| Enthusiastic S2000 rally privateers Japie van Niekerk and Gerhard Snyman (NAD Ford Fiesta) will be going all-out this weekend to better their result from the 2013 Cullinan Rally, an event on which they finished fifth. It was their outstanding performance of the season, and achieved in only their third outing in a Fiesta.
The New Africa Developments duo plans on getting onto the podium on this year’s event – the Imperial Toyota Cullinan Rally – which gets underway in the famous diamond-rich town on Friday August 15. Making the 2013 result even sweeter was the fact that it was achieved in an S2000 Challenge car, which they’ve since upgraded to full S2000 specification. The 2014 season so far has shown that while the outright speed has been there, consistency has eluded them. Their best result has been a fifth place on the PMC Rally in May – and it could’ve been better if it wasn’t for a couple of niggles. “Everything is in place for us to get a good result this weekend – we just need to pace ourselves and focus right to the end,” says Van Niekerk, who is getting more and more comfortable with the car with each passing event. “This is the shortest rally of the year in terms of stage distance, so the challenge is to gauge the pace correctly right from the start: drive too conservatively early on and you won’t have an opportunity to chase the opposition down, and charge too hard and a mistake becomes more likely!” Fortunately, the pair had a good pre-event test last week, and the fact that the fifth round of the National Rally Championship has a number of new stages (effectively six of the 12 which comprise the event, with each of the three news stages tackled twice) levels the playing field too. A total of 155.5 km of special stage distance make up this especially compact event, which is based at Zonderwater Correctional Services on the R515, just outside Cullinan. The distinctive, dark-blue Ford will run second on the road on the opening day, and is scheduled to start the first stage – Park Town 1 – at 11h12. ENDS |
