Sabat’s rally team returned home frustrated after Michele Lupini and Garry Kingsley-Wilkins retired the from the lead of Class A5 at the weekend’s Toyota Dealer’s Cape rally. The Sabat Batteries Toyota Tazz overheated on stage 7. –
– The duo had charged ahead early on the second morning after driving a measured rally on the first day. “The Sabat Tazz running Sasol Dual Fuel on Dunlop rubber was brilliant up to then,” Lupini admitted. “The team’s hard work has paid off – the car is definitely now has the pace, but there’s clearly work to do – if we want to finish first, we first need to finish.” –
– “That said, we’ll be back with an even better but hopefully more reliable car. “But we need to congratulate our great rival Gugu Zulu on an historic class victory in the Sasol Duel Fuel VW CitiGolf.” –
– Zulu and Dave McGregor wound up the eventual winners continuing a rally-long two-car battle for the lead with Stephen Putter and Greg Flockhart’s similar CitiGolf after the Sabat team had retired. Toy-Toy Toyota Tazz pair Greg Bloomer and Greg Gericke drove home a happy third from a resurgent Nkhosinathi Nzimandli in the second Sasol Citi and Danie Botha and Jan Sime in the Automark Castrol Tazz. –
– A5 champions Rodney Visagie and Carolyn Swan in the Total Tazz suffered a similar, albeit earlier demise to the Sabat crew. That means Zulu’s victory, the first ever by a man of colour in a national rally, sees Class A5 still wide open as it was Gugu’s first finish of the season while other leading teams have also regularly not finished, leaving it all to play for. –
– “Yes, we have had a difficult start to the season and our problems have delayed our development, but we’re getting on top of it and we now know that given a little luck and reliability, we can challenge for class honours.” Lupini concluded. “But we’d like to thank and salute our sponsors, Sabat Batteries, Sasol Dual Fuel and Dunlop and everyone else whose helped keep the show on the road through a difficult period – we’ll be going all out for a good finish at the Sasol Rally in three weeks…” –
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