The 2015 season of the SA National Rally Championship, first held in 1960, started in Scottburgh a short while ago. Die rally has attracted 25 entries of which seven are S2000 entries, ten S1600 cars, two NRC4 entries and the rest competing in the classic NRC2 class.
The event, the first of the eight round SA Rally Championship will be contested over 178 special stage kilometres on the KZN South Coast. Five stages will be held today and six tomorrow..
The entries in the S2000 class is the lowest ever and very far from the hey-day of the class when it attracted up to 20 entries.
News just in is that the first stage has been won by Mark Cronje in his Ford Performance Ford Fiesta S2000 with a time of 08:02. Second was the current SA Champion, Leeroy Poulter in a Team Castrol Toyota Yaris +8.1.
In third position on the stage was Henk Lategan in a Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo +8.6. He l, in a Toyota Etios R2 was followed by team mate, Hans Weisj in a similar car +12.8 and next up, fifth on the stage was Dakar hero, Giniel de Villiers in the second Team Castrol Toyota Yaris +13.1
In sixth position was the privately entered NAD Ford Fiesta of Japie van Niekerk + 15.5. He was followed by Gugu Zulu in another Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo +20.3.
Wilro Dippenaar from Namibia, competing the S2000 Challenge competition was next in his Toyota Auris+31.3.
The S1600 2014 champion, Guy Botteril finished the stage +31.3 and is leading class S1600.