Day Two – 2015 Sasol Rally
In plantations surrounding the Sabie area Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton took advantage of the fact that they worked very hard over the past few seasons to get their pace notes fine-tuned, while those who did not expect the change on the rally scene to be as drastic as it is this year, will stay at a disadvantage for quite some time. Stages were unfortunately not kept 80% the same as was “agreed” before the new system was voted in, not that any agreement counts with certain people. This caught a number of competitors unawares.
Then Cronje and Houghton, with Cronje being one of the fastest, if not the fastest “wet” driver in SA, took further advantage in the wet stages after substantial the rain shortly before the rally started. Cronje being first on the road made sure he drove as hard as he could to keep the opposition frustrated.
Another factor was that the Ford Fiesta is arguably the best prepared car on the scene and set up to suit Cronje’s drive style perfectly. All these factors combined was, is and will be the final nail in the opposition’s coffins, probably for the rest of the year.
Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton – spotless and simply too good for the opposition.
They came, they saw better and beat the shit out of everything that could start up.
Leeroy did well to finish second overall but the deficit of 3minutes 43.8s does simply not look good at all, no matter what the reasons. Third and final spot on the podium went to Gugu Zulu and Pierre Aries and I am very pleased for them despite the gap between them and the ball crunching Ford Team being a frightening 6m and 49s.
Wilro Dippenaar finished first in NRC 4 class – I wonder how whoever thought out the name especially the “4” behind that dreaded (for me) NRC name, knew that there would only be 4 entries in that class?
The fact that Wilro finished in 4th overall says a lot more than his class win and with a bit of luck he could still pull bigger surprises this year.
The rally literary started off with a bang this morning in Nelspruit – and the high risk of that famous Spaghetti Junction town stage – as all the other in town, right next to the spectators stages – showed again when Lategan did a somewhat inexplicable thing and almost hit Japie van Niekerk head on after a spin. He was lucky to catch van Niekerk who did a hell of a job to try and avoid the accident, then after being hit to keep the car from the crowd!
Both teams were OK but out of the event.
Sasol must take care as, if all things are equal they may lose their rally if the President of the NRC applies equal measures to all – we had a bit of dust at Rallystar, a little bit of a shortage of money and voila after more than fifty years of organising National Championship Rallies – PMC is left out in the cold if favour of unknown factors in areas almost without any spectators.
Note: Before reading any further, keep in mind that I have to report on hearsay as Rallystar was not invited to attend the event despite specialising in the covering the sport. I heard from a number of reliable sources – most who did not want to be “quoted” – that there were many other little gremlins jumping out of the woods. One big one was when our esteemed Dutch driver Hans Weijs, (luckily for him he is not from Somalia – or he would have driven for Team Xeno) infringed some “recce” rules.
After the rally teams could not get through the stages twice on Thursday – ag shame man, as I predicted to some of the wisest men I have ever met, last year already – they were apparently allowed to go through (only) Stage 3 on Friday morning early.
That however so I hear was not good enough for Mr Weijs and co and he decided that he needed a bit more info about stage 2. Things deviation from the rules apparently did not go too well and he was caught out after a meeting with a lumber truck or something to that effect.
R5000 fine and a “public apology” later and the Volkswagen man was back in good standing again. Truth and reconciliation country,
Goodness help us if it was a South African – just think back many years ago when Sarel van der Merwe and Enzo Kuun if I remember correctly was caught out having a skelm run through a stage or two in the Cape to check the scenery. They were both shot at sunrise the following morning – luckily they survived to drive again!
The attrition rate on the rallies these days is never clear because of this stupid system to keep on scoring competitors to the end, even while they are having a beer at home.
The argument in favour of this, also by the mentioned wise men, is that it helps to keep the fans happy – or something to that effect.
I can understand it if the cars are still entertaining the crowd but I fail to see any sense in scoring people who do not complete and event. It does confuse anyone wanting to know what happened, but it helps to print longer lists of so called finishers!
Thilo Himmel and Armand du Toit in their Volkswagen Polo finished the event in fifth spot 13m27.6 behind the leaders – that is a light year and half a day.
Chad van Beurden and Nico Swartz in the S1600 Polo took the honours in that class beating Paulus Franken and Henry Krone by an impressive 2m11s. Chad winning the class after both Guy Botterill and Ashley Haigh-Smith ran into trouble did not surprise me at all but even with mentioned two teams present and in full fighting trim, a win by him would still not have surprised me. Chad is simply one of, if not the best junior we have currently.
Matthew Vacy-Lyle and Schalk van Heerden kept up their team’s name and finished a credible 3rd overall in S1600.
It was a great pity that Theuns Joubert dropped out on his comeback event and even sadder that the stage he won overall SS8 was cancelled. That sounds a bit like my sort of luck.
The incident involving Japie van Niekerk could just be the final straw in the busy business tycoon’s life and it could add another negative to the rally scene. Few people can afford to take eight weeks or then 2 months per year from business or work. Not in South Africa and truly not for a sport with 20 odd competitors.
Two down – six or so to go!