Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford (Nissan Navara) made it three in a row when they won the Amathole 400, round five of the Absa SA Off Road Championship, which ended at the Fish River Sun in the Eastern Cape on Saturday afternoon.
In a dramatic finish to the 500-km race, that started at nearby Mpekweni on Saturday morning after a 96-km prologue between Bisho and Fish River Sun on Friday, Vos and Pitchford crossed the line in a time of 7 hr 42 min 19 sec with a flat rear wheel, 1 min 38 sec ahead of the Ford Ranger of Neil Woolridge and Kenny Skjoldhammer.
Hugo and father Jaap de Bruyn (Toyota Hilux) were third, a further 8 min 41 sec back and 1 min 27 sec ahead of Mark Cronje and Chris Birkin (Toyota Hilux).
It was Nissan’s fifth successive win this year and they were also winners of the manufacturers’ challenge. “This was a great result for us,” said an enthusiastic Glyn Hall, general manager of Nissan Motorsport. “To win you first have to finish and Duncan and Ralph did the job under great pressure. Our privateers again did us proud and helped us extend our lead in the manufacturers’ championship.”
Cronje and Birkin had led from the start after setting fastest time in the prologue, but went off the road on one of the final corners, within a kilometer of the finish, with Vos and Pitchford just over a minute behind them. Their Toyota fell on its side, but they managed to get it back on its wheels and complete the event.
Earlier, with less than 40 km to the finish, reigning champions Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan were lying third in the second factory Nissan Navara some 14 seconds behind their team-mates, when they hit a ditch, ripping off a wheel and bringing their race to an abrupt end.
“It was a tough race, very fast,” said Vos. “I really had to push very hard. It was maximum effort all day and putting Mark under as much pressure as possible. The guys are pushing really hard — you need a lot of commitment to be on the pace if you want to win.
“Hannes and I swopped places a couple of times in the morning. We started out 35 seconds behind him, led him twice during the morning and were behind him in third at the compulsory stop at the Designated Service Point at Seymour.”
Cronje was first into the DSP, some 20 seconds ahead of Grobler and a further two seconds ahead of Vos. Woolridge was fourth in the Ford, 2min 44 sec back. At the Kat River, an hour after leaving the DSP, Vos was back in front of Grobler by 20 seconds with Cronje a minute and a half in the lead as the picturesque route skirted the snow-capped Katberg in the Amotola Mountains.
Vos increased his lead in the production vehicle drivers’ championship to 37 points over team-mate Grobler (102-65), who remains second despite his non-finish and is 13 points ahead of third-placed Cronje (52).
Pitchford, who missed the last round because of overseas commitments, now leads the co-drivers’ championship with 77 points, 12 ahead of Jordaan and 25 ahead of Birkin.
Norwegian Ivar Tollefsen and English co-driver Quin Evans finished seventh overall and seventh in class SP in the third works Nissan Navara. They were also first overall in the four-day FIA-sanctioned African Heritage Cross Country being run in conjunction with the Amathole 400.
They completed the second day of this four-day 1 250 km international event, second round of the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup, over half an hour ahead of the X-Raid BMW X3 of Brazilian Paulo Nobre and Portuguese Filipe Palmeiro.
Leading Nissan privateers, Mark Corbett and Rudi Balzer (Century Property Developments Navara) finished fifth overall and fifth in class SP. Making it another special day for Nissan were privateers Henri and brother Maurice Zermatten (Ryobi Nissan Hardbody) who finished ninth overall and first in class D. It was their second successive class win after their victory in the Toyota 1000 Desert Race last month.
Coetzee Labuscagne and Johan Gerber (Raysonics Nissan Hardbody) were 14th overall and fourth in class D. Thomas Rundle and Brian Roberts (Barden Tyre Services) were 15th overall and third in class E. Brothers Jurie and Andre du Plessis overcame shock absorber problems on their BB Auto Group Nissan Hardbody to finish 18th overall and fifth in class D.
Not so fortunate were father and son Christiaan du Plooy senior and junior, who rolled their Retirement Fund Solutions Hardbody on Friday’s prologue and did not start on Saturday.
The next round of the Absa Off Road Championship is the Ford/Limpopo 400 in Limpopo Province on September 7 and 8.
