The penultimate round of the 2002 SA National Rally Championship, the CPMCC-organized Subaru Cape Rally takes place in the Western Cape over the weekend of 19 and 20 September and will see a titanic struggle between the three leading works teams, two of whom are the only championship contenders. –
– Either of the two the factory-entered Sasol DualFuel™ Volkswagen teams have won the SA National Rally Drivers and Navigators Championships. Still to be decided, however, are the names to engrave on the trophies. –
– Current log leaders and reigning champions Jan Habig/Douglas Judd head the chase in their class A8 Sasol Golf, but are under serious threat from the young pretenders Enzo Kuun/Pierre Arries in the sister Golf. Kuun and Arries have three victories to their credit (VolkswagenSure Tour Natal, Sasol Rally and Volkswagen Rally) against the two wins (Total Rally of South Africa and Motorpics Mountain Trial) for Habig and Judd. –
– With seven of the eight rounds counting towards the title chase, Habig and Judd have a slender six point lead over Kuun/Arries, and with both teams having already dropped a round each, every point will be vital and a no-holds-barred battle can be expected. –
– Local hero Serge Damseaux, and Robert Paisley, running the class A8 factory-entered Team Castrol Toyota Corolla RSi, have a single victory (Tre Cento Cape Rally) to show for their efforts this year, but the Somerset West-domiciled Damseaux knows the roads like the back of his hands. Damseaux can be expected to challenge for outright victory and add to Toyota’s points haul towards the prestigious Manufacturers Championship, where they lag their German rival by 76 points. –
– Class A7 is developing into a frantic three-way battle for class championship honours. Sasol DualFuel™ Volkswagen Polo Playa team mates, Hergen Fekken/Dave Lewkowicz and Tjaart van der Walt/Mike Burrows head the points table with 98 and 94 points respectively, while a late season charge from Etienne Lourens/Andre Vermeulen, in their pacy Team Total Toyota Corolla RSi, have joined the chase following a second class win in the treacherously wet Motorpics Mountain Trial last month, and have closed to within just 14 points of the leaders. –
– The Sasol Dealer Team Volkswagen Polo Playa trio of Barry Grobbelaar/Paul van Wyk, Tony Ball/Dean Redelinghuys and Keith Coleman/Uwe Koch have been consistent top ten runners of late and another good showing can be expected from these crews. –
– Topcar will field it’s newly re-bodied, E46-shaped Fuchs Titan BMW 320 and the event will be used by Cliff Blackman and Johan Klaasen as a test session in preparation for a full campaign next year. –
– Other class runners capable of a points finish are Adrian Karth/Rikus Fourie (Shatterprufe VW Polo Playa) and Robin Goodman/Greg Goodrich (LUK BMS VW Polo Playa). –
– Group N, for near standard production cars, is headed by the top-class N4 runners, Fernando Rueda/Martin Botha in their Motion Vehicle Wholesalers Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6. Rueda’s driving has shown a newfound confidence this year, a podium place easily a realistic expectation from the Cape Town-based Spaniard. –
– Challenging the Lancer crew are a plethora of Subaru Impreza teams, all hoping to emulate last year’s Cape Rally result, when Johnny Gemmell and Gideon Trollip drove their Group N Subaru Impreza WRX to an historic overall rally victory. With the unpredictability of the Cape spring weather, history may repeat itself if the conditions are muddy. –
– Gemmell will sadly be absent from the rally, as he is campaigning in the FIA African Rally Championship, where he is just two points away from clinching the crown, while his navigator Robert Paisley clinched the navigators crown on the last event. Subaru has clinched the ARC Manufacturers title for the seventh consecutive year, making the Japanese marque the most successful in the history of the African series. –
– Heading the event sponsor’s representation, therefore, is the current FIA African Rally Championship duo of Schalk Burger and Piet Swanepoel (Bridgestone Sasol DualFuel™ Subaru Impreza WRX Sti), who abandoned their ARC campaign earlier this year in favour of the domestic series. Burger has not enjoyed a good season, but a win on the most recent Northern Regions Rally has sorted many of the gremlins hindering their challenge. –
– Three rallies into a comeback after a five-year semi-retirement has seen Leon Botha and Danny van Vuuren cause an upset in class N4, winning the class twice and scoring a second place in their Pretoria Subaru Impreza WRX. Botha has rocketed into contention for the overall Group N championship title, albeit as an outside bet. –
– KwaZulu-Natalians Mally Saville/Alec Harris (Auto Services Subaru Impreza WRX) have been consistent finishers this year, while fellow Impreza runners, Gawie and Santie Nel (Beaver Services Zambia WRX) have scored well, but missed the last two rounds due to business commitments. –
– Youngsters Nicholas Ryan and Brian Carrihill (ABC Motors Subaru Impreza GT) have battled to come to grips with the power of their Impreza, but a career-first rally win in August has boosted Ryan’s confidence. Gauteng businessman Marius Swart and Jan Sime will debut their similarly-bodied Impreza GT after a shakedown run in a regional rally was followed by a roll while filming a TV documentary on dangerous sport. Eina!!! –
– Making their debuts in Subaru Impreza WRX’s are local hero Werner Koekemoer/AN Other (AgriChem WRX) and the only all-girl crew in SA rallying, Lola and Megan Verlaque (Planet Plant Hire WRX). Both teams will be finding their feet in the powerful All Wheel Drive machines and hoping to finish the event and build up some mileage ahead of a full season in 2003. –
– A surprise entry in class N4 will be the appearance of current class N1 champion Marthinus Briers/Sarita Vrey in a brand new Volkswagen Racing-built Golf Tdi, with support coming from VolkswagenSure. This marks the debut of diesel-powered cars in SA rallying, although two of the oil burning Golfs ran in the ARC section of the Rally of SA in 2000. –
– Tied at the top of the class A6 championship points table are two Team Total Toyota Corolla RSi crews. Both Jean-Pierre Damseaux/Kobus Vrey and Craig Trott/Gerhard Snyman will be going flat out to eek out an advantage. This class championship will go into the final round in October. –
– Visser du Plessis/Greg Gericke (Car Cosmetics/Nationwide Airlines Toyota Corolla RSi) will be hoping to put their run of appalling luck behind them, which has included two car-destroying rolls earlier in the year. Peter Teague/Donovan Brown (Hi-Q VW Polo Playa) and Ken Westermayer/Johan Pienaar (Transaxle VW Polo Playa) will be making the trip from KZN to add to VW’s points tally. –
– Numerically the biggest class, A5 has seen no less than eighteen points scorers this year, of which twelve are expected to make the trip south for the rally. –
– Reigning class champions Rodney Visagie and Carolyn Swan (Team Total Toyota Tazz) head the class points log from Kobus Roos/Brendan (Sasol DualFuel™ Volkswagen Junior Team Chico) and are separated by 11 points. Roos scored a remarkable seventh overall in the “Mountains” last month and is brimming with confidence. Michael Houghton/Craig Jennings (Toy Toy Toyota Tazz) are third through sheer consistency. –
– Nkosinathi Nzimande/Fani Fani Moyiwa and Gugu Zulu/Dave McGregor, both in Sasol VW Junior Team Chicos, are steady class runners, mixing with the top Castrol Toyota Media Challenge runners on a regular basis. –
– The Challenge, a rally within a rally, is contested by motoring journalists from Cars In Action/Motorsport Africa (Steve Mearns/Cirian Nunan), Drive/Wiel (Ferdi de Vos/Johan Smalberger) and Topcar (Colin Mileman/Andre van Deventer) all running identically prepared Toyota Tazzes. Mearns/Nunan scored a stunning victory on Mearns’ rally debut in the trying conditions in the Eastern Cape last month. –
– Allen Worms/AN Other (Car Cosmetics Toyota Tazz) and Kobus Edas/Derek Jacobs (RCS Auto Tazz) round out the class runners. –
– Geoff Mortimer and Gerry Gericke (Nissan Finance Sentra) have already been crowned class N3 champions after the withdrawal of Ferdi Koekemoer/Richard Clark’s Renault Clio due to a shoulder injury following a road accident returning from the VW Rally in July. Neither make the trip to the coast this time, but will hopefully be in action on the final event in October. –
– Just seven points separate the class N2 top runners, Dean Sanders/Ashley Gericke (Team Total Toyota Corolla RSi) and Richard Behm/Grant St Clair in a similar Palbin-supported Corolla RSi. Both crews have recorded a non-finish apiece and a battle royal can be expected from these two evenly matched crews. –
– Wessel Venter/Patrick Johnson (Toyota Conquest), Amlay Abduraghmaan/Yusuf Ganief (Toyota Corolla Rsi) and Andy Haigh Smith/Gerald Brace (Toyota Conquest) are the other class runners. –
– Gregory Bloomer/Gregory Wood in their Toy Toy Toyota Tazz, following three successive class wins in the last three outing, head class N1. Newcomers Vusi Mabanga/Patrick Yende (Team Total Sowetan Toyota Tazz) scored their debut class win in the Tre Cento Cape Rally earlier this year and are hoping for a repeat performance. –
– Newcomers Hylton Belitzky/Justin Wade will make their national rally debut at the wheel of their new BMS VW Chico and will be happy to finish their first two-day event. –
– The Subaru Cape Rally officially starts on Friday (20 September) at 15h00 in front of House of Subaru in Tyger Valley before moving to the Killarney race track for back-to-back Superspecial stages, which pits two evenly matched competitors against each other over a mirror-image track. –
– Subaru South Africa are finalizing an interactive event website, for info and results, details of which will soon be announced. –
– The rally headquarters and parc ferme will be based at the Killarney track. –
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