Current S2000 championship leaders Leeroy Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee (Castrol Team Toyota Yaris) got their second half of the SA National Rally Championship off to the best possible start by leading at the end of day one of the Imperial Toyota Cullinan Rally today. They won three of the day’s six gravel stages (stages two, four and five) in the Cullinan and Bronkhorstspruit areas and completed the first 77 kilometres of the rally 15 seconds ahead of team-mates Hergen Fekken and Carolyn Swan.
Team Castrol Toyota Yaris
Fekken and Swan won stage three on their way to edging Hollander Hans Weijs Jnr and Belgian co-driver Bjorn Degandt (Volkswagen Sasolracing Polo) by 5,4 seconds. Fekken, currently third in the championship in his first season with Toyota after winning two championships with VW in 2008 and 2009, reported a clean run. Weijs lost time with a slow puncture on stage two.
Privateers Japie van Niekerk and Gerhard Snyman (New Africa Developments Ford Fiesta) were fifth, 25 seconds behind the leaders and 26 seconds ahead of Henk Lategan and Barry White in the second of the three factory VW Sasolracing Polos. Lategan lost time when he hit a bump on stage two and slid off the road into a closed gate. Later, on stage four, he went off the road and through a fence in his own dust in a tight hairpin. The fence destroyed the roof air vent and the crew battled with a car filled with dust.
Defending champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (Ford Dealer Team Fiesta) had an eventful and frustrating day to finish sixth, 1 min 23,9 sec behind the leaders. They hit a rock and broke their gearbox on stage one despite winning the opening stage and dropped to ninth place. Then they hit a tree stump on stage three and the engine stalled, losing them more time. They fought back in thick sandy conditions on stages four and five before ending the day with another stage win in the final stage of the day.
Wilro Dippenaar from Namibia and Kes Naidoo (PZN Panelbeaters Toyota Auris) find themselves in seventh place and leaders in the S2000 Challenge for older specification four-wheel drive cars at the overnight stop at rally headquarters at the Zonderwater Correctional Services facility outside Cullinan. They struggled with braking problems, but were able to better their closest S2000 Challenge rivals, Piet Bakkes and Shaun Visser (Toyota RunX), who finished 11th overall.
Former S2000 Challenge winners Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin, competing in the top S2000 class for the first time in a third Sasolracing VW Polo, broke a propshaft on stage two on their way to finishing eighth, 2 min 31 sec behind the leaders. Namibia’s Theo Himmel and South African co-driver Armand du Toit struggled with gearbox problems on their Investec VW Polo to complete the day in ninth place, 3 min 36 sec off the pace and 24 seconds ahead of 10th-placed Giniel de Villiers and Greg Godrich (Imperial Toyota Yaris). De Villiers reported a broken drive shaft on stage four within one kilometre of the stage and was forced to complete the remaining stages in rear-wheel drive.
Tomorrow’s action starts from Zonderwater at 08h30 and features the same six special stages raced today. The first car is expected at the finish back at Zonderwater at around 13h00.