South African Off-Road champion and Nissan motorsport legend Hannes Grobler will retire from rallying at the end of the year… Will he finish his prestigious 29-year career on a high?
South African Off-Road champion and Nissan motorsport legend Hannes Grobler will retire from rallying at the end of the year… Will he finish his prestigious 29-year career on a high?
Grobler will be vying for third successive driver’s title in this year’s Absa Off Road Championship, which starts with the Nissan Sugarbelt 400 on Friday.
“It’s time to hang up the driving gloves,” said Grobler, who has won both national rally and off road driver’s titles and competed in Datsun and Nissan products throughout his entire career.
“I still enjoy my racing,” he added. “But there comes a time when you need to spend more time with your family. I’ve been blessed with a long and enjoyable career, with more than my fair share of success”.
Grobler has won two SA amateur rally drivers championships (1979 and 1980), two national rally drivers championships (1986 and 1991), two rally production car drivers championships (1998 and 1999), and three national off road drivers championships (1986, 2003 and 2004). He was awarded his Springbok colours for motor sport in 1987 and his national colours in 1999.
“Thus 2005 is going to be my 29th and final year in local motorsport. My co-driver in the Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody is my good friend Francois Jordaan, who navigated for my old team-mate Giniel de Villiers these past four years, and the two of us intend to enter the 2006 Dakar Rally as privateers.
“That will be my final race. We have a big challenge just raising the substantial funds needed to compete in this famous international event, before we go out there and take on the toughest off road race in the world,” Grobler said.
