Johnny Gemmell and Peter Marsh came away from a bruising encounter with the Free State plains with a solid third overall on the Osram Rally, round six of eight in the Sasol SA Rally Championship.
Drawn first on the road, the S2000 Castrol Toyota RunX pair had the unfortunate job of sweeping the loose gravel off the road surface, giving their rivals an advantage, which they could ill afford to do.
Come Saturday morning, the winner of the Sasol Rally earlier this year was in second place, a position the pair maintained until the final stage when a suspension bolt came loose. Johnny dropped to 3rd place by only five seconds but rued the lost championship points.
“I’m really disappointed for the team”, said Johnny at the Bloemfontein finish. “They really worked hard all weekend and those two points were handed to Volkswagen on a plate. We wanted to help Serge as much as possible by taking points away from his championship rivals”.
Johnny continued: “Running first on the road in the Free State put us on the defensive from the start. I had to brake far earlier than I would normally. When we got to repeated stages, we went 20 seconds quicker because I could brake where I wanted to. As for the suspension, having the wheel moving around at 180km/h is hairy. This event is quite hard on the cars – it’s one of those things”.
For the championship leader going into the Osram Rally, Serge Damseaux and Robert Paisley had an event they would prefer to forget. The ten times SA driver’s champion was delighted to be drawn 4th on the road.
Saturday’s early stages brought Serge’s ‘Osram jinx’ into play. The S2000 Castrol Toyota RunX lapsed onto three cylinders, the power steering pump stopped working and a stone pierced a brake pipe in stage 4.
Robert explained: “As Serge braked for a corner, the pedal went to the floorboards. He grabbed the handbrake a pitched the car sideways. We clipped a rock which punctured a tyre, so all in all we lost 2 minutes”.
The Castrol Toyota technicians replaced the wiring harness in the service park to try and cure the misfire, to no avail. The engine stopped in the dying metres of the last stage, leaving Serge and Robert to freewheel over the flying finish control of the final stage and into their first retirement of the year.
“It’s a rally I’d rather forget”, said Serge, who dropped to third place in the title race. “There’s still two rallies to go and the RunX has been a brilliant car all year. This year’s title race will probably go down to the final stage of the final event. We’ll still give a good account of ourselves”.
Mark Cronje and Chris Birkin claimed their 6th consecutive class A7 win of the year, taking their championship-winning Castrol Toyota RunX to a five minute win over their nearest challengers.
“We had a lot of fun today”, Mark grinned. “We broke a shock absorber in stage six so had to take things easy for a while and lost 1½ minutes but I was able to push hard where I felt comfortable. It was great doing this event in a faster car than our A6 RunX we had last year”.
Mark continued: “We had a huge scare in the last stage when we hit a jump really fast. The car nosed into the ground and for a moment I thought that was it but I guess we got lucky”.
Mark and Chris wrapped up the 2007 class A7 championship last month with three rounds to spare, such has been the domination of the A7 Castrol Toyota RunX. Chris de Wit/Dean Redelinghuys (A7 Toyota RunX) ended second to the Castrol machine.
Etienne Lourens and Andre Vermeulen (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) led proceedings at the end of Friday’s two Bloemfontein stages but also had their share of drama on Saturday. In stage five, a puncture with 15kms still to go and a subsequent rough section broke a rim, which in turn broke a brake caliper.
The Total RunX was forced to run stage 6 without brakes before returning to service for repairs. Earlier in the day, the pair hit a dip at the end of a stage with such force that the sump guard broke the sump, the repair taking 8 minutes longer than the service time available and incurred a 1:20 penalty. The Pretoria pair finished 8th overall.
Jean-Pierre Damseaux/Cobus Vrey (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) hit a rock and retired early on Saturday morning.
Toyota claimed another three class wins besides Mark’s A7 victory.
Salie du Toit/Gert van Rensburg (A6 Team Total Toyota RunX) headed home a Toyota 1-2-3 in the class after a polished drive, finishing nearly two minutes ahead of the React Toyota Corolla of Andy Haigh Smith/Eugene le Roux.
The class A6 championship leaders Craig Trott/Carolyn Swan (A6 Team Total Toyota RunX), moved closer to the championship and only need another 4 points from the remaining 18 available to wrap up the crown.
The class N3 championship was turned on its head after the Osram Rally when Mohammed Moosa/Henry Dearlove emerged with a three-point lead after starting out fourth in line for the title. The other three RunXs that dominate the class all retired with various problems.
Etienne du Toit/Patrick Vermaak (McCarthy Toyota/Castrol Corolla) notched up their 5th straight win.
Wammy Haddad, Toyota Motorsport Manager summed up the weekend: “It was a typical Osram weekend. There are two events that don’t seem to like Toyota – the Osram and the Sasol Rally. It was a good weekend – not what we hoped for but not a disaster either”.