Jean-Pierre Damseaux and Cobus Vrey scored their long overdue first overall win in the Sasol SA Rally Championship when they took their Team TOTAL Evolution Toyota RunX to a convincing victory in the Swartland Rally in the Western Cape on Saturday.
Reigning champions Jan Habig and Douglas Judd were second in a factory Volkswagen Polo, with team-mates and former champions Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson third in another VW Polo. Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries clinched their first national championship in the third factory VW Polo with seventh place overall.
Damseaux and Vrey’s success came after excellent performances and numerous stage wins in earlier rounds were spoilt by technical problems. They took over the lead from Habig and Judd after stage six on Saturday morning, a marathon 47,83-km tester that proved to be the undoing of several top crews. Damseaux was on top form all day, winning the first three stages to open up a useful 60-second lead over Habig with two stages to go. The gap at the finish was 49 sec after some 200 km of special stage rallying.
It was Team TOTAL’s first overall victory in the top class (S2000), although the biggest privateer team in rallying had previously won outright twice in class A7 cars with Etienne Lourens and current team manager Andre Vermeulen.
Team TOTAL also added a third class championship to its achievements so far this year, with one round of the championship remaining. Former champions Rodney Visagie and Carolyn Swan made sure of winning the class N3 title in their Team TOTAL Evolution Toyota RunX with their third class win of the year.
Chris de Wit and Dean Redelinghuys (Team TOTAL Evolution Toyota RunX) wrapped up the class A7 championship in the last event, the Osram Rally in the Eastern Cape). They finished third in class in the Swartland Rally.
Class A6 champions are Craig Trott and Tony Ball, who achieved an unassailable lead after winning their class in the Osram Rally in their Team TOTAL Evolution Toyota RunX. They were out of luck in the Western Cape this weekend, dropping out on stage seven on Saturday after bogging down in a ploughed field when they cut a corner too sharply. Team-mates Mohammed Moosa and Martin Grant ensured that the class remained the preserve of Team TOTAL when they took the honours and finished a fine 10th overall in their Toyota Auris.
Fernando Rueda and Dave Lewkowicz enjoyed a good run in the production vehicle category, bringing their Team TOTAL Evolution Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 home second overall in the category and in class N4 behind the Subaru Impreza STi of new production car champions Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich.
Rueda and Lewkowicz were Team TOTAL’s sole representatives in class N4 after sisters Lola and Megan Verlaque were unable to make the trip to Cape Town. They damaged their Team TOTAL Evolution Mitsubishi Lancer Evo in the previous weekend’s Zambia Rally, in which they finished third in the final round of the FIA African Rally Championship.
Vusi Mabanga and Shawn Visser’s excellent run of finishes in the new Team TOTAL Evolution Toyota Yaris in class A5 came to an end when the pair was forced out of the rally on stage five on Saturday with engine problems.
The final round of the championship is the Toyota Gauteng Rally on October 17 and 18.
