Rally returnee Enzo Kuun will lead the field off the ramp at McCarthy Toyota Table View this afternoon for the start of the Toyota Cape Dealer Rally, penultimate round in the 2015 National Rally Championship.
The former national rally champion, with Kes Naidoo alongside him, will be the first to tackle the four tar stages scheduled for today in the NAD Ford Fiesta S2000 normally campaigned by Japie van Niekerk.
However, with Van Nierkerk’s regular navigator, Gerhard Snyman, called up for duty next to leading championship contender Mark Cronje in the Ford Performance Fiesta, the Mpumalanga based businessman decided to sit this one out and let Kuun drive.
Kuun, opening the road today and sweeping it tomorrow as there is no Parc Fermé overnight, will have to rely on his extensive experience, local knowledge and Naidoo’s calls to keep the rest of the field at bay.
He will be followed by the ever consistent Gugu Zulu and Hilton Auffray (Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo), currently in fourth position on the championship log, and team mates Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries.
Fourth on the road will be local favourites and last year’s winners Giniel de Villiers and Carolyn Swan (Castrol Toyota Yaris); currently lying third in the championship.
They will be the filling in a Volkswagen sandwich with Thilo Himmel/Armand du Toit up next in their Polo S2000 and Henk Lategan and Barry White following in the final Sasolracing VW Polo.
Behind them the two championship leading teams will watch each other’s times like hawks, with Leeroy Poulter/Elvéne Coetzee at a slight disadvantage starting just ahead of Cronje and Snyman, with Ernie van der Walt/Greg Godrich (Vecto Fuel Yaris) bringing up the rear in the S2000 class.
Theuns Joubert and young Mari van der Walt (Salom Agri Toyota Auris) will be the first team under starter orders in the NRC4 class, followed by three other teams, while in the S1600 class AC Potgieter and Tommy du Toit (VW Polo R2) will be first on the road from the McCarthy Toyota dealership.
They will be followed by local racer Ashley Haigh-Smith, now partnered by Nial Burns, making a welcome return in the Castrol Ford Fiesta R2, and championship hopefuls Matthew Vacy-Lyle/Schalk van Heerden in a borrowed Fragram Tools Toyota Etios R2, with team mates Guy Botterill/Simon Vacy-Lyle (Yato Tools Toyota Etios R2) in their tyre tracks.
An encouraging sign is the growing list of entrants in the NRC2 class (with no less than fourteen entries received) led by rally stalwarts such as Andy Haigh-Smith and Craig Grey in a Mitsubishi Lancer, Anwar Levy in Volkswagen Polo and Ebrahim Levy in a Toyota Corolla.
For the competitors four tar stages lies ahead today. The first two is at Killarney, with good spectator facilities, and from there the teams will travel to the Imperial Toyota Cape Gate dealership in Brackenfell for the two extremely popular night tar stages in and around the Cape Gate shopping centre.
These stages, starting at 18:40, have become a social event of note for spectators, so be there early to not miss out on a spectacular show. Afterwards the rally will move to the Malmesbury Show Grounds from where the event will restart on Saturday morning.