Here are the results from the action-packed Toyota Cape Dealer Rally:
Cronje and Ford won an eventful Toyota Cape Dealer Rally to take command of the 2015 National Rally Championship. Even a late change of navigator could not prevent Ford Performance driver, Mark Cronje, from achieving an imposing victory in an incident-filled event. The win has resulted in him taking command of this year’s SA National Rally Championship.
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Cronje’s victory in the Ford Performance Fiesta S2000 in the penultimate round of the series, coupled with a non-finish by his nearest competitors and championship leaders, Leeroy Poulter/Elvéne Coetzee (Castrol Team Toyota Yaris), has swung the championship odds firmly in his favour.
For Poulter and Coetzee, and for the Castrol Toyota team, it was an event to forget. After damaging their Toyota Yaris in an altercation with a wall at the Killarney Racetrack, the pair had to push hard to make up lost time on Saturday. They managed to move up to fifth position by the end of Stage 8, but in the next stage, Poulter hit a series of jumps at high speed; the car went end-over-end and rolled into a ditch next to the road, ending their onslaught.
As for the Volkswagen Sasol Racing Rally Team, well, they celebrated two podium positions winning the Manufacturer's Award in the Western Cape on Saturday, with the pairings of Gugu Zulu/Hilton Auffray and Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries taking second and third places.
Unfortunately for Lategan and White, it was the final section, at the end of Stage 13 that they developed an unexpected issue and were unable to make the finish. This left them with a fourth-place finish for the event, nowhere near where they would have finished, considering all stages up until then had been getting progressively better. The first stage of Day 2, saw them third-quickest, followed by second-quickest times for the following four stages and then producing the winning stage times for 10, 11 and 12.
The NAD Rally team endured a tough day at the office this past weekend and finished sixth. This was after the all-wheel-drive Ford Fiesta of Enzo Kuun and Kes Naidoo developed an engine problem on the last stage, and despite pulling off the road rather than risk more damage, they had done enough to still be classified.
Nevertheless, as other events unfolded, they could have been on the podium – which would’ve meant that Kuun would’ve kept his unbroken record of podium finishes as a ?guest? driver for NAD Rally. But, under the circumstances, sixth was a more than decent effort.
There’s just one round of the South African National Rally Championship left to run… the Polokwane Rally on Friday and Saturday, 16th and 17th October.
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