A day at Gerotek with Toyota Gazoo Racing was an eye opener for me, even after 20 years of motoring journalism including many on-track and off-road experiences. Before you ask if I got to drive the Yaris GR, the answer is no.
That will come later. What did excite (at first) and then frighten me was a couple of quick, special stage laps in the navigator’s seat of a Dakar Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux, driven by one of my heroes, Giniel de Villiers.
Assuring me that he did not require my help with navigating, he proceeded to scare the jeans off me by trying his best to destroy all of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s mechanical expertise at creating a bomb-proof Dakar bakkie.
If I could have navigated, all I would have said would be “slow down, danger ahead”. Large boulders are to be avoided but large rocks are there to test the tyres and suspension. Being mechanically minded, I have no idea how both those and the rest of the car can cope with that sort of punishment over a few weeks of Dakar torture.
I often joke with a friend that we should modify one of his old Jaguar XJ6 cars and Join in on the fun (in the classics section, of course). Well, I’ll now put that idea to bed as I don’t think I would last 10 minutes in any car if this is was what to expect. Let’s hope Giniel gets another win next year.
We also were taken for a few laps of the twisty handling track at Gerotek. This in a Toyota Gazoo Racing Global Touring car driven by Mandla Mdakane. Thankfully this was less stress on the back but the helmets took a beating against the roll bar as you tried to keep your head attached to your neck. The noise levels were high from a lack of any sound deadening and vibration was harsh.
The final event was a new product launched by Toyota SA called Easydrift. This consists of a low friction tyre cover that is placed over the rear wheels of any car. In this case automatic Toyota Corollas were used. The rear-end brakes away with a flick of the steering wheel at low speeds (around 35 km/h) and can be used for the vitally important training of drivers to control a car that gets into a skid.
Many accidents can be avoided by this training. Most of us have seen the results of an uncontrolled skid when someone swerves to avoid a dog on a freeway or to avoid a collision, goes into a skid and fails to apply opposite lock, sometimes more than once to maintain stability. The beauty of this product is that it obviates the need for an expensive skid pan.
