Sabat’s rally team – Michele Lupini and Gary Kingsley-Wilkins may have retired from the Total Rally SA in the Sabat Tazz, but the team was buoyed by their progress despite a troublesome run. –
– The team had worked around the clock to ready the Tazz for the event following it sustaining significant damage when Steve Mearns rolled the car in the previous rally in Natal. “There’s only so much so many hands can do in a given time,” Lupini admitted. “So the car wasn’t as well prepared for the event as perhaps we’d have liked and we suffered several niggling problems as we progressed – our plan was to sort it out as we went along…” –
– So after a frustrating Thursday evening at Zwartkops, where an off-song machine prevented the crew from benefiting Lupini’s tarmac driving experience on the racetrack, the duo sprang back into contention on the first two dirt stages on Friday morning. But the series of teething niggles that the team was expecting and prepared for, was accompanied by a problem they could not solve – a crankshaft failure put them out of the event at the end of stage six. –
– “At least we know that despite the Sabat Tazz being less than perfectly sorted for this event, it is on the pace and we can now look forward to the rest of the season with a view to challenging for class honours,” Lupini concluded. “We have quite a job ahead of us, but there’s more than enough time before the next event, when we intend to have the Sabat Tazz bang on the button…” –
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