.
STAGE 6
Cronje looked as if he stepped into a pot of wakeup sauce. He blasted through the stage and did what took him the whole day on Friday. He simply opened the gap to 12 seconds between him and Poulter again. This was more like the Cronje we all got used to?
It was however good or shall I rather say, interesting to see that Poulter was no fazed. He was satisfied finishing the stage third fastest while Lategan lacked 5,2s to equal Cronje’s sudden step up.
Not much happened in the top S2000 positions, but van Beurden lost 9 places in S1600. The gap between him and Botterill suddenly looked like the Great Canyon. The fight in this class was suddenly over – or was it?
Leeke moved up 3 places overall and needed only 10s to make Botterill watch his rear-view mirror.
Franken in turn was only 2 seconds behind him, which make my statement about the fight being over, absolute rubbish. The fight was on like never before!
Lategan was now 22nd overall.
STAGE 7
Lategan took the honours again with Gugu Zulu second quickest and de Villiers? Yes you guessed it – 3rd fastest – bloody uncanny if you ask me.
Poulter was 5th quickest and Cronje – all the way back in 8th fastest after problems with his Ford’s steering. He lost 10 seconds to Poulter and guess what – the gap was only 2 seconds again.
I sat staring at the SMS I received – which was my only means of communication with the rally that did not take place far from me – trying to make some sense from what was written.
Yesterday I said that the championship was going to go right down to the wire at the end of the year, now it looked even more like that was going to happen.
Overall Cronje now led by 2 seconds, while Poulter had a 31s lead over his team mate de Villiers. Fekken in fourth was not really getting any closer or much further from de Villiers and the gap was 18s
Botterill led Leeke by 18 in S1600, with Franken and then Potgieter chasing.
Lategan was now 16th and Matthew Vacy-Lyle and Schalk van Heerden had a massive roll. Both were shaken but OK.
STAGE 8
Lategan took his third stage win for the day. Zulu was again second quickest with Poulter beating Cronje by less than half a second.
Cronje still led by 1,9 seconds.
The Top 6 remained the same. Cronje, Poulter, de Villiers, Fekken, Zulu and Himmel. Dippenaar lost 7th to van der Walt, while Joubert was still steady in 9th and Botterill now moved into grown up country in a Noddy car to fill tenth overall.
If I am not mistaken this was the stage where Leeke and Fourie also rolled out of the event after a great drive.
Franken was now second S1600 and van Beurden third.
Lategan moved up into 11th
STAGE 9
Just to let everyone know that he could still win any stage he wished, Poulter claimed a win in the penultimate stage, while he had a rather safe cushion between him and team mate de Villiers.
Toyota was going to man the top two podium positions if nothing really funny happened.
Volkswagen represented by Hergen Fekken booked third place on the same podium but only when the fat lady came out to sing.
One stage to go and Lategan moved into 9th, while an unlucky Cronje dropped to 18th after a serious problem with the steering rack.
STAGE 10
After losing massive time repairing the steering mechanisms, Cronje closed his effort by winning the stage overall, but that did not really help his cause or his ego at all.
Lategan was 2nd quickest, with Zulu again third fastest and Giniel in fourth spot.
Poulter won the rally by 29s from team mate Giniel de Villiers, while Volkswagen took the next three positions with Fekken leading Zulu and Thilo Himmel home.
Not a bad result for the VW team, so let’s hope they have some direction again and that they can develop a bit more to get onto the pace they so badly need.
Theuns Joubert won the NRC4 class beating an embattled Dippenaar by almost 5 minutes while Piet Bakkes finished third.
Botterill drove another exceptional rally finishing in the top10 overall and winning S1600 from Paulus Franken, while Chad van Beurden finished third.
Lategan came out from the cold and finished 8th overall after driving brilliantly the whole day long! I so wish all the clever cookies would get out of his corner!
All and all a good event for those who saw their way clear to go and spectate – while if my calculations are correct both Cronje and Poulter will now be on 72 points if they each dropped an event.
This is going to be an interesting finish and both drivers will have to dig deep – very deep to walk away with the 2015 crown.
The next event – my favourite where I always (for ten years) enjoyed making the Pace notes for the championship will be the seventh and penultimate round of the 2015 South African Rally championship, the Toyota Cape Rally, is scheduled for 18 and 19 September in the Western Cape Province.
All pictures courtesy Andre Laubscher – Thank you very much for some great shots!