The Harpers, in the Atlas Copco BAT, have also been helped by up and down form from other leading teams. This has helped the Harpers open up a 24 point lead at the top of the overall championship with some tight battles going on behind them.
The Harpers are comfortably ahead of former champion Shameer Variawa and Siegfried Rousseau in the Total Motorsport Porter. Variawa and Rousseau are under pressure from some heavyweights in Evan Hutchison/Achim Bergmann (Motorite BAT), Amathole 500 winners Nardus Alberts/Collin Hunter (Wrapsa BAT) and reigning champions Alfie Cox and Hennie ter Stege (Motorite BAT) with the consistent Clint Gibson (Absolute BAT) into the top five in the drivers championship.
Variawa/Rousseau have a slender one points lead over Hutchison and Bergmann with Alberts/Hunter another seven points in arrears. Gibson and Cox and ter Stege, who have been hit by two non finishes in a row, are another two points behind.
Because of variations in the allotment of points in the overall and class championships, the situation differs in the Class A standings. Here the Harpers are 16 points clear of Hutchison/Bergman and Variawa/Rousseau who are tied for second place.
Gibson is third in the drivers championship, five points behind Hutchison and Variawa, with Herman Sullwald (Sullwald Transport Zarco) fourth and former champion Terence Marsh (Regent Racing BAT) and Alberts tied for fifth place. Just eight points separate the crews in second and fifth.
Among the co-drivers Bergmann and Rousseau are tied for second place with Hunter third. Pieter Groenewald, who partners Marsh, is fourth with Gary White, who shares the Ruwacon BAT with brother David, in fifth place.
Another father and son team, Hendrik and Jan Kraai, lost their unbeaten record this season on the Amathole 500 but still have a healthy lead in Class B. The Regent Racing BAT crew are a whopping 37 points ahead of Johan and Etienne Bezuidenhout, in the Adenco BAT, who have performed consistently this season.
A win on the Amathole 500 has lifted KwaZulu-Natal crew Marcus Taylor, a former SA champion, and Derek Keith (JRE) into third place. Taylor/Keith are just two points ahead of multiple SA champion Giel Nel and Sandra Labuscagne (LUK ATE Truggy) with Bes Bezuidenhout and Johan de Bruyn (Adenco BAT) a further point in arrears.
Richard Schilling/Chris Davies Plastotech Aceco) and Nic Goslar/Richard Carolin, in the Kopanong Hotel Superteam Raceco, the frontrunners in Class S, both failed to see out the distance on the Amathole 500. That gave Glenn Gibson/Mark Whitehouse (Absolute Aceco) a maiden victory, but Schilling/Davies still have a handy lead over Goslar and Carolin.
With three events left to run this season, crews at the sharp end of championships will be well aware that having to drop one result at the end of the season could drastically alter some championship battles. Crews with 100 percent finish records so far have a slight advantage, but there will be pressure on those who already have one or more non finishes to their names.
The next event is the Ford Motorite 400 at Meropa Casino & Entertainment world in Limpopo on September 7 and 8.