Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee, have won the first round of the 2016 SA National Rally Championship, the Goldfields Rally, in Welkom today.Driving a Toyota Gazoo Racing Yaris the pair was never really challenged on their way to the win. It was a 1-2 win for Toyota as Giniel de Villiers and Carolyn Swan, in the other Toyota Gazoo car was second 18.2 seconds behind the lead.
Mark Cronje and Barry White, in a Volkswagen Polo, did not have a very happy event. Initially it looked as if Cronje, in his first outing in the Volkswagen Polo, would be a serious challenge for Poulter. But things fell apart for Cronje when he started to experience gearbox trouble in stage 5 and had to have a new gearbox fitted to the car..
After that he just could not match the pace of the Toyota’s and kept on losing time on Poulter to finish the rally in third 59.6 behind the leader.
Ernie van der Walt, only in his second season in S2000 and competing in a Toyota Yaris for the first time seemed to have a pretty uneventful rally and finished fourth 1:05.8 slower than the winning time. He scored his first national rally stage win on the last stage of the event at the Phakisa Freeway finish.
Fifth overall was Wilro Dippenaar from Namibia in a Ford, 1:27.4 behind the winning car.
Jose de Gouveia in a Toyota RunX was the only finisher in NRC4, and finished 6th overall.
In Class S1600 birthday boy, Guy Botterill, in a Toyota Etios R2, comfortably won the class from Richard Leeke in a Ford Fiesta R2. His winning margin was 36.0 seconds. Leeke initially put some pressure on Botterill, but he just could not catch him, while the two of them just drove away from the rest or the field.
Altogether nine of the seventeen starters yesterday finished the rally, the first of the seven round SA National Rally Championship presented by the new look National Rally Championship Steering Committtee.
The rally was organised by the SCC East Rand
Goldfields Rally: Provisional final results
| 1 | 23 | Toyota Gazoo Racing Leeroy Poulter Elvéne Coetzee |
S2X | 1 | Toyota Yaris |
1:35:03.5 | “”:”” | 1:35:03.5 | “”:””:”” | “”:””:”” |
| 2 | 3 | Toyota Gazoo Racing Giniel de Villiers Carolyn Swan |
S2X | 2 | Toyota Yaris |
1:35:21.7 | 0:00:10.0 | 1:35:31.7 | 0:00:28.2 | 0:00:28.2 |
| 3 | 24 | Barry White Mark Cronje Barry White |
S2X | 3 | Volkswagen Polo |
1:36:03.1 | “”:”” | 1:36:03.1 | 0:00:59.6 | 0:00:31.4 |
| 4 | 39 | Ernie van der Walt Ernie van der Walt Greg Godrich |
S2X | 4 | Toyota Yaris |
1:36:09.3 | “”:”” | 1:36:09.3 | 0:01:05.8 | 0:00:06.2 |
| 5 | 21 | Wilro Dippenaar Wilro Dippenaar Kes Naidoo |
S2X | 5 | Ford Fiesta |
1:36:30.9 | “”:”” | 1:36:30.9 | 0:01:27.4 | 0:00:21.6 |
| 6 | 10 | Jose de Gouveia Jose de Gouveia Armand du Toit |
NRC4 | 1 | Toyota Run X |
1:45:32.3 | 0:00:10.0 | 1:45:42.3 | 0:10:38.8 | 0:09:11.4 |
| 7 | 71 | Simon Vacy-Lyle Guy Botterill Simon Vacy-Lyle |
S16 | 1 | Toyota Etios R2 |
1:46:42.7 | “”:”” | 1:46:42.7 | 0:11:39.2 | 0:01:00.4 |
| 8 | 96 | Richard Leeke Richard Leeke Henry Kohne |
S16 | 2 | Ford Fiesta R2 |
1:47:18.7 | “”:”” | 1:47:18.7 | 0:12:15.2 | 0:00:36.0 |
| 9 | 62 | Paul-Hendrik Franken Paul-Hendrik Franken Pierre Arries |
S16 | 3 | Volkswagen Polo |
1:53:33.7 | “”:”” | 1:53:33.7 | 0:18:30.2 | 0:06:15.0 |
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