“This is the final hurdle and it will be a tough task to beat our traditional rivals Toyota to this title,” said Glyn Hall, general manager of Nissan Motorsport. “We’ve enjoyed another great year of national championship off road racing, but we will only start relaxing after the final event is won or lost.
New champions Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan, who clinched their second championship together in the Proudly South African 4.0 litre V6 Nissan Navara when they finished second behind team-mates and former champions Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford in Mpumalanga, intend to finish the season on a high note with their fourth win of the season.
“We can’t slack now and simply ride on our past successes,” said the always ebullient 51-year-old. “Because of the odd scoring system for the class championships, we are equal on points with Neil (Woolridge) and Kenny (Skjoldhammer, Ford Ranger) in class SP. They still have to drop their worst score whereas we have a non-finish to drop. If Neil wins the class this weekend, all we have to do is come fifth in class to take the championship.
“But we also need to score as many points for Nissan as we can this weekend if we want to prevent Toyota from winning their first manufacturers’ championship since we joined them in of road racing six years ago.
“Francois and I will be in attack mode. We’re really enjoying ourselves this season and we’ll keep on trucking until the end,” he said with a broad smile.
Grobler is a motor racing legend in his own lifetime. He started his motor sport career with Datsun in 1977 and at the end of this season will have completed 30 years in the sport. Twenty years separate his first national off road championship in 1986 and his most recent one this year.
“Motor sport is my passion and I’ve virtually devoted the last 20 years to it full time. While I’m still capable of winning, I’ll keep at it.”
Should he win on Saturday it will be his 21st win from 48 races since Nissan entered off road racing in 2001. It will be Nissan’s 37th win from 48 races.
While Vos and Pitchford will be keen to see their team-mates win class SP, since they are not in contention, they will also be aiming to finish the season on a high note. Another outright win after their second victory of the year in the most recent event will a great way to end the season and will ensure they finish third overall in the championship and third in class.
The performance of the hardy band of Nissan privateers will be particularly significant this weekend. Toyota entrants traditionally outnumber Nissan entrants, so the pressure is on the privateers to make a worthy contribution to the points haul.
Leading the challenge from a points perspective will be Coetzee Labuscagne and Johan Gerber (Raysonics Hardbody), who are 15th in the championship and third in class D, which has already been won by Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst (Toyota Hilux). Also competing in class D are the two BB Auto Group Nissan Hardbody pickups of the Du Plessis brothers, Jurie, Andre and Arnold.
Jurie and Andre are 16th in the championship and fifth in class, while brother Arnold and co-driver Johan Knox are 18th in the championship and seventh in class.
While class E has also been won with a round to go, by Manfred Schroder and Ward Huxtable (Ford Ranger), Thomas Rundle and Brian Roberts will be looking to score valuable manufacturers’ championship points in their Barden Tyre Services Hardbody, as will husband-and-wife team Jeremy and Michelle Fall in their diesel-engined DieselCar/Datcentre Pietermaritzburg Hardbody.
The Ford Carnival City 400 will start on Friday (November 17) with a 70-km prologue. The race proper on Saturday (November 18) will be run over two loops of around 190 km each, with the start and finish at the Carnival City complex.
