Two cars on podium for VW Sasolracing
Revs high with one round of SA National Rally Championship left
IT WAS a good weekend for the Volkswagen Sasolracing rally team as they celebrated two podium finishes. It has been quite some time since the team had such a good result.
The team also won the Manufacturer’s Award in the Toyota Cape Dealer Rally in the Western Cape on Saturday, with the pairings of Gugu Zulu and Hilton Auffray and Hergen Fekken and Pierre Ar- ries taking second and third place in their Sasolracing Volkswagen Polo.
The rally was won by Ford’s Mark Cronje and navigator Gerhard Snyman in the Ford Performance Fiesta S2000.
“It’s a fantastic result for the team,” head of Volkswagen Motorsport Mike Rowe said.
“The Volkswagen Sasolracing team did well and were there at the finish when it mattered, crossing the line for second and third, taking two podiums positions at this round. The stars of the rally were Henk Lategan and Barry White who didn’t put a foot wrong the whole event.
“Henk and Barry really should have won today, they had great pace and won rally stages, but aren’t here at the finish through no fault of their own.”
Unfortunately for Lategan and White it was the final section, at the end of stage 13 that the car suffered suspension failure and they were unable to make the finish.
This left them with a fourth-place finish, nowhere near where they would have finished considering all stages up till then had been getting progressively better.
The first stage of day two saw them third quickest, followed by second quickest times for the following four stages, and then producing the winning stage times for 10, 11 and 12.
“Second place on the podium is my best finish to date,” Zulu said.
“The longer, sweeping stages out here in the Western Cape make for a very tough and long event and we had to push – but not too hard. Rallying is a fine line between absolute pace and caution to get to the finish.”
For Fekken and Arries, a second consecutive podium appearance was on the cards.
“Two cars on the podium and a consecutive podium appearance for Pierre and myself. We had a puncture which cost us time, but we had a good event overall,” Fekken said.
There is just one round of the South African National Rally Championship left to run – the Polokwane Rally on October 16 and 17.