SOUTH African rally champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (S2000
Ford Racing Fiesta) dominated the season-opening Total Rally that took place on
the South Coast on Friday and Saturday.
Thirty cars entered the first day of racing, which was marked by
high drama and sportsmanship. In the worst crash of the race, Enzo Kuun and Guy
Hodgson rolled their new Polo within sight of the finish on stage three while
fighting for second place with Jan Habig and Robert Paisley in their Basil Read
Fiesta. The multi-million-rand Sasol Racing Polo was severely damaged after
rolling end over end several times, but Kuun and Hodgson were only
bruised.
The crash set the tone for the rest of the rally, which saw Cronje
and Houghton stop in the next stage to check on competitors Johnny Gemmel and
Carolyn Swan. The pair ended up in the cane when they lost steering in their
Toyota Yaris after hot gases from a broken exhaust pipe ignited a power steering
pipe and caused their retirement on Friday. They restarted on Saturday under
penalty time, but gave a demonstration of the new Toyota’s potential by
finishing in the top three in four of the seven gravel stages and winning the
final one.
Cronje and Houghton continued their good form on Saturday with six
out of nine stage wins.
Former champions Habig and Paisley made it a 1-2 for Ford,
finishing 65 seconds behind the winners after starting the final day 34 seconds
in arrears. They won a stage on each day and were the only S2000 crew to keep
the champions honest.
Third were the Team Total combination of Jean-Pierre Damseaux and
new co-driver Hilton Auffray in the first of the S2000 Challenge cars in a
Toyota Auris, who did well to overcome a strong challenge on Saturday from the
Castrol Team Toyota Yaris of Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee.
The battle between the two Yaris crews was a feature of the event,
with Poulter and Coetzee giving their new rally car an impressive debut,
occupying third place throughout the day until they were slowed by power
steering problems on the last two gravel special stages.
The Toyota pair picked up a 40-second penalty for lateness after
repairing a broken power steering pulley and dropped to fourth behind Damseaux
and Auffray with just the 1,3 kilometre tarmac super-special stage on the site
of the old Durban drive-in remaining.
After tweeting that he would have to garner whatever points he
could in a car that was just not gelling with him, Gugu Zulu nevertheless
finished fifth overall with co-driver Carl Peskin.
They were the first of the factory Volkswagen Polos in after a
disastrous weekend for the factory-based VW Sasol racing team.
After ending in a surprising third place overall on Friday night,
the youngest driver in the rally, Henk Lategan (18), and veteran Barry White
clipped a concrete tunnel wall and ended up setting fire to the cane. The flames
saw the cancellation of stage eight, the first of Saturday’s six gravel stages,
as officials and bystanders pitched in to extinguish the blaze caused by the
car’s hot exhaust setting fire to the dry undergrowth.
Lategan followed Gemmel’s example with a spirited fight-back to win
stage 12 on his way to 23rd overall and 13th among the S2000 vehicles.
Zulu and Peskin were challenged for fifth by Team Total Toyota’s
Mohammed Moosa and Andre Vermeulen in their Auris.
Racing hard, Moosa also clipped a bridge and later put his Auris on
its roof after hitting a drainage ditch. In true rally tradition, Moosa and
Vermeulen rolled the light car back on its wheels and finished eighth overall
and fourth in the S2000 Challenge.
Rounding out the top six and missing a top-five finish by five
seconds were Giniel de Villiers and new co-driver Greg Godrich in their S2000
Imperial Toyota Auris. De Villiers caught a 40-second penalty for lateness after
replacing a power steering pump.
Former champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries (VW Sasol racing)
also competed under penalty time on Saturday after they went off the road on
Friday’s first stage and were unable to continue.
They finished 18th overall and 11th in S2000, but the second
fastest time they achieved in Saturday’s first two stages before they lost time
with a puncture on stage 12 was a reminder of the VW Polo’s potential. —
WR.
Photo:
Quickpic
National rally champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton raced with
precision through the cane fields outside Scottburgh in their Ford Fiesta in the
past weekend’s Total Rally. INSET: Houghton (left) and Cronje jubilant after
holding off a hard-chasing field to defend their title in the first of eight
races in the national rally season.
