Heading to Cape Town for the Subaru Cape Rally, I was rather excited and knew I needed a good result if I wanted a shot at the class A5 title in the Sasol duelfuelä National rally championship. In the last 2 events, we had the pace, but mechanical maladies resulted in us having to save the car to bring it home in 2nd place and bag valuable points. But, in Cape Town, I wanted nothing but a win in our Sasol dualfuelä Volkswagen Chico. –
– Friday started off on a rather demanding note. Stage 1 was 42km long and best-suited the 4 wheel drive cars such as the Subaru’s and the Mitsubishi. In fact, they totally dominated and won the stage hands down. –
– In our class A5 category, Rodney Visagie and his Team Total Tazz took up the lead by 17 seconds ahead of Dolf Coetzee and then ourselves. In stage two, the final dirt stage of the day, Dave (McGregor) and I won by 1 second. Killarney Raceway was the venue for the final two super-special stages of the day, where two cars raced simultaneously. –
– We ended up running against the Rally Chicks – Lola and Megan Verlaque in a Subaru. Being used to tar, we managed to beat the Subaru and also matched Visagie’s stage times. This left us in 2nd place and 17 seconds behind Visagie in a now rather thin Class A5 field, after team-mate Nkosinathi Nzimande fell out with suspension failure. –
– Day 2 of the Subaru Cape Rally dawned and we knew that we had to work hard to beat Visagie and make up the 17-second deficit. I was confident that we could beat our championship rival. With the help of my crew, we opted to go radical and run wet tyres. The weather pattern was rather uncertain and there was standing water in parts, so the risk could work to our advantage. The wet tyres indeed provided more stability, allowing us to be quick in pull off and under breaking. –
– Stage five, which was a repeat of stage two, gave us the opportunity to take 3 seconds out of Visagie’s lead. Stages six and seven again saw us eat into his advantage by 12 and 21 seconds respectively. The tables had been turned, and we were in the lead by 18 seconds. –
– Visagie attempted to fight back but lost time when the fan belt snapped. Luckily for him, he managed to get going again but dropped further down the field. We kept the pressure on in the hope of scoring bonus points even though we were now 5 minutes ahead from a now 2nd placed Dolf Coetzee. –
– We most gratifyingly won our class and finished 17th overall. Another exciting weekend in my rally book. Three wins in my 2nd season of rallying and we are now truly in the chase for class A5 honours with 1-point separating Visagie and ourselves. –
– The final event in the Sasol dualfuelä SA National Championship, around Tzaneen, the Toyota Dealers Great North Rally, on 10 and 11 October, is one we look forward to with cautions optimism. –
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