The Ford Fight Back
BACK-BACK wins by Leeroy Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee (Castrol Team Toyota Yaris) see the factory pairing leading the championship with 50 points from team-mates Hergen Fekken and Carolyn Swan, whose 40 points come from second in the Tour Natal Rally in March and third in the Sasol Rally in April.
Third overall are Giniel de Villiers and Greg Godrich in the Toyota Motorsport-prepared Imperial Toyota Yaris with 31 points.
Hans Weijs Jnr and Björn Degandt head the three-car Volkswagen Sasolracing Polo entry in the S2000 class and are currently fourth in the point standings with 24,5. The Dutch/Belgian combination, who travel from their homes in Europe for each round, showed their potential in the opening round with a fine third place and will be among the contenders for top honours in Gauteng.
Henk Lategan and Barry White (VW Sasolracing Polo) are fifth in the standings, 1,5 behind their team-mates, and will be looking to improve on their best result to date of sixth on the Sasol Rally.
The third official VW factory crew of Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin will be celebrating their 50th rally and their third in the top S2000 class together. After failing to bring their Polo home in the opening round they bounced back with a creditable fourth place in the Sasol Rally and will be looking to score their first podium finish of the year this weekend. They are ninth in the championship with 17 points.
The Ford challenge is spearheaded by defending champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton in a Ford Dealer Team Fiesta, who are backed up by fellow privateers Japie van Niekerk and Gerhard Snyman (New Africa Developments Fiesta).
The champions, who are looking for a third successive title after dominating the past two seasons, have their backs to the wall after a disastrous start to the season sees them way back in 14th and 15th places in their respective championships with just 6,5 points.
A no-score in round one after they crashed into a tree and an eighth place under Super Rally rules in round two, after retiring with suspension problems on day two, have seriously dented their title aspirations. However, their rivals will not be discounting them after the manner in which they took charge last season (seven out of eight wins and the lions’ share of special stage victories), and the six stages they won on day one of round two. Expect a major offensive from them this weekend
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Van Niekerk and Snyman
Van Niekerk and Snyman have also had their problems so far while showing good pace in those stages they have completed both rounds so far under half-point Super Rally rules. They are 12th in the standings with 11 points.
Three crews will contest the S2000 Challenge for older specification four-wheel drive cars as well as also qualifying for the overall S2000 championship.
Current challenge leaders are Namibia’s Thilo Himmel and Armand du Toit (Investec VW Polo), who are sixth in the overall championship on 22 points with a best result to date of fifth overall in the Sasol Rally.
Second in the challenge are Piet Bakkes and Shaun Visser (Toyota RunX), who are eighth in the championship. Fourth in the challenge behind Joos Stassen and Gert Nienaber (Subaru Impreza), who have not entered the PMC Gauteng Rally, are Namibian Wilro Dippenaar and Kes Naidoo (PZN Panelbeaters Toyota Auris). They are 13th in the championship. Any one of the three competing this weekend is capable of taking the challenge honours and mixing it with the S2000 cars.
Friday’s action starts at the RallyStar Motorsport Academy at 10:00 and the day’s fourth and last special stage will be a Super Special at RallyStar. The first of Saturday’s five stages will start from RallyStar at 09:18 and the finale will be a repeat of the Super Special.
author: Charmaine Fortune