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That Crest, that crest, that ....

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Author: Leon Botha

Publishing date: 26.07.2010 08:03

Johnny Gemmel and Drew Sturrock - overall winners after an intense battle!

Although Johnny Gemmell does not lack any self confidence, when I said to him last week that I believed this rally suited his style down to a tee, he shook his head slightly - 50% because he is not a big mouth and 50% because he knew what sort of competition he would have on the event.

The moment you start predicting the outcome of rallies these days you do actually rely on thumb-sucks. The pace is simply too intense and the risks just too high to do calculated guessing?

After Stage One I believe that anyone who had any doubts about the Ford/Rautenbach combination would have been converted, but when Gemmell posted second fastest and Hergen came walking out following Pierre who was about 50 metres ahead between the A5 arrivals - my prediction was confirmed in my mind, although Habig on a good day at the age of 50 could upset something bigger than the proverbial applecart!

Enzo was so far off the pace I developed a numb pain somewhere in the region of my prostate because I knew that no matter what happened, or who would win this event, it was going to be a close affair notwithstanding the Ford's lead of almost 12 seconds after the Opening Stage!

I remained at the end of Stage 1 as that would become start of SS3 which for the first time this year, gave me a chance to see the tail-end of the event do their thing.

This did it for me, looking at the faces, having a word or two with them while they were participating in an event that was just as important to them, as the one the heroes up there in front thought they were in!

This would also give me an opportunity to see what Stefanie and Willem Hugo managed to pull out of the hat, after I had the opportunity to work with them on their rallying for a day or two.

Stefanie and Willem Hugo - winners in Class N3

The sad part of this and the following stage was that almost all the non-finishers fell out already!

Hergen and Pierre fell out in Stage One when the Polo's suspension failed, Andre Cleenwerck rolled out of contention. Then right in the beginning of Stage Two I saw Gugu's car standing when I went over to recheck the stages after all the cars went through. Megan and Oliver Verlaque were stuck without fuel after cracking a fuel pipe, Morne Janse van Rensburg and Derek Jacobs - the last of Keith's brigade crashed out of the event a few kilometres from the end of stage Two.

Keith said it was because I did not tell them to go slower in the notes and I said that it would not have helped as Derek was too old to read faster!

Evan Hutchison and Elvene Coetzee also did not go into stage two and withdrew with apparent gearbox problems.

Stage Two also saw the end of Mike Nathan and Etienne Lourens' hopes.

Gemmell won stage two followed by Enzo Kuun and then immediately in the money was Hein Lategan. He was only a second off Gemmell's time and a mere tenth of a second slower than Enzo through that tricky and loose stage.

Having said that - one has to remember one thing and that is Enzo had the truly undesirable job of sweeping on day one and sweep, he did!

The roads were covered by an approximate 3centimetre of after-grading pebbles and loose sand. The true surface of the road was hard and offered some grip when you eventually got the tyres to break through the top layer. Problem was to guess how far you would slide before the "grip kicked in?"

Later on Friday it came as a bit of a surprise to me, when we drove through the stages to check the Notes, to see that the lines through most corners were quite conservative and that many corners offered in some cases up to two metres space that was not used on the exit.

A wider approach on one specific corner by me while doing the notes caused the call to be a Left 8, while on the rerun I had to change this call to a Hairpin Left 9 - following the track lines through the corner.

The reason for this was that no one dared go much deeper into or wider out of the corners than the lines set by Enzo, which in a way explains why he managed to stay with those who had much (and I mean MUCH) better grip?

Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh in the Ford Focus.

Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh still led the rally but now by only 1.2seconds from second placed Gemmell and Sturrock.

Privateer Lategan upset the Holy Pecking order a bit by sitting in third overall spot, Habig was fourth which was not bad for a third on the road runner and Enzo was in a predictable but excellent 5th after a mother of a sweep through a loose Stage 2.

Cronje who ran second on the road also did well to cling to 6th.

Jaco van Dyk and Des de Fortier made a few eyebrows lift when they wormed into 7th ahead of a few much more favoured names!

Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove led the two wheel brigade in fine style with Tjaart Conradie and Craig Trott following a bit of a distance behind.

Amlay and Yusuf led N3 with Stefanie and Willem Hugo nursing a misfiring Toyota in second spot.

Ashley Haigh-Smith and Hilton Auffray showing the maturity I knew they both possessed led A5 while Chad Lambert and Herman Groenewald had their fair share of problems.

Ashley Haigh-Smith and Hilton Auffray Class A5 winners

Talking of which - JP Damseaux and Carolyn Swan, as well as Japie van Niekerk and Robin Houghton were battling to stay away from last position overall after both suffered serious setbacks in the stage!

Gemmell clinched another win from an almost perfect position (fifth) on the road. He was the first driver to whom the surface although still slippery would start offering some grip, while especially Kuun, Mark Cronje and Habig would have had their work cut out to stay on the road, never mind getting grip around the corners. Habig's individual style of driving might have given him a slight edge, but it must still have been pure hell to keep it on the road at pace? He did however miraculously manage second fastest while Enzo did not less than post third quickest. Followed by Mark.

What a pity, what a real pity! Hein Lategan and Johan van der Merwe - retired in SS8

Lategan was again in the top 5 while Conrad Rautenbach could only manage 6th fastest after the burst of speed through stage 1.

Nicolas Ryan and Geoff Tyrer managed 8th, followed by Visser du Plessis and JP Damseaux to complete the top 10.

Dolf Coetzee and Jacques Nel dropped out of the event with more than their fare share of problems with the car.

Gemmell shot into the lead, while Habig took up second spot (so far definitely the drive of the day) while Rauttenbach dropped to third overall. Hein also lost one spot, while Enzo and Mark stayed put in 5th and 6th respectively.

The followed Mark Cronje in 6th, Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman in 7th, Jaco van Dyk and Des de Fortier in 8th, Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich who so far had a very quiet day in 9th and Mohammed Moosa and Grant Martin in 10th.

Leeroy Poulter was still first two wheel-drive, while Rookies Sebastiaan and Daniel Klaassen led N4 and my personal worries about them getting a call or two wrong started to subside.

Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove - incredible run in between the big bangers!

Stage 4 - a truly loose affair started around and around the Oval and then disappeared over a 6km loose, tight and twisty newly graded road. The stage would be much the same for the first ten or so cars as the surface would in many places keep on breaking up instead of being swept, and...

Enzo Kuun won it despite being first on the road and he won it good and solid giving those who would have liked a sign - exactly what they could expect on the re-run through all the gravel stages on day two. He now occupied second spot overall with Gemmell still in the lead.

Hein Lategan was second fastest putting a smile on my face as I noted a few world champions frown more and more! HA! What did I tell you in the beginning of the year?

Then followed two tar stages where Rautenbach was about the only driver to loose quite a bit of time.

Going to bed on Friday evening Gemmell led the event by 5.3 seconds from Kuun, with Lategan in third spot seemingly on his way to the S2000 podium finish he and navigator Johan van der Merwe deserve.

Habig and Pitchford was in 4th, Cronje and Paisley in 5th while Rautenbach and Marsh were in a slightly troubled 6th.

Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich were in 7th, while S2000 rookies Jaco van Dyk and Des de Fortier smiled in 8th spot overall.

Visser du Plessis 9th and Nicolas Ryan completed the top 10, with Mohammed Moosa knocking on the door.

Poulter and Dearlove led A6 and the two wheel brigade with Tjaart Conradie right behind them. Sebastiaan and Daniel Klaassen led in N4, Amlay and Yusuf were ahead in N3, while ever improving Ashley Haigh-Smith was ahead in A5.

Gavin Cronje and van Aardt Schoeman were last overall after a nightmare day!

Then early Saturday morning outside the Parc Ferme the day was discussed - especially some of the blind-rises or as they are called "Crests" in the Route Notes.

On the subject of "Blind-rises" with all respect to most of our readers and even a number of rally drivers, few people realise what it means in rallying?

In the "old days" (it is always so nice to refer to them as few people will go check if you are telling the truth or not) when we did not have the luxury of "Route Notes" and had to drive the "blind-rises" BLIND - that was of course if you were not one of the select few "works drivers" who actually had "pace notes" on most stages in South Africa which they used fruitfully - sometimes.

If you were a real rally driver - not one of the works-team manager's drinking buddies - you had to contemplate these monstrosities with respect, or fall so hard the people in the next town heard your ass crack!

I will never forget one Toyota Dealer Rally in the Cape where I had to chase a car that cost in the region of a Million Rand more than the one I was driving. Starting off on Saturday morning I needed a lifetime or in real rally terms, one minute 29 seconds to win the class and keep my chances to win the championship in the five out of eight rallies I could compete in, alive.

This specific rally had a number of 'blind-rises' but the second or third last stage had the mother of them all.

Richard Clark navigated for me - we still needed something like 11 seconds to reel in the car ahead of us and we were approaching this long downhill through a dip and then up to Mama Mia - a blind-rise you could simply not find a clue as to what it would do.

We were doing around 237km/h and I was very busy getting my affairs in order with the Gatekeeper at the Pearly Gates and I believe that Richard was also, standing on his knees in the seat next to me, doing his best to convince me to tap off or at least put both my feet on the brake pedal when we hit the crest of the blind-rise.

I knew that if I managed to keep my foot flat and stay on the road and alive on the other side - I would take at least 6 or 7 seconds from the other driver!

I guessed that the road would "twitch" a few degrees to the left after we reached the top and lined the Scooby up to cover that possibility!

It felt like an hour before I could see the road after the car climbed a few metres into the air and the nose started going down. I think my ass formed a koeksister - definitely not a doughnut - for a second or two, but when the road came into vision and the Scooby simply set all four her wheels down like a Jumbo jet - precisely where I wanted her and she growled on to win the stage and the Production car title for the event and later the championship that year - I fell in love with blind-rises and Subarus all over again!

Nothing gives you the same feeling than a blind-rise done correctly.

These days yours truly still have sleepless nights because of both Subaru and Blind-rises.

The blind-rises because I have to put on paper and DVD enough information either to scare the shit out of the competitors and get them to brake before the bloody thing or to describe the specific place in the route so correctly that they would land on the other side on the road instead of in an ambulance.

Nothing - NOTHING scares and worries me more, than when I hear one or two of our local Mario Andretti's of the gravel roads, discuss a blind-rise or a tricky spot before the rally.

It usually goes something like this, "Nee man (which in that imported language called English means 'no man" - not nobody - but NO and then MAN after a bit of a break - which I now realise does not mean a thing in English - which explains why they got a few hidings from the Gideons gang of Boers riding around causing havoc?) - anyway, the conversation goes like this, " Nee (wait a second) man, you see it works like this," the teller of the story will now have his hands out of his pockets to show the listener or if he is lucky two or three, how the road goes, "when I get into the dip before the crest, I go slightly left, or is it right? let me think - yes, yes, it's right - go slightly left - or is it right? Never mind - then I nail her" - and now he is not talking the neighbour's wife - this is serious kilowatts he is talking about "I nail her vrot and then I land about three hundred metres (read 10 or so) down the road just before I have to brake and change down three gears from 11th to make the Left Nine corner!"

It is moments like these when I feel a slight tremble of the left eyelid, my throat go dry and I walk away humming "Closer my God to Thee".

This is exactly what happened on Saturday morning of the 2010 Volkswagen Rally.

I stood around handing out the final few Route Note changes in the stages after the field went through on Friday. Only slight and very few changes - but still as Route Note Millionaire it is my job to try and keep the champions on the road.

Then the normal discussion point of this specific rally - the blind-rise in Culturama and the blind-rise in Sinkdam - which is the same bloody blind-rise but going to one side once and then as the reverse of the same stage going back.

Every year the road changes slightly - it is either narrower due to a deep rut on the side, or it is wider with a twitch due to grading. Almost the same but it required slight adjustments.

While doing it as "Culturama" there was truly not much in it and a "Crest Mid" call would probably have sufficed? I did however describe it as a "Caution Crest slight left stay mid over 90m" - this seemed to have worked well?

Coming back doing the same stage in reverse (now remember this was the second time everyone went over the same stage as they did the same on Friday) the call was "Danger stay left up Crest (turn) Right 2 at its crest - deep ditch on Right!!"

"Danger" meaning "beware with your foot on the brake" or at least your neck stretched to see what was going one and "deep ditch on the right" meant - try to avoid the right side of the road.

"Right two" at the speed for the Adrenaline carriers would mean barely a three centimetre twitch of the steering just before the rubber of the Dunlop rally tyres do ballet "pointed toes" over the crest and the navigator sounds like a cross between Mimi Coertse and Peter de Villiers!

I think any worthwhile driver's biggest fear in life must be to look to his left and see Peter de Villiers sitting in the seat next to him. Can you imagine that over a crest at the best part of 200km/h?

Anyway - during the 'driver and ex-driver" discussion of the blind-rise I swear the one was telling his lines from the one side, while he described his landing coming from the other side! That was OK, but my concern was that a brand new competitor stood listening to this bullshit!

If this was a "normal" competitor I would not have worried too much as it takes a few years for most people to get the adrenaline flow organised to hit the left ball right at a specific moment to paralyze the muscles of the legs so that you can not lift them - the one from the petrol peddle and the other from the floorboard to hit the brake before you clear a real blind rise!

Problem was that this specific newcomer was Sebastiaan Klaassen - one of the worst adrenaline junkies I have met in my life. If you are familiar with the TV Sitcom Fawlty Towers (and if you are not - that is probably your problem in life?) you will recall Manuel the tyrannized waiter from Barcelona always calling Sybil the wife of Basil Fawlty "Crazeee" when he refers to her after one of her outbursts.

Describing Sebastiaan as a bit like Mrs Fawlty according to Manuel would not be too far off the mark? The man simply has to test every bloody thing and it is no secret that he and his slightly more 'sedate' brother Daniel have the money to do so!

How do I know?

Well they arrived at Rallystar one day announcing their intention to become "a rally driver" - both of them! Two very different guys, two or more different driving styles - one bald-headed old man with a paunch to teach them! Dear oh dear and neither of them believed every word I said!

I love them both! Having them as friends is one (or more) of the highpoints in my life as you never know where the hell they were going to pop-up from next. Every time anything flies over my house or Rallystar I look to see if one of the Klaassen brothers are not hanging out waving! It is almost as nerve wrecking as waiting (luckily it stopped a few months ago) for Hannes Visser to jump out from behind a bush in every rally TV program announcing the event? That stopped, but Seb and Daniel are carrying on!

Standing listening to the tales of the blind-rise told by those who are supposed to know - I watched Sebastiaan and saw the twinkle in his eyes! I swear I could hear him decide, "I am going to nail that F#$%%$#@!"

I immediately jumped in to talk him out of it, because I knew that most of what was said was nothing else than "normal rally bullshit" - not many people have close to the balls to keep their right feet flat over that specific blind-rise. Go stand there at the blind-rise and catch a listen to some of these theoretical heroes! Some of them go down two gears and then come over the rise like a Karoo farmer with a load of Ostriches on the back of his Hilux!

Piet Hein, zijn naam ben klein, zijn sprongen groot....

Klaassen - definitely family of Piet Hein that famous Dutch naval privateer who beat the Spanish fleet almost single handed (Rueda beware!) - decided that he would try and win the rally overall - and if he did not succeed - he could already think what it would be like to clear that crest without lifting a foot!

I am not shitting you - he had the story completely wrong - but he was not going to lift a foot! I knew it and did my best to tell him to take care without sounding like Mother Teresa! I considered stealing their car keys, but knowing him he would have made provision for such an instance - as they do tend to forget unimportant things like car keys and so on!

All I could do was try to ignore the issue and hope that it would go away! Like some rally commission members?

Later in the day and after seeing the Klaassen's after Stage 7, I was on my way back to Pretoria trying to better my seven hour record.

Then a certain competitor phoned me just as I was going into Cradock.

"Did you hear about the two Dutchman?"

It felt as if a bucket of cold water hit me! "Oh shit" I thought "what now?" but I knew it was that bloody blind-rise and I knew it was coming through in Stage 9!

"I hear they are both in intensive care!" the person said.

I stopped the car and sat there despite the missus trying to find out what the hell was going on. When I could eventually hit the right buttons I got through to Willie du Plessis - he knew about the accident but could not say what the condition of Piet Hein's descendant and brother were!

He did not touch the brakes??

More calls - then luckily Joe Fourie gave me the greatest news of the day - they were fine. "One complained about his back but was not badly injured!"

If you knew them - you will be able to imagine what went on in that car on their way to the top of that crest - then imagine what happened when the Right Two was slightly misinterpreted to about a Left Three and the bank on the left hand side of the road approached at better than 160km/h?

I can hear Daniel scream, "My go%^%$$$ Seb, wat de @#$#$$% heb je nou gedaan? Hier vliegt ons door de lugt?"

Rautenbach opened his Saturday account with a blast through stage 7 that made every Tom, Dick and Johnny sit right up with wide eyes!

Habig was the only saving grace offering some reasonable resistance when he was second fastest "only" 6.4 seconds off the pace!

Instead of right up there now also making full use of the much better traction - Enzo posted 6th fastest time, suffering (in my humble opinion) from a bit of Friday slides and loose surfaces.

Stefanie Hugo was now after a bit of an early morning speech closer to the time I knew she could post, but I have to add that the poor (but beautiful) girl's Toyota did not try as hard as she did. The misfire refused to go away despite the service crew fiddling here and there while thinking about the replacement goodies they left behind in the Cape!

She moved up two spots, led the class and had to take the car to the end of the event - while pushing the limits during much needed seat time.

Leeroy Poulter kept on impressing me endlessly, but I must say that Tjaart Conradie did very well despite a flat wheel to stay within 4 seconds if the former.

Ashley was still on top of his game and led in Class A5 without much opposition.

Overall: Gemmell led by 8 seconds from Habig who moved into 2nd spot from 4th while Enzo's slow stage dropped him one spot to 3rd. Hein was now in fourth with Conrad in 5th.

We all held our breath to see what the Ford and Rautenbach had to offer in stage 8. That bloody thing simply looks awesome if not scary when it gets going and we knew that the combination of Rautenbach and the Ford could take candy from a gorilla if they wanted to?

Yep, it happened! One massive attack by the Ford team and they opened a 12.9s gap between them and the Kuun/Hodgson pairing who in turn took a much needed 1.8s from Gemmell.

Now the race was on, or was it?

Toyota lost the much needed services of Hein Lategan - although he pays his own way, while the almost lost Mark Cronje in the same stage as well.

Gemmell's lead shrunk to 7.2 seconds while Rautenbach moved into second spot.

Theuns Joubert and Carl Peskin - a rather quiet rally but in the points.

A repeat of his pace in Stage 9 would place Rautenbach ahead of Gemmell or so close the latter would feel him breathing in his neck!

Enzo was in 3rd spot 8.5s off the lead.

Stage 9 and surprise, surprise - despite one hell of an ongoing battle between Gemmell, Rautenbach and Kuun - Habig simply picks up another win.

We stood at the end of the stage where we could see the cars for about 2 kilometres and it was simply pleasing to the rally palate to watch an old master in action. His "sideways" driving, camouflaging the perfect and quick lines through the corners nicely.

Cronje was also back on the attack and posted fourth fastest time.

...and back in the field my prot�g� managed a proper stage time posting the fastest A6 time for the rally through the stage, while my ex-prot�g� Sebastiaan wiped the smile off my face later on!

Sebastiaan and Daniel Klaassen on their way to the Crest!

Do you want to hear the story? .....I did tell it already? OK, then lets carry on.

Gemmell now led by 8.7s from Enzo who was back in second spot. Habig was third and Rautenbach dropped to 4th.

Rautenbach claimed victory in SS10, while Charl Wilken managed second fastest time in a rally that he would like to forget in a hurry.

Enzo posted third fastest, but the interesting thing was that Johnny Gemmell lost 9 seconds in one go!

The race was going to the final tape as there were only 4.7s between Gemmell and Kuun!

Kuun won the last stage and beat Gemmell in the stage by 3.2 seconds which left him 1.5s shy of an overall win.

Stage 7 holds the answer?

Gemmell and Drew Sturrock won overall and Class S2000, with Kuun and Hodgson second, Habig and Pitchford third.

Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove led the two-wheel brigade and won A6 followed by Tjaart Conradie and Riaan Erasmus and in third Craig Trott and Robbie Coetzee.

Ashley Haigh-Smith and Hilton Auffray took Class A5 while Stefanie and Willem Hugo took home the N3 honours!

What a rally - and it is still going to get better!

Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson - 1.5 seconds shy of an overall win!

Men of the event? Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson for one of the best drives on day one that I have seen in my life, closely followed by Gemmell and Sturrock for holding on to first place when it mattered!

I almost forgot to mention that 2 from the top 10 spots were filled by PMC members! No matter how they try to hide the fact - it is there to see!

Book your place for the Osram Rally that is coming up on the 20th and 21st of August 2010 in Barkley East area!

"!Crest.R2" and so on!!

Attached files

Click to open stage and overall analysis	( Stage and overall analysis.xls 114.00 KB )
Click to open stage and overall analysis

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