Motorite Racing successfully opened its account in this year’s Sasol SA Rally Championship with second place in class and 14th overall out of just 22 finishers in the Total Tour Natal Rally on Saturday.
Evan Hutchison and new co-driver Elvene Coetzee survived intense heat and dusty conditions during Friday’s five stages in the Scottburgh and Pinetown areas and completed Saturday’s eight stages in wet and muddy conditions in the Scottburgh, Park Rynie and Umzinto areas despite being hampered by a misfire in the Motorite Racing Toyota RunX’s engine.
The team is in its second year of national championship rallying and is competing in the hotly contested class A7 for modified cars with an engine capacity between 1,6 and 2,0 litres.
“Elvene and I had high hopes for this event,” said Hutchison, who also competes in the national off road championship in the special vehicle category, which he won in a Motorite BAT in 2007.
“We were encouraged by our performance in the Hi Q Rallystar Sprint races at Bapsfontein last weekend and made a cautious start on the very slippery KZN roads on Saturday. Despite our best efforts to prepare the Toyota RunX and test it before the event – and everything was working perfectly in Bapsfontein – the engine developed a misfire that was to hamper us throughout the weekend.
“We did the best we could under the circumstances and were quite pleased to survive the first day and the two tarmac town stages in Pinetown in third overall in our class.
“The misfire was worse on Saturday. It was very frustrating after all our efforts, but we decided to soldier on and get to know each other and start developing our driver/co-driver relationship,” said Hutchison.
“With our speed reduced I was able to concentrate on my driving and keeping out of trouble on an event that was tough and tricky, with lots of opportunities to get into trouble.”
The next round of the Sasol Rally Championship is the Toyota Dealer Rally in the Western Cape on April 3 and 4.
Motorite Racing is the motor sport division of Motorite Insurance Administrators, the largest independent mechanical breakdown insurance and full maintenance plan service provider and administrator in South Africa.
