Nissan Motorsport is aiming to make it five wins from five starts when its three red Sasol-backed Super Production class Nissan Navara Pickups line up for this weekend’s (July 27 and 28) Amathole 500, round five of the Absa Off Road Championship, in the Eastern Cape.
Reigning champions Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan won the first two events of the season, the Nissan Dealer 400 in the Western Cape in March and the Nissan Hluhluwe 400 in KwaZulu Natal in April,
while team-mates and former champions Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford were victorious in the last two events, the Sun City 400 in North West Province in May and the Toyota 1000 Desert Race in Botswana in June.
Vos leads the driver’s championship with 77 points from Grobler (65 points), who in turn is a healthy 25 points ahead of Nissan Motorsport team-mate Ivar Tollefsen and joint third-placed Mark Cronje (Toyota Hilux).
Vos (65 points) also leads the Super Production class from Grobler (53 points), while Tollefsen — thanks to an odd class scoring system – is joint fourth with Cronje (37 points) behind Brandon Harcus in a Ford Ranger (45 points).
Jordaan leads the co-drivers’ championship with 65 points with Pitchford, who missed the last event because of overseas commitments, second on 52 points. Joint third are Norwegian Tollefsen’s English co-driver Quin Evans and Cronje’s co-driver Chris Birkin 40 points each.
Jordaan also leads the SP class from Pitchford with Evans and Birkin joint fourth behind Harcus’ co-driver Juan Mohr.
“We’re in a very strong position in the championship at the halfway stage,” said Nissan Motorsport general manager Glyn Hall. But the wily Hall, who has guided Nissan to six successive national off road championships since the motor company entered off road racing in 2001, is taking nothing for granted.
“With our three teams 1-2-3 in the points standings it’s looking very good for us, but we are experiencing one of the most competitive and closely-fought championships since we went off road racing and we’re having to work very hard to stay in front.
“We’ve enjoyed great success with our 4,0-litre V6 Nissan Navara since the advent of the new Super production class in 2006 and it still seems to be the car to beat. In 12 races since the start of the 2006 season, we have won nine times, including the last five events in a row.
“We have been concentrating our preparations on giving our three drivers cars that are both reliable and fast. It’s no good just being reliable and it’s equally no good just being fast. These days you have to be good all round.”
Hall paid tribute to the contribution of the privateer Nissan teams, who have helped Nissan open up a massive 111-point advantage over their nearest rivals in the prestigious manufacturers’ championship.
“We’re helping build the Nissan brand by competing in motor sport and there’s no tougher environment in which to demonstrate the attributes of a pickup than in off road racing. That’s why we’re particularly proud that we have a privately run class SP Navara in sixth place overall (ahead of works class SP pickups) and six privateers in Nissan Hardbody pickups in the top eight of the hotly contested class D (for near standard six-cylinder pickups).
“The class D guys are very effectively showing that you can take a near standard Nissan Hardbody (the same pickup in which Duncan Vos and Mike Griffith won the overall championship in 2002) and compete with it successfully in the very tough world of national championship off road racing.”
Highest placed privateers are Mark Corbett and Rudy Balzer (Century Property Developments Nissan Navara), who are sixth overall and sixth in the Super Production class.
Jurie du Plessis and his brother Andre (BB Auto Group Nissan Hardbody) are currently the highest-placed class D competitors in the overall points standings (12th), but thanks to the anomalies of the class scoring system are joint second in class with 33 points (with Ramon Bezuidenhout and Stefan Lock in a Toyota Hilux), six points behind Harold and Tiaan Coen (Land Rover Defender). Jurie and Andre’s brother Arnold and co-driver Johan Knox (BB Auto Group Nissan Hardbody) are fourth in class D, ahead of Coetzee Labuscagne (Raysonics Hardbody), father and son Chris and Christiaan du Plooy (Retirement Fund Solutions Hardbody), Gavan Grey and Mark Sorour (Vehicle Protection Services Hardbody) and brothers Henri and Maurice Zermatten (Ryobi Hardbody).
Labuscagne’s co-driver, Johan Gerber, is eighth in the co-drivers’ championship after missing the Sun City event.
Nissan is also represented in class E (for near standard four cylinder pickups) by Thomas Rundle and Brian Roberts, sixth in class in their Barden Tyre Services Hardbody, and Douw de Boer and Sewende Laan TV actor Ben Kruger, 10th in class in the Diamond X Ranch Hardbody.
The Amathole 500 runs in tandem with the African Heritage Cross Country, a round of the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup, with the World Cup event carrying on for another two days, on Sunday and Monday (July 29 and 30).
Nissan Motorsport’s Tollefsen and Evans and Century Property’s Corbett and Balzer will compete in both events as preparation for their planned entry in the 2008 Dakar Rally in January. The Zermatten brothers will also compete in the African Heritage event, on an invitation basis, but will not score points towards the World Cup.
