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| Photo: Quickpic |
THE weekend’s Tour Natal Rally saw Toyota and VW trailing the Ford
Fiesta, which was raced faultlessly by Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (shown left).
The Ford duo scored seven stage wins in 426,34 km of fast, muddy
rally that saw 12 out of 25 starters retire in the sugarcane fields near
Scottburgh.
They beat the defending champions Leeroy Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee
in their Castrol Toyota Yaris S2000) by 44,6 seconds.
Third on the podium, 28,2 seconds after Poulter/Coetzee, came VW’s
youngest-yet factory racer, Henk Lategan, alongside the experienced co-driver
Barry White in their Polo S2000.
“Two years of experience is now starting to show for Henk and
Barry,” says Mike Rowe, head of Volkswagen Motorsport. “With our technical
improvements for the Sasol Rally, we will be in an even better space and
expecting even better results there.”
Dakar hero Giniel de Villiers and Carolyn Swann in the second
Castrol Toyota Yaris today did not take any risks to secure fourth place.
Japie van Niekerk and Gordon Noble (NAD Ford Fiesta S2000) worked
hard to regain fifth after a puncture lost them valuable time. In the end they
beat the Volkswagen Sasol Racing Polo team of Gugu Zulu and Pierre Arries in his
first outing in top-tier rallying for over a year by only nine seconds.
While Cronje and Houghton won almost unchallenged in the S2000
class, the lead changed hands numerous times in the S1600 class, before Paulus
Franken/Henry Kohne in their Manitou Group VW Polo won.
The only surviving NRC4 entry after the eleven stages was that of
Piet Bakkes and Shaun Visser (Toyota Auris), who finished ninth overall.
In the NRC2 Challenge, Bryan and Keith Heine easily won in their
Datsun SSS.
The next round in the SA National Rally and the Africa Rally
championships takes place on April 17 and 18 in Mpumalanga.
