Multiple champion off-road co-driver, Robin Houghton, who has occasionally tried his hand at reading route schedules on rallies, in the hot seat of a few privateer entries, will be a busy man this season. –
– Alternating between the sometimes extremely difficult task of finding the right route in the national off-road championship in the bouncing cockpit of a roaring mid-engined Castrol Toyota Land Cruiser for multiple champion Apie Reyneke, Houghton will also sit besides circuit racing champion, Charl Wilken, in the Sasol DualFuel national rally championship. –
– Their debut gravel road event, on March 7/8, the Hitachi Power Tools Tour Natal, in a new Toyota, covered in the familiar Castrol Toyota motor sport livery, was not the event dreams were made of, but they had a “good time” according to a busy Robin Houghton, finishing seventh overall and taking the honours in Class N3. –
– “With the pace getting faster and faster every year, thanks to more support from manufacturers, extending even to overseas support as far as budgets, components and equipment go, the job of an off-road navigator has become as highly skilled as that of a veteran rally co-driver. It is no longer merely just pointing the way, but actively taking part in the cockpit duties ensuring split second advantages in the face of very keen competition. –
– Houghton will take on a double life as from this weekend’s 2003 opening SA Off-Road Championship race in and around the Western Cape town of Darling, switching to off-road co-driving after the more leisurely pace of a near-standard rally car. –
– “It is from the one extreme to the other – the quick pace in a nimble rally car in short bursts of all-out racing on good gravel roads, to the equally fast pace of off-road racing in a large Land Cruiser following small tracks off the road for distances of 400 to 500 km a day. During the year I will be involved in 16 events – eight rallies and eight off-road races and in between I help my brother prepare his Tazz rally car, so it will be a frenetic year for me!”
