It was a good weekend for Toyota Motorsport as the outfit won in Mpumalanga at the Toyota Dealer 400 when Duncan Vos and Rob Howie eclipsed the competition and broke the decade-long drought that last saw the team take the spoils of victory at a home event at the Toyota Desert Race of 1999 – which was held in Botswana.
The event was near-faultless for the team as it laid down the law from the word go – when Vos and Howie finished the 56-km Donaldson prologue first, with team-mates Anthony Taylor and Chris Birkin backing up the early leaders in third – which determined the starting order for the 344 km race.
Try as they might, Taylor and Birkin could not best their team-mates, who didn’t put a foot or wheel wrong on the way to victory. It was also a significant personal milestone for four-time champion Vos, who achieved his 20th National Off-road Championship victory in the process. Taylor and Birkin finished just 15 seconds behind the winners.
Hannes Grobler and Hennie ter Stege prevented a Toyota whitewash of the top finishing order by sneaking their BMW X3 into third overall – ahead of a duo of Hiluxes driven by Pikkie Labuschagne and Deon Venter, and Cliff Weichelt’s class-winning Land Cruiser.
“Our Dakar proven Hilux bakkies performed faultlessly throughout the two days. Both crews showed their class under very difficult conditions to record a long overdue success for Toyota in an event they have sponsored for 10 years,” said team principal, Glyn Hall.
The next round of the Absa Off-road Championship is the Atlas Copco 400 in KwaZulu-Natal on 18 and 19 May.