De Villiers, Howie take Mpumalanga 400 race despite wet tracks
Dakar Rally heroes Giniel de Villiers and Rob Howie, in a Toyota Gazoo Hilux, won the weekend’s Mpumalanga 400 race in Dullstroom to give them a flying start to the 2018 South African Cross Country Championship.
In cold and wet conditions with a very slippery track, De Villiers and Howie also took the honours in the FIA Class.
An excellent drive from Class T competitors Lance Woolridge/ Ward Huxtable (Ford NWM Ranger) took them into second place, comfortably ahead of Chris Visser/Philip Herselman (Atlas Copco Toyota Hilux).
One of the tightest battles of the race came behind the podium finishers, where Mark Corbett/Rodney Burke (Century CR6) held off Johan and Werner Horn in the Malalane Toyota Hilux, with only 13 seconds separating the two cars at the end.
Henk Lategan/Dennis Murphy (Toyota Gazoo Hilux) came in sixth, ahead of Jason Venter/ Jaco van Aardt (4x4 Mega World ARB Toyota Hilux).
Rounding out the top ten places were Brazilians Marcos Baumgart/ Kleber Cincea (Ford NWM Ranger), Luke Botha/Andre Vermeulen (Red-Lined Nissan Navara) and Richard Leeke Junior/Henry Kohne (BMW X3).
Class S went to David Huddy/Gerhardt Schutte (Nissan Navara), ahead of Archie/Kent Rutherford (Atlas Copco Toyota Hilux).
Stefan van Pletzen and Jaco Pieterse won the Special Vehicle category in their Lesotho Chenowth, around four minutes ahead of John Telford/Victor Ntsekhe (Calcamite BAT Warbird) and Coetzee/Sandra Labuscagne-Jonk (4x4 Mega World ARB Porter).
Rounding out the category were Werner Kennedy/CJ van Pletzen (Live Lesotho Porter) and Nic Goslar/Andrew Massey (SA Clinics Zarco Magnum), the last of the classified finishers.
The next event on the SACCS calendar will take the championship to Dundee, in KwaZulu-Natal, on May 4 and 5 for the Battlefields 400.