The heading belonged to the original article I wrote as a review of the Sasol Rally.
As many of you know I placed a video clip sent to me of the van Niekerk/Lategan incident during the Sasol Rally the week after the event and it was amazing how many reactions we received on this incident.
What we saw was a clear case of adrenaline driven brain-fade. Something that can happen to any rally or racing driver or anyone anywhere for that matter. You know the well known question “what was he thinking?”
The above is a shortened version of the introduction of the mentioned article I considered to publish just after the Sasol Rally, but for a few reasons I decided not to do that and a select few were allowed to read it.
In it I told the whole story of especially Volkswagen’s nightmare at the hands of Hans Weijs and to a certain extend also Henk Lategan.
The article mentioned that I would not be surprised if the arrogant Weijs reached the end of his path with Volkswagen after his illegal antics during the recce runs and that we may see Hergen Fekken or Enzo Kuun back behind the steering wheel of the left-hand-drive Polo previously occupied by Mr Weijs.
If I may guess I have a feeling that if this should happen, the choice would fall on Fekken.
We can only hope as such a move will bring a bit of sanity back to the camp and make Volkswagen a factor to be reckoned with again.
In honesty I have not heard anything about any inquiry going on at MSA regarding the Sasol incidents – but then again being a persona non grata and happily so on the rally scene – I am not surprised that I do not know.
The next rally being the Papawer-special or something to that effect in the Secunda area – where there are hardly any Cosmos around this year.
The event will be held in flat country and I have no idea what the roads are like as I have been kept away even last year when it came to doing Route Notes.
I noted that they will be selling tickets for the one special stage – using the Rallystar initiative after sadly excluding the Rallystar rally that built up the best audience of all rallies in South Africa outside any town area. Typical Leeke logic.
Forgive me for not getting too excited about the event, except to say that it may be well attended and a better rally that Bela- Bela and Polokwane put together.
Volkwagen will come to their right on this event and the Skoda powered (if my info is correct) machines may just give Ford the surprise it has been waiting for.
Toyota – well their performance will depend on a number of things. If they dug too deep for more power to catch the Ford, they may again suffer reliability problems and fail to keep up the pace to the end.
Japie van Niekerk will not be rallying as far as I know and some add-on’s from the regional rally scene may again have to come to the rescue to keep the expected crowd entertained – and they can be entertaining if they make it through a few stages.
So, we will have to wait and see what happens in the Volkswagen camp and who will win the event, but for the same reasons I mentioned before the Sasol – all signs point to one team and that is the Cronje/Houghton Ford, but lets wait and see who participates before making a prediction.
Photo: Ledbitter