Bruising opening round of Daniel Pienaar Rally
The season-opening Daniel Pienaar Rally turned into a race of attrition in hot and dusty conditions on the outskirts of Kariega on Saturday and the old saying “to finish first, you first need to finish” could not have been truer.
The biggest casualty was the national pairing of Neels Vosloo and Rikus Fourie, in their Hella/Herotel-backed VW Polo, who suffered damper failure in the early stage of the event, which led to them rolling out of contention in stage three.
With just three weeks to go before the opening round of the National Rally Championship, it will be a race against the clock to get their car repaired.
Gary Heine and Demi Kretzmann, in their Triple L VW Polo, ran into early problems in stage two, as did teammates Deon Kretzmann and Jason Schreiber in stage three.
Siblings Ross and Roxanne Bartle retired their Triple Lsponsored VW Polo with a blown gearbox in stage four.
And Nick Davidson and Ashley Bezuidenhout dropped out in stage six when their brand new Toyota Auris developed mechanical issues after having won stages two, three and four.
Defending champions Oliver de Man and Ingrid Jeacocks were plagued by technical issues with their classic Toyota Corolla and finished about 15 minutes behind the winning time.
A large appreciative crowd followed all the stages from the close confines of the Daniel Pienaar School grounds to the bumpy Innibos dirt sections and then the fast-flowing sections of Spidersweb before finishing back at the DP School grounds.
A highlight of the event was the participation of the ex-factory team Nissan Skylines of Hannes Grobler and Kassie Coetzee, with Martin van Zummeren and Shaylene Godfrey in one and Wade van Zummeren and Robbie Coetzee in the other.
Kassie Coetzee was on hand to share many a nostalgic rally story and to witness all of the action first-hand after having travelled down from his home in Mpumalanga.
Despite an early setback in the opening stage of the rally where they damaged a steering arm on their VW Polo after clipping a kerbstone, Clyde Challenor and Grayham Bishop showed it was consistency that counted when it came to overall honours.
They brought their VW Polo home in first place, almost two seconds ahead of the VW Polo of Riekus Schmidt and Sherilee Pieterse in second and the Polo of Juan and Tarryn van Rooyen in third.
Class winners:
ARC 5
1 Devilliers Wessels and Francois Anker, VW Polo 250 1.2 TSI
2 Ulrich Roberts and Wesley Schultz, VW Golf A1 1400.
ARC 4
1 Riekus Schmidt and Shirlee Pieterse, VW Polo 250 2L
2 Juan and Tarryn van Rooyen, VW Polo 250 1600
3 Jeandré Marais and Tegan Taljaard, Toyota Conquest 1600.
ARC 3
1 Clyde Challenor and Grayham Bishop, VW Polo 240 2L
2 Johan and Juane Viljoen, VW Polo 250 2L
3 Herman Bernhardt and JP Smit, Ford Escort 2L.