Home ground race a spur for Ford Performance team
The Ford Performance team will be hoping to see a fairytale scenario unfold in the Production vehicle category at the Sugarbelt 450, round two of the Donaldson Cross Country Championship, in KwaZulu-Natal on May 8 and 9.
The race is based at the Beaumont Eston Farmers Club a driver, seven iron and pitching wedge from the Ford Performance headquarters in Pietermaritzburg, and offers the squad an important home ground advantage in an on-going factory rivalry with the Castrol Team Toyota outfit. All the top contenders in the Production Vehicle category have a number of Sugarbelt appearances behind them and, in terms of what to expect from the route and conditions, the playing field is level.
What Ford Performance will be hoping to exploit, however, is the added incentive and passion that lifts an entire team performing on home ground. And in former South African champions Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst and Pietermaritzburg-based Lance Woolridge/Ward Huxtable, in a pair of Ford Rangers they have the weapons to spike the Castrol Team Toyota guns.
Castrol Team Toyota Hilux, via a win for Leeroy Poulter and Rob Howie and a third for reigning champions Anthony Taylor/Dennis Murphy, scored a points victory in the works team battle on the RFS Endurance in the Free State. After missing last season while Woolridge recovered from back surgery, the Woolridge/Huxtable combination took a workmanlike second place with Visser/Badenhorst fifth after a troubled start to the season.
Two highly professional works teams going head to head over a course that will be tight and tricky is an enticing prospect. There is little to choose between the two squads, and it is in such circumstances that a little added incentive can tip the scales.
There are, however, some talented and determined privateers who could throw a spanner in the works. Gary Bertholdt and Siegfried Rousseau, in the Atlas Copco Ford Ranger, were part of the Ford factory environment last season and, on their day, are capable of outrunning anyone.
Johan and Werner Horn (Malalane Toyota Hilux) will be looking to recapture the form that made them a standout combination last season, and Jason Venter/Vince van Allemann (4×4 Mega World Toyota Hilux) will go into the Sugarbelt on a high. The young North West pair won the Dakar Challenge on the RFS Endurance to win a free entry into next year’s Dakar Rally in South America, and are starting to show the maturity that comes with growing experience.
Johan van Staden and Mike Lawrenson have already had a bite of the Dakar cherry, and lead the Regent Racing Nissan Navara challenge in the premier Class T for cars over four litres with independent rear suspension. Back-up comes via Regent Racing team leader Terence Marsh and former Springbok rugby captain John Smit, who makes another appearance in the Imperial Auto Celebrity Challenge.
The brother/sister combination of Jacques and Lizelle van Tonder (Uni Freight Ford Ranger) made a steady start to the season on the RFS Endurance, but for Hennie de Klerk/Johann Smalberger (Treasury One/RFS BMWX3) it is back to the drawing board. De Klerk/Smalberger are potential top five runners but failed to finish the opening race of the season, and need to immediately bounce back.
A whole slew of teams need to bounce back in Class S for cars up to four litres with solid axle rear suspension. Tough conditions on the RFS Endurance saw only two Class S finishers with Portuguese pair Rómulo Branco and João Serôdio taking a debut win in the Regent Racing Nissan Navara.
With a high rate of attrition on the Free State race it was a somewhat fortuitous win for the Portuguese pair who, after starting in the pack at the back of the field, came home ahead of Regent Racing team-mates Sean Reitz and Gerhard Schutte. The likes of Deon Venter/Jaco van Aardt (4×4 Mega World Toyota Hilux), and the husband/wife combinations of Marius/Jolinda Fourie (PHB Toyota Hilux) and Freddie/Sune Kriel (Uni Freight Ford Ranger) all need to quickly recover and put some meaningful points on the board.
Race headquarters, the start/finish and the designated service park will all be located at the Beaumont Eston Farmers Club with public entry to these areas and spectator points along the route free of charge. The 100 kilometre qualifying race to determine grid positions will start at 11:30 on May 8 and the race, to be run over two 160 kilometre loops with a 20 minute service halt after the first lap, will start at 08:30 on Saturday, May 9.