THE Volkswagen Sasolracing team will tackle round four of the 2015 national rally season, the Bela-Bela Rally on Friday and Saturday, 19 and 20 June. At this event Gugu Zulu enters the rally amongst the top three competitors on the national leaderboard for the season so far.
Along with Zulu is Hilton Auffray who joined him at the Secunda Motor Rally, round three of the season. The pair rallied to third overall in their first outing together, racking up Zulu’s second podium result for 2015. This result built on the podium finish Zulu achieved at the Sasol Rally with Pierre Arries at his side.
With good results from their first outing, Zulu and Auffray will clearly be eyeing another podium at the Bela-Bela event.
Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries returned to national rally competition together at the Secunda event. The Bela-Bela event will see the pair looking to make their mark on the current season as they tackle their second rally for the year together. They have already shown good pace, so tying the stages together could see them become an unexpected threat to their competition.
Henk Lategan and Barry White started the season with a podium finish – and will want to mark the mid-season point for the year with another strong result. The 2014 event saw Lategan and White cross the finish line to claim fourth place – with their goal this year to finish higher in the rankings at the second Bela-Bela Rally.
During 2014 the national rally field tackled the Bela-Bela event for the first time – but in November. With the 2015 event taking place in June, weather conditions will be rather different with single-digit lows rising to at least the mid-20s, creating a large temperature range and highly changeable conditions over the two days.
The original Bela-Bela Rally proved popular with both competitors and rally fans. Fast and challenging stages in an excellent rally environment kept the field on their toes. With a change in season for the 2015 event it could throw unexpected challenges into the mix but the Volkswagen Sasolracing team has prepared in order to deliver a strong result.