The second day of the Sasol Rally started disastrously for Henk Lategan and Barry White in the Sasol Volkswagenracing Polo, and Japie van Niekerk and Gordon Noble in the NAD Ford Fiesta S2000 when they took each other out on the first stage of the second day. Stage 8 was a town stage. Lategan spun in the stage and as he tried to get going again he landed in front of Van Niekerk who was also on the stage.
Both cars were damaged to such an extemnt that they had to withdraw and the stage had also been cancelled because of oil that was on the road. Lategan said afterwards that he did not realise that Van Niekerk was so close when he tried to getb going again. “I suppose it is my fault. Things like this should happen on the track and not on a rally”, he said.
He added that Van Niekerk was fuming after the incident.
Lategan said that he also had a difficult day on the first day having to sweep the road. “I made qyuite a few mistakes, like everybody else under the circumstances. But I was looking forward to today. The roads looked good and we would not have been first on the road so we would have been able to see the lines of the other cars”.
As a result of the incident Giniel de Villiers in the other Castrol Toyota Yaris has moved into third overall followed by Gugu Zulu in a Sasol VolkswagenRacing Polo.
The event has now turned into a two horse race. Cronje, in the Ford Performance Ford Fiesta S2000, was leading with an overall time of 1:32:27.5 after stage 10. Second was Poulter in the Team Castrol Toyota Yaris 32.5 seconds behind.
De Villiers was third, as distant 4:07.4 off the pace of the leader, with Gugu Zulu 4th 5:01.3 behind.
Wilro Dippenaar, in the NR4 Toyota Auris, was next up +8:20.3 while the Ernie van der Walt making his debut in Class S2000 in a Vecto Fuel Toyota Yaris was 6th 8:42.2 behind the leader.
Chad van Beurden in a S1600 Volkswagen Polo was leading the 2WD class.
The event is the second round of the SA National Rally Championship and also the second round of the Africa Rally Championship. It ends in Nelspruit this afternoon.