The rally starts on Friday (October 26) at 09.00 from East Rand Toyota, North Road Boksburg. After seven special stages, including a short tar stage in the K90 Centre car park in Boksburg at the end of the day, the rally will overnight in Boksburg. It will re-start at 08.00 on Saturday from East Rand Toyota and there will be a further seven stages, including two ‘super special’ stages at Kurhula RallyStar on the R51 between Bapsfontein and Benoni.
The rally finishes at around 15.45 at Kurhula RallyStar. Apart from stage 7 on Friday, all the stages are on dirt surfaces and cover a racing distance of some 200 km. Clerk of the Course John Ogden reports that it is a very compact event, with the dirt stages concentrated in the Bapsfontein area. Although this area is familiar to regular regional rallyists, Ogden warns that the stages for the national are completely different.
Rain in the area has given the organisers headaches, but Ogden is confident the route will hold up. Because of its compact nature, spectators will have numerous opportunities to see the cars in action. Kurhula RallyStar will be the central service point and spectators will be able to see their favourite cars and crews throughout the two days. Spectator guides will be available at the start on both days.
There are four contenders for the sought-after drivers’ championship (all competing in the premier class S2000), with 14 points separating them and 25 on offer for the victor. Three have worn the crown before and between them they have 16 championships.
Leading the challenge with 125 points is 10-times drivers’ champion Serge Damseaux with two-times co-drivers’ champion Robert Paisley (Castrol Toyota RunX). Just four points behind is five-times drivers’ champion Jan Habig with five-times co-drivers’ champion Douglas Judd (BP VW Polo). Third with 112 points and seeking their first national championship are ‘young guns’ Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries (BP VW Polo). A further point back are defending champions Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson (BP VW Polo), who won their first championship last year.
For Damseaux, the weekend’s event is reportedly the 55-year-old’s last in a national championship career that has seen him amass a record 74 wins so far (eight more than the previous record of 66 held by Sarel van der Merwe). Should he win the championship it will be for a record 11th time, an achievement he will share with Van der Merwe.
With so much at stake for all of the contenders, a battle royal is guaranteed. All but Kuun and Hodgson have won a round this year (Damseaux and Paisley have won three times, Fekken and Arries twice), with Johnny Gemmell and Peter Marsh (Castrol Toyota RunX) making it four different winners in the seven events held so far.
Gemmell and Marsh have impressed in their first season with the factory Toyota team, but two non-finishes see them back in sixth place in the overall standings with 92 points and fifth in class S2000 with 19 points.
Damseaux/Paisley lead class S2000 with 40 points and are followed by Habig/Judd on 32 points, Fekken Arries on 29 points and Kuun/Hodgson on 23 points.
Also seeking a first win of the season are Jean-Pierre Damseaux and Cobus Vrey (Team Total Toyota RunX), 9th in the overall standings with 73 points and sixth in class, Etienne Lourens and Andre Vermeulen (Team Total Toyota RunX), who are 11th overall with 61 points and seventh in class, and son and father combination Jon and Doug Williams (Trident Press/Guma VW Polo), the lone genuine privateers in S2000 who are 12th overall and eighth in class.
An impressive fifth overall in the championship, ahead of four of the S2000 crews, are leading Production Car and class N4 contenders Visser du Plessis and Dave Lewkowicz (Pirtek/Kreepy Krauly Subaru Impreza WRX). Their consistency – they have scored in all seven events so far including two Production Car wins – sees them 16 points clear of defending Production Car champions Nicholas Ryan/Schalk van Heerden (Bosal/Jonnesway Subaru Impreza WRX) and 29 points ahead of Fernando Rueda/Gerhard Snyman (Team Total Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9).
With a different scoring system for the class competition, Du Plessis/Lewkowicz lead N4 with 41 points, from Rueda/Snyman on 31 points and Ryan/Van Heerden on 28 points.With a different scoring system in class N4, they lead Rueda/Snyman by 11 points and Ryan/Van Heerden by 16 points.
Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich (Sasol/Konica Minolta Subaru Impreza WRX), winners of the season-opening Total Dealer Rally in the Western Cape in March and the last round, the Total Swartland Rally in September, are fourth overall with 42 points and fourth in class with 24 points.
In class A7 the interest is on who will take the runner-up spot from already crowned champions Mark Cronje and Chris Birkin (Castrol Toyota RunX), who have won all seven events. Five points separate Chris de Witt/Dean Redelinghuys (Team Total Toyota RunX) on 19 points, Tony Ball/Alan Bissett (Bulwer Motors VW Golf) on 16 points and Barry Grobbelaar/Mike Burrows (Sasol VW Golf) on 14 points.
Newly crowned A5 champions Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin made an impressive A7 debut in their BP VW Polo in the previous round and will be challenging for a podium finish.
Craig Trott and Carolyn Swan (Team Total Toyota RunX) lead the respective driver and co-driver standings in class A5, with Trott six points ahead of Stevan Wilken (Team Pannar VW Polo) and Swan an unbeatable 10 points clear of Eugene le Roux (co-driver to Andy Haigh-Smith in a Toyota Corolla). Haigh-Smith is third in the drivers’ standings with Gert Nienaber (Wilken’s navigator third in the co-driver standings.
With Zulu and Peskin having clinched the class A5 championship in their BP VW Chico, the focus in this class shifts to the battle for second place. Just five points cover three drivers – Tjaart Conradie (Techwood Toyota Tazz) has 26 points, Piet Bakkes (Toyota Tazz) 22 and Andre Cleenwerck (BP VW Chico) 21. Conradie’s co-driver Elvene Coetzee is second in her category with 26 points, four ahead of Tommy du Toit (Bakkes’ co-driver).
Out of contention for the class title but very much in the frame for a second successive class win are Claudio Piazza-Musso and Greg Gericke Sasol Toyota Yaris). Their success in the recent Total Swartland Rally was their first this year in the brand new Yaris, which is still in the development stage under the direction of Race Prep’s Rod Herring.
A nail-biting battle continues in class N3, where former champion Rodney Visagie and co-driver Arno la Grange (Team Total Toyota RunX) have 34 points and lead by a single point from team-mates Mohammed Moosa/Henry Dearlove in another RunX. Michael Houghton (Team Total Toyota RunX) is third in the drivers’ category with 28 points and Kosta Koumantarakis (Toyota RunX) is fourth with 21 points. Barry White (Koumantarakis’ navigator for the first six rounds) is third in the co-drivers’ category with 19 points.
Etienne du Toit and Patrick Vermaak (McCarthy Toyota Corolla) lead the sparsely contested class N2 (it is to be dropped for next season) after six successive wins.
