Despite being forced out of the season-ending race when their Proudly South African Nissan Navara suffered a broken steering arm and drive shaft, Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan had already wrapped up the championship at the penultimate round last month, when they finished second behind team-mates Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford in the Toyota Dealer 400 in Mpumalanga.
Nissan’s unequalled run of national championship successes started with a win in the Group N production car championship in 1996 and continued through four consecutive touring car championships until Nissan entered the off road championship in 2001.
The final round of the eight-race championship was won by Bevan Bertholdt and Robin Houghton in the factory-entered class SP Toyota Hilux, who scored their first win together and gave Toyota it’s long-awaited first overall production car victory since the Barberspan 500 in 2002.
Second, 17 min 51 sec in arrears were former champions Neil Woolridge and Kenny Skjoldhammer (works Ford Ranger), followed by Nissan privateers Arnold du Plessis and Johan Knox (BB Auto Group Hardbody). Du Plessis and Knox were also winners of class D.
Fourth and winners of class E were Jack Peckham and Ward Huxtable (works Ford Ranger), followed by brothers Mark and Stuart Moffat (class E Toyota Hilux) and son and father Hugo and Jaap de Bruyn (class D Hilux).
The retirement of Grobler and Jordaan assured Woolridge and Skjoldhammer a slim six-point victory in class SP, with a final score of 110 points to Grobler and Jordaan’s 94.
The Carnival City 400 is traditionally one of the toughest events of the year, and this year was no exception. Just 20 of the 78 production and special vehicles that started the 360-km race survived a tough day that included a punishing course of marshy flatlands, rocky hills and testing water crossings. To make life more difficult, intermittent downpours turned roads into car-trapping quagmires throughout the day.
Vos and Pitchford and Grobler and Jordaan finished Friday’s 40-km prologue, that determined the start order for Saturday’s race, second and third respectively behind Mark Cronje and Chris Birkin (works Toyota Hilux) in their Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody pickups and lined up for the start at Carnival City in confident mood. Grobler and Jordaan still needed to score enough points to beat former champions Neil Woolridge and Kenny Skjoldhammer (Ford Ranger) in class SP.
Vos and Pitchford’s race was effectively ended within the first 10 minutes when they hit a dip in a grassy track at high speed and broke both steering arm mounts. They lost over an hour while they repaired the damage with on-board spare parts, but were finally forced to retire when a shock absorber assembly started dismantling after they had completed 90 km of the 180-km first lap.
Grobler and Jordaan took over second place from their team-mates and were closing the gap to the Toyota of Cronje and Birkin – down from over a minute at the start to 33 seconds – when they too suffered a broken steering arm and drive shaft 60 km from the start. Without a spare steering arm aboard, they were unable to continue.
“We had a bad day – our worst since the last time both of our cars failed to finish, coincidentally at Carnival City three years ago – but happily we had already won the championship for the sixth year in a row,” said Nissan Motorsport general manager Glyn Hall. “We had hoped to pip Toyota to the manufacturers’ championship, which we hav won for the past five years, but we stumbled at the last hurdle.”
“The steering arm problem that affected both of our cars has been addressed for our 2007 cars – we have redesigned the front suspension – and the parts that failed were run-out items. A disappointing end to a great season, during which we won five of the eight events and finished second three times.” added Hall.
Polokwane brothers Jurie and Andre du Plessis (BB Auto Group Nissan Hardbody) finished seventh overall and third in class D, while Johan Ferreira and Nico Kotze (Nissan Hardbody) were 11th overall and fifth in class D.
Nissan privateers who failed to finish included Coetzee Labuscagne and Johann Gerber (Raysonics Nissan Hardbody), who retired after breaking both leaf springs on the rear suspension 100 km into lap two. Thomas Rundle and Brian Roberts (Barden Tyres Nissan Hardbody) almost made it to the finish and were one of the last to retire after battling to cope with the difficult conditions when they lost four-wheel-drive.
Deon Schoeman and Jan Sime endured a difficult event in their class D Nissan Hardbody, battling without a windscreen washer on much of the first lap and finally getting stuck in the mud and blowing their motor on lap two.
Husband and wife Jeremy and Michelle Fall were forced to abandon the race because of lateness after their diesel-engined class E DieselCar/Datcentre Pietermaritzburg Hardbody survived a number of maladies only to get stuck in the muddy conditions one time too many.
