In addition to the regular 3,5-litre V6 Hardbody pickups of Hannes Grobler/Francois Jordaan and Alfie Cox/Ralph Pitchford, currently lying first and second respectively in the production vehicle championship, Duncan Vos and Hennie ter Stege will debut the brand new 4-litre V6 Hardbody in the new class SP, which is due to replace the existing class T.
“We are pleased to finally be able to give our new pickup a run,” says general manager of Nissan Motorsport Glyn Hall.
“The Off Road Commission decided to introduce class SP this year to reduce the costs of running in the previous T class, where more modifications were allowed. We completed the first of our two class SP pickups some months ago and have even managed to fit in a race where we successfully competed in the Lichtenburg 200 recently.
“Unfortunately, the other two manufacturers haven’t been able to get their new pickups ready in time, so we will be introducing the new class, and the new Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody, to the fans on our own.”
Nissan will be aiming for a fifth successive win in this year’s championship and a debut win in the all-new Ford/Motorite Limpopo 400, which has replaced the event normally run in the Mmabatho area of North West Province.
With just three rounds of the eight-event championship remaining, reigning champion Grobler leads team-mate Cox by 10 points, with their nearest challenger Henri Zermatten in a class D Mitsubishi Pajero a further 25 points back.
Cox has won the last three events with Grobler experiencing mechanical problems which have seen him restricted to just one win and a second place so far this year. While his charges through the field in the last three events, when he has been relegated to the back of the field because of mechanical problems, have been talking points of each event, but the off road veteran prefers to race from the front and avoid the dust.
“I’m not used to having to start from the back of the field after problems in the prologue and it’s usually the others who are eating my dust,” he says with his usual mischievous grin. “Francois and I will be hoping to have a good prologue in Polokwane and a trouble-free run in Saturday’s race. Alfie and Ralphie are getting too close for comfort and we need to put some distance between us and the youngsters in the championship.”
Nissan will again enjoy the support of an enthusiastic and hard-working band of privateers in classes D and E.
Arnold du Plessis, owner of BB Auto Nissan in Polokwane, Limpopo, leads the two-car BB Auto team with co-driver John Knox in a Coca Cola-backed Hardbody. They were heading for a second place in class in the recent Lesotho event, but fell out with a broken clutch. They are 11th overall in the championship and 7th in class D.
Arnold’s brothers Jurie and Andre were among the small band of finishers in Lesotho and currently lie 8th in the championship and fifth in class D.
Motoring journalist Deon Schoeman and Jan Sime will be hoping for a happier result than their retirement in the Lesotho race, where they were doing well in their Autopage/Du Pont/Topcar Hardbody until they had engine management problems. Also contesting class D will be the GBS Racing/Raysonics Hardbody in the hands of Coetzee Labuschagne and Johan Gerber, who missed the last event.
Class E contenders Thomas Rundle and Stavros Yiannakis had an impressive run in Lesotho, leading their class until they were forced to retire with a broken sump on their Barden Tyre Services Hardbody. A debut class win cannot be far off.
