We did not know it then, but Saturday morning when the new day kicked in it would become the day South Africa as a rugby nation, was going to make rugby history by losing its opening game in the World rugby cup to the men from the land of the rising sun and a few other countries who helped them along. If the Japanese were so worked up against us – the Yankees better watch out – they are simply going to kill them!
But let’s first concentrate on the game at hand – the game or motor rallying that became almost exclusive property of the rich and richer.
Maybe the fact that the Rand is going to trade at around R18 to the dollar one of these days will make it possible for a few talented drivers to make a bit of a comeback into the sport when the rules will have to be changed to suit the enthusiast and not only the “rule makers”.
We also hope that the new website that should start up soon – SponsorshipSeekers will bring some welcome relief to those who want to compete in this now bordering on the ridiculous sport.
When we left the Brave Hearts on Friday evening after Day One Mark Cronje in the Ford Fiesta was leading the pack, with young Henk Lategan in a VW Polo lying in second spot hardly a hair width ahead of Giniel de Villiers driving a Toyota Yaris.
Nice product mix – good for all.
As we know Leeroy Poulter was in a spot of bother on Day One after hitting a wall in the pit area and his car needed some serious repairs to the left rear side of it.
There was no service on Friday so in my optimistic stupidity I thought, “hell Toyota was going to have a tough time getting that car back into winning form in let’s say at most 45 minutes service time?”
Then I saw the word “decontrol” written on the Time and Distance schedule.
I thought (again not really thinking) – that maybe the cars would only be moved into a holding area – instead of a “parc ferme” as has been the case I believe all year long? The organisers would surely not change the situation at this late stage of a championship and allow cars to be rebuild completely over-night?
If so – this wold mean that teams could throw almost all caution to the wind – go like absolute hell on day one, knowing that whatever – except the engine that broke – could be replaced.
It was almost like the rugby Springboks would hold trails after the first rugby game and send the new young team who can actually play rugby to England?
The prove lay in the pudding as Poulter opened the Saturday morning stages with an overall on the stage win – something he could not manage on Friday as Cronje made a clean sweep in all four stages building up his lead.
Poulter took 2,6s from Cronje who obviously did not to have to jump in and try win the rally in the first stage of the day, all he had to do on the final day of the rally was to make sure that young Lategan who was driving very well, did not interfere with his overall first place.
Poulter who lost 2m22.7 to Cronje during his fight with the pit wall, had his own personal rally against lost time to drive. His goal would be to move up as many places as possible to ensure that he would not have too much of a war on hands when the rally circus moved to Polokwane for the final rally of the year around and around mealie fields.
Guy Botterill overnight leader in S1600 showed that he had a good nights sleep and opened the score board with a 7,3s win over Capetonian Ashley Haigh-Smith who did not have such a great first day on his home event.
If there was a driver for whom things simply did not seem to work on this event it was Paulus Franken who saw his rally slowly but surely come to an end although he managed to pull off three stage wins later on.
The top 7 positions remained the same while Poulter’s early attack moved him three spots up into 8th overall already.
All was definitely not lost.
Joubert leading NRC4 was in 9th and the S1600 leaders Botterill was in 10th.
Cronje did not feel too comfortable with the gap between him and Lategan and opened it up by 2,8s winning the next stage.
Poulter this time was 3rd fastest with Fekken 4th and de Villliers 5th.
Paulus Franken won the stage in S1600 posting 10th quickest overall time.
Once again the top spots did not move much except that Gugu Zulu moved up two spots pushing down Ernie van der Walt and Enzo Kuun one spot each.
Cronje’s cushion was now 19,2s – which was not completely comfortable but at least it mean that he was about a kilometre ahead on the road if you think about those super fast Cape roads.
De Villiers, Fekken, Zulu and Ernie van der Walt followed.
Enzo Kuun was still in seventh position and the Ford Fiesta would simply not go as well as it should have.
Stage 7 and Lategan decided he was going for an overall win or something as close to that as possible because Cronje fooling around in a rally car is not an easy guy to catch, while under thread not many, if any drivers in South Africa can do it.
But that was what rallying was all about – drive to win the event – or go play something else.
Lategan managed to take 1,8s from the 19,2 and there was still a day plus a rally year between him and victory.
The only movement in the top 10 was still caused by Poulter who moved another one up into 7th spot – the rest stayed the same.
Richard Leeke (the pleasant one) dropped 11 spots after a problem in that stage and now had to fight his way back up again from 22nd position!! Rallying was not a fair game and will never be.
Lategan took stage 8 as well and Cronje underestimated the pace by too much – 11,4s dropped from 17,4 left a thin plank instead of a cushion between him and his nearest rival.
The carrot for Lategan turned into fluorescent orange flashing before him, but somewhere between this and the next stage a minute penalty came into play and the lights in the carrot went out. The gap was now actually 1m17,4 – and I will admit that I had not the time to find out what happened here.
Next stage Lategan won again but with the penalty the rally or any chance of getting close to winning slipped away and de Villiers moved into second position, with Fekken into third.
Stage 9 also went to Lategan by actually a massive 7,5s from Giniel who now also seemed to be in a hurry to get to the finish.
Hergen was 6s slower than Giniel and Mark trailed him by just 0,1 of one second.
Botterill was fastest S1600 and it is interesting to see how much quicker the S2000 cars were through the stages. In this case over about 26,29km the fastest S2000 beat the quickest S1600 by 101,6s which is more than THREE seconds per kilometre.
Stage 9 spelled the end for Leeroy Poulter when he and Elvene had a massive roll – apparently over a series of jumps. The team were shaken but after a quick visit to hospital found to be in one piece.
This accident may have dear consequences for Poulter and Toyota’s aspirations to win the 2015 Driver’s title, especially if Cronje manages to bank full score on this event. If that happens it will mean an overall win by Leeroy on the next rally without Mark getting any points would mean that the championship would have to be decided on the number of wins for the year and then second places and so on.
Having said that – it will still depend on this stupid system of being able to finish a rally when you do not finish it – do you know the reason behind it, or can your brain also not get around it? The reason why they keep on scoring people who are at their hotel rooms already is to “entertain the crowd” and to get as many cars as possible to finish!
The service crew I suppose must run past the crowd dressed as rally cars, making a noise through beer cans and dragging brooms behind them to make some dust – or something to that effect – because what else will entertain anyone?
So in real time at the end of Stage 9 Cronje had a comfortable lead of 42,9s over de Villiers while Lategan trailed him by 52,1.
Fekken was 10 behind Lategan, while Gugu trailed the leader by 158,4. The rally was in the bag for Cronje and that could also mean that the championship may fall in the same bag as well.
Hergen Fekken and Pierre Aries in action
Suddenly in SS10 only six S2000 drivers appeared in the Top10 times through the stage.
Why do you ask – well the previous stage, SS9, Poulter rolled and all hope for some success was placed on Giniel de Villiers and the ghost scoring-system.
The news from SS10 was that Lategan won yet another stage while Giniel rolled the second and only other Toyota out of contention and that was that for Team Toyota.
Wham, Bam and thank you Sam.
I have to say Giniel’s roll and the Springbok performance against the other Toyota team was two big surprises. Giniel is one of the most balanced drivers I have ever seen and believe me when I say, if he rolls something – it had to roll!
Guy Botterill posted 7th fastest time, while a charging Paulus Franken was still trying his utmost to get a good result and posted second quickest time.
AC Potgieter also popped in to come have a look see what the Top10 looked like, while Matthew Vacy-Lyle completed the Top10 fastest times.
Cronje still had the event well in hand and led the flying young Lategan by 52,4s with Fekken in third 68,9s behind, Zulu 173 and Kuun needing 208s to get onto top spot of the podium.
Enzo clearly was having a nightmare rally!
Botterill was now ahead of NRC4 leader Joubert – Leeroy and or Elvene were in two places at the same time – at a medical check up and 9th on the rally – or so they say!
Stage 11 – same old story – Lategan takes a win – Cronje peaks over his shoulder to see what he was doing and Hergen posts third quickest time.
Theuns put matters right and beat Botterill by 30s through the stage.
Cronje was still on a cruise leading by 46,5s and nothing would get him into a panic.
Lategan second, Fekken third and Gugu fourth with Kuun in fifth.
If I am right this was Lategan’s fifth stage win in a row and things started to make sense. He took another 9,7s from Cronje and I expected a bit of a run by Cronje through the last stage just to make sure of things.
Hergen did not have a wonderful stage and I think both he and Cronje also picked up 20s penalties for hitting some markers through a chicane.
So going into the last stage of the event SS13 – Cronje led Lategan by 27,4s while Gugu was in third spot trailing by 75,2s and Hergen dropped a position into fourth.
Botterill in the S1600 still managed to stay ahead of NRC4 leader Theuns Joubert by 11,7s but the question was if he would be able to hold onto a brilliant 7th overall through the last stage. The 26 odd kms were too long, I thought.
Stage 13 was not lucky for Henk Lategan and his car stopped with suspension failure – the rally claimed yet another victim.
Cronje won the stage, while Fekken posted 2nd fastest and Gugu 3rd. Enzo’s Ford Fiesta engine called it a day and stopped.
This in short meant that only four S2000 cars actually completed the event, while the other were simply scored into the rally.
I wonder what the reason for the carnage can be?
Cronje wins the rally comfortably – never really under pressure, Gugu and Hilton Auffrey made Volkswagen proud by taking second spot and Hergen completes their pleasure by claiming the final podium position.
Theuns did what he was supposed to do and overtook Guy Botterill in the S1600 and filled Number One spot for NRC4 and 7th overall.
After a fantastic drive in S1600 Guy took home the honours and Matthew Vacy-Lyle was second in that class.
Etienne and Mauritz Malherbe were again crowd favourites and won NRC2 in their famous Datsun 160U SSS.
In fairness let’s have a quick look at a few stats in S1600.
Guy Botterill did not really have it all his way, at least not until stage 6 when both Leeke who was lying second all the time as well as AC Potgieter who occupied third spot both picked up problems.
Botterill won 7 stages, Leeke took one and Paulus Franken who seemed to have a nightmare beginning to the event won three stages. Matthew Vacy-Lyle showed that his second spot overall was not just a fluke and he beat the rest twice.
In the end it was actually a mere walk in the park for Botterill as he had a double bed instead of just a cushion between him and second placed Matthew Vacy-Lyle. You could actually fit both stages 3 and 4 into the gap and get a bit of change.
Ashley Haigh-Smith had a quiet but “steady” rally and ended in third spot – albeit a light year behind the leader. Then followed AC Potgieter and Richard Leeke brought up the end.
It was ironic if not tragic that Toyota did not only fail to win the event or have a podium position – they also had to watch Volkswagen walk away with the Manufacturers Award.
It would also be very interesting to compare the rally costs of the different teams this year with previous years – it could just be that it is not as easy to make notes and stay safe as everyone thought!
The damage to the two Toyotas alone on this event would have covered the costs of the notes as they were previously made for a year – not that what is now offered comes for free!
The other question we now really want answered is how can one possibly retire from an event?
Say I enter but really do not want to finish the event – is there a possible way that my name will not appear in the final results?
I have to say that I do not care how many competitors stay in the results – as long as they finish the rally physically – even if the crew pushes the car over the final line – but this bullshit of sitting at home while you are still being scored is absolute nonsense and not in the spirit of any sport.
In rugby the opponents could remain in the cloakrooms after halftime and still score a few tries?
Bring back real excitement – real efforts – real characters or kiss your sport goodbye!
