Fernando Rueda/Graham Hooper in their N4 SASOL Mitsubshi EVO 8 took the honours to beat rivals Jean Pierre Damseaux/Cobus Vrey in their Team Total Toyota Corolla by 8 seconds. Rueda/Hooper spun off in the last stage that ran on the oval track, but soon rejoined the stage as precious seconds were ticking away in favour of Damseaux/Vrey. Rueda was delighted with the win saying that the regional is a practice run for the upcoming Toyota Dealer Rally in April. This also helped him to get the right set-up on the car.
Damseaux/Vrey challenged all the way beating Rueda/Hooper in two stages equaling and matching the Mitsubishi’s pace in the others. Damseaux said that stage one lost it for them as Rueda took too much time out of them.
Japie van Niekerk/Johan Sieling in their N4 EPSI Mitsubishi EVO 8 settled for third overall after suffering a broken left rear brake pipe in stage one. It cost the Gauteng competitors two minutes. Paul Pfeiffer/Duncan English in their N4 Mitsubishi EVO 6 had a clean rally and finished fourth overall.
Mike Nathan/Rikus Smit in their N2 AWI Toyota Corolla RSi drove hard to finish fifth. Nathan recalls how they were approaching a gate when he realized he is carrying too much speed. They corrected themselves through this tricky part and continued without incident. Jon and Doug Williams in their Gijima Toyota RunX had a solid rally after struggling with brakes in Natal. Doug Williams said that they more or less sorted the brake problem out and that it is now a matter of getting used to the more powerful RunX. Finishing seventh overall Ettienne du Toit/Patrick Vermaak in their Toyota Corolla had a clean rally. Jean du Plessis/JC Barnard in their BMW 325 who delighted the crowd with their sideways antics on the oval track finished eighth overall.
Competitors who had quite a task at hand were Peter Heyer-Cleave/Brandon Schultz in their S3 Mitsubishi EVO 3. The car practically just came out of the workshop and had to be driven in. Heyer-Cleave/Schultz drove the car from Cape Town to Bredasdorp. Heyer-Cleave’s goal was to finish the rally and they got rewarded with ninth overall.
Whilst the dust has settled in Bredasdorp teams are hard at work to prepare for the upcoming Toyota Dealer Rally on April 8-9.