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VOLKSWAGEN RALLY - PRIVATEER PRESS RELEASES
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Author: A combined resource RallyStar article

Publishing date: 26.07.2010 13:41

POULTER MAKES IT FOUR WINS IN A ROW ON VOLKSWAGEN RALLY



Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove on a charge!
Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove claimed their 4th consecutive Class A6 win in the Sasol South African Rally Championship, and gave their IMPERIAL Toyota RunX its third straight 1600cc Championship victory in the Eastern Cape, and further extending their lead in the closely contested class A6 championship.

Production Car racer Poulter, in his maiden rally season, has become a rallying sensation and the Volkswagen Rally again allowed him to showcase his talents.

“Our plan was to push hard in the opening stages in Longmore Forest to build up a gap and that worked out quite well”, said the IMPERIAL Toyota driver. “We beat Tjaart (Conradie) in every stage except the 5th stage when I had to brake because Japie van Niekerk missed a turn and came head-on at us. I really enjoyed the Scribante stage as it’s what I love doing most. We took 12 seconds off our competitors in that stage alone.”

The IMPERIAL Toyota RunX pair ended day 1 with a 1 minute 33 second advantage. A cooler Saturday brought more winning stage times for the IMPERIAL Toyota RunX pair. The day started with another gain of 4 seconds, before tapping off in the following treacherous stage, which saw Conradie pull back 9 seconds.

Poulter and Dearlove scored a knock-out blow in stage 9, scorching to a time 13 seconds quicker than their nearest rivals. The final fling around King’s Beach in Port Elizabeth was telling. Poulter and Dearlove set a time of 2 min 11.3, which compares to rally winner Johnny Gemmell’s time of 2:09:3.

This result is the third time the IMPERIAL Toyota RunX pair ended as the top front wheel drive car home. Henry Dearlove summed up their weekend: “The mid-season break work that the team did paid off in spades. The new Hennie van der Linde engine was fantastic. This event suited Leeroy to a tee. I can see that as the season wears on, Leeroy is more comfortable pitching the car into corners which means he can carry more speed through the turns”.

Team Manager Rod Hering said: “The team seems to work better when I’m not there! The whole team did a fantastic job which has brought our objectives of winning the inaugural 1600cc Championship and Class A6 Championship a bit closer. We could not deliver these results without the support of IMPERIAL Toyota and Ferodo.”


GEMMELL STREAKS TO TOP OF TITLE CHASE TABLE AFTER NARROW VW RALLY WIN



Summary of event:



Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock drove their S2000 Castrol Toyota Auris to a narrow 1.5 second win on the Volkswagen Rally, round 5 of the Sasol South African Rally Championship, becoming the first team to claim a second victory in this closely contested season.
Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock - overall winners


The win, over title rivals Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson (S2000 BP Ultimate Volkswagen Polo) sees the two championship rivals tied on 88 points with three rounds remaining.

Rounding out the podium was Jan Habig/Ralph Pitchford in another BP Polo, 12 seconds further adrift but it wasn’t plain sailing for any of the front runners.

The 28th Volkswagen Rally produced another classic fight for honours that played out in the Longmore Forest, classic fast and flowing rally stages that saw many fancied runners parked on the side of the road.

Zimbabweans Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh came out of the starting blocks with all guns blazing, rocketing their S2000 Ford Fiesta into an immediate 11 second lead, which he just held on to by 1.2 seconds after Gemmell took his first stage win while Rautenbach dropped 10 seconds after going off the road mid stage two.

From stage 3, which Gemmell also won, the rally was all about the Castrol Auris pair who never looked back in spite of varying levels of pressure along the way. Habig was initially the nearest challenger, but second to sixth places see-sawed between a host of top teams. Kuun took up the challenge for VW after stage 4 with Hein Lategan/Johan vd Merwe (S2000 Pirtek/Sasol Toyota Auris) filling 3rd as Rautenbach slipped away from the lead battle, his self-confidence shattered after his stage two incident.

Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich won both tarmac stages in their Basil Read/bizhub Ford Fiesta S2000 and were ranked 7th overall.

Major casualties on the opening day included the current champions Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries who recorded their third consecutive non-finish when a lower control arm broke on their BP VW Polo in stage 1, ending any hope of a third straight title.

Japie van Niekerk/Robin Houghton (S2000 NAD/CTrack Toyota Auris) and Jean-Pierre Damseaux/Carolyn Swan (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) both fell foul of stage 2, setting stage times of 47 minutes and 38 minutes respectively, while their peers were clocking 15 minutes through the 24.8km stage.

Japie van Niekerk and Robin Houghton
Van Niekerk overcooked it into a corner and faced a tree or a gate post - made of rock, and chose the rock, which moved 20 metres and wrecked the suspension. The pair strapped it up and eventually continued, but the makeshift repair broke with 5km remaining and they crawled out on three wheels. Damseaux suffered a broken suspension bolt and a broken sideshaft but they too made running repairs and continued. Damseaux just hangs on to his lead in the Privateer’s Championship, 2 points ahead of the recovering Rautenbach.

Saturday dawned overcast and cool, but the red-hot Sasol Rally Championship action continued unabated. Rautenbach had a new determination and set about cutting his overnight 32 second deficit. He used the Ford Fiesta to devastating effect, jumping into second place after the opening pair of stages, just 7.2 seconds shy of Gemmell.

A puncture in stage 9 dropped Rautenbach/Marsh back to 4th and 31 seconds to make up with just 12 km of stages remaining. The Zimbabwean thrilled the King’s Beach spectators with a superb display of opposite lock driving as he flung the Fiesta through the tight corners with smoke pouring off the tortured rubber, leaving fans to speculate what the outcome may have been with a flat tyre.
Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh


Habig took second place back from teammates Kuun/Hodgson in Saturday’s first stage, as the championship leader suffered a broken intercom. Kuun re-passed Habig in the following stage but both had to give way to Rautenbach, who muscled ahead of the VWs.

As stages rushed by, Kuun settled into 2nd, 8.5 seconds adrift of Gemmell. aAs Gemmell eased up in the final gravel stage at the PE Oval, Kuun slashed his shortfall to 4.7 seconds and with just 1,2 km on tarmac to go, took three full seconds from Gemmell. It was close!

Habig, who set the fastest time in stage 9 duly arrived home 3rd ahead of Rautenbach, who won his 4th stage of the rally but stayed 4th overall, 18 seconds behind the six times champion VW pair.

Wilken claimed his first points since the 2009 Osram Rally, much to the delight of both team and sponsors Basil Read/bizhub. Wilken ended the VW Rally with a flourish, setting the 2nd fastest time in the final gravel stage just 1 second behind Rautenbach, and set the 2nd quickest time around King’s Beach, 0.4 seconds off Kuun’s stage winning time, which bodes well for the Fiesta pair over the remainder of the season.

Missing from the action was Hein Lategan/Johan van der Merwe, who went off the road in stage 8, hitting a bank that caused Lategan to seek medical attention for a sprained hand, caught in the steering wheel.

Pirtek/Sasol team mates Visser du Plessis/Gerhard Snyman had their most convincing outing this season since stepping into the S2000 Toyota Auris, claiming a timely 6th overall, well ahead of the young Namibian Jaco van Dyk and co-driver Des de Fortier (S2000 Volkswagen Polo).
Jaco van Dyk and Des de Fortier


Van Dyk, in 7th, just fended off - by 0.8 second, the second Castrol Toyota Auris of Mark Cronje/Robert Paisley, who had a subdued first day before starting a charge on Saturday that ended with a puncture that took the wind out of their sails and cost three minutes to the leaders, leaving them frustrated.
Mohammed Moosa and Grant Martin - Top10 finish after a steady run!


Nicholas Ryan/Geoff Tyrer (S2000 Gabriel/RCF Vehicle Salvage VW Polo) had an uneventful run into 9th place ahead of Mohammed Moosa/Grant Martin (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) who scored their best result of the year in spite of running out of brakes in stage 2.

Fernando Rueda/Dave Lewkowicz (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) and Theuns Joubert/Carl Peskin (S2000 Salom Group VW Polo) ended 11th and 12th respectively. Rueda had a disastrous rally, enduring a puncture in stage 1, hitting a rock in stage 2 that bent a rear lower control arm, power steering failure at Aldo Scribante on Friday evening and hitting another rock on Saturday’s first stage that bent the steering arm.

Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove (IMPERIAL Toyota RunX) took a comfortable 1600cc Championship win as is becoming customary, and took Class A6 line honours for the 4th time in as many events. Their nemeses, Tjaart Conradie/Riaan Erasmus (A6 Silverton Engineering/Hencom Autobody Toyota Auris) ended 2 minutes in arrears after a rock wrecked their power steering and CV joint in stage 2. They overcame a failing clutch on Saturday to nurse the car home in 14th overall.
Tjaart Conradie and Riaan Erasmus fighting for A6 honours


Craig Trott’s cautious approach paid dividends with another 3rd place finish with co-driver Robbie Coetzee (A6 Team Total Toyota RunX), a result that keeps them in the 1600cc title hunt.

Talented teen Ashley Haigh Smith and Hilton Auffrey (React Toyota Yaris) took an untroubled class A5 win. Chad Lambert/Herman Groenewald (Lambert Steel Toyota Yaris) ended 2nd in class after running day 2 with a broken shock absorber. Andre Cleenwerck/Kes Naidoo (A5 BP Volkswagen CitiGolf) rolled heavily in the first stage, both crew members lucky to emerge relatively unscathed from their comprehensively destroyed CitiGolf.

Stefanie and Willem Hugo winners in Class A6





Stephanie and Willem Hugo (N3 Wiel Toyota RunX) won their class after battling a misfiring engine throughout day one. Robson Maganezi/Shaun Visser (N3 Linking Africa Ford Fiesta ST) ended 2nd in class after a rear hub broke twice.
Robson Maganesi and Shaun Visser


Class A7 self-destructed when Gugu Zulu/Cindi Harding retired their BP Volkswagen Polo with a failed steering rack mounting in the first stage, while Gavin Cronje/Van Aardt Schoeman (A7 Seasons in Africa VW Polo) left the road in stage two. The hot exhaust ignited the grass under the car and the crew was lucky to emerge back on the road. Their stage two time was over an hour and with service penalties incurred, were time barred.

Other retirements included:
Morne Janse van Rensburg/Derek Jacobs (GC Diesel/BP VW CitiGolf): accident SS2
Evan Hutchison/Elvene Coetzee (S2000 Motorite VW Polo) – gearbox SS1
Sebastiaan/Daniel Klaassen (N4 Subaru Impreza STI) – accident SS9
Megan/Oliver Verlaque (N3 Toyota RunX) – fuel pipe SS3
Abduraghman Amlay/Yusuf Ganief (N3 Toyota RunX) – engine SS6

The 6th round of the Sasol South African Rally Championship is the Osram Rally, which is held in and around Barkly East on 21 August.



Report by: Ashley Haigh-Smith 25 July 2010



Reflecting back on this weekend it has been one hell of a weekend, we drove up to PE on Thursday morning leaving at 3:30 and arrived at 12:30 to do the shakedown. Since we have not raced in about a month and a half, it was crucial for us to have this practice.

We did three runs and we thought the car was stunning so we were all ready to go, then we found out that one of the prize winners of the Algoa FM radio rally contest hadn’t gone so we were able to take the person with us for a run and it was really good.

We left there at 14:30 and headed home, we stripped the car and checked for anything that could have broken at the shakedown and gave the car a wash and parked everything was ok. That night Hilton and myself went over the DVD one last time and made our final changes and we were set

Friday started off with us going to scrutineering, car was checked all done and to the start we went, the Volkswagen start is always nice as all the cars are in one section also in front of their museum what always nice to look at before we start.

We started the rally at 13:30 and headed to the first stage.

The stage was really nice and tricky and just flat out all the way. During the stage I saw tracks go off the side about 7km in but I didn’t think anything of it as I though it was a spectators car but at the end of the stage we soon found out it was Andre, he had rolled.

We still did not know how he was so we were hoping he was alright, it’s not nice when a fellow competitor has a nasty roll and you don’t know how he is.

The first stage we had a spin on the hairpin where Hergen Fekken's car was but were still able to take the stage but only by 2 seconds from Morne, and Chad Lambert we found out had got a puncture, so we took about a minute off him there. We then went into the second stage knowing Morne was right behind us so we just went into the stage with the same attitude as before and it went well.

Ashley Haigh-Smith and Hilton Auffray - Class A5 winners
The second stage was really loose at the end of it where it was downhill and S2000’s going through do not make it really the smoothest roads but at the end of the stage we found out that Morne had gone off the road which was a pity as I am sure he would of been really fast on these roads.

We took the stage win and took another 45 seconds off Chad.

We found out what happened to Andre and how he was , and the whole of Team REACT hopes he has a speedy recovery for the next race and I am sure with Andre, no confidence will be lost and he will be back at the top again on the next event.

The last full gravel stage was Culturama and it was a good stage but we now just had to nurse the car home but were able to still get the stage win and increase our lead then the next stage was the oval which was again really fun to be on and we took another 15 seconds off Chad on that stage.

The last two stages were fun on the tar but the bridge stage we had a mishap as coming off the ramp and now having our spots I missed the hairpin right so we over shot and lost 10 but otherwise the first day was a good day for us.
Chad Lambert and Herman Groenewald


Day two went great for the first four stages until the oval, as we came out of the oval we landed quite hard and we broke an engine mounting which meant I struggled to select gears as the engine and gear box where laying on the sump guard.

So we just drove the last bit of the stage and during the service was very nerve racking as we still had to drive for another 35 km’s as we couldn’t fix the mangled mounting.

We drove slowly back but we still had to drive the last super special but it worked out well since the gear I selected was meant for the whole stage. In the end we won our class and we had an amazing rally.

I would like to thank everyone who watched us and supported us through the whole event and I would like to thank Damseaux Motorsport for preparing an amazing car, my service crew for keeping the car always 100 percent, and to my navigator for not once calling a note wrong. Finally would like to thank all the organisers and marshals for pulling a great event off which was really great.......we can’t wait for next year now!


Team PIRTEK’s du Plessis and Snyman enjoy season’s best finish



The weekend of Friday and Saturday 23 and 24 July saw the running of the 28th Volkswagen Rally hosted by the Algoa Rally Association in Port Elizabeth. 42 of South Africa’s top teams fell under starter’s orders for the fifth round of the SASOL South African National Rally Championship.

Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman
The high levels of experience and competition within rallying in South Africa is very evident, after 164 km of racing action over some of the most infamous fast and flowing stages of the Longmore Forests, only a narrow 1.5 seconds separated 1st and 2nd place on the finish line podium.

Team PIRTEK enjoyed a commanding position at Friday’s overnight stop with Heinrich Lategan and Johan van der Merwe in 3rd with their team mates Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman backing them up in 9th position overall.
The day two race strategy of the highly motivated, Lategan and van der Merwe was to consolidate his 3rd position; sadly realising this was easier said than done. On stage 8 hitting an embankment caused extensive damage to the left front of their Toyota Auris S2000. The damage was terminal and their retirement immediate. Lategan added, “Getting the balance right between challenging the front runners and at the same time keeping the gate closed to those behind is a very fine line. I know that we have the pace and ability, I just need to carry that momentum through to the finish line”

Du Plessis and Snyman enjoyed their first clean event since stepping up into class S2000 at the beginning of the season. With du Plessis finally adding, “I needed to have an incident free event from a mechanical and driving point of view; our objective was to be within 1 and ½ second a kilometre on day one and on day 2 respectively of the front runners. Gerhard and I achieved this and gained valuable seat time”
Hein Lategan and Johan van der Merwe - while the going was good.


Partnering this success with the likes of SASOL and being able to call on their expertise and superior quality racing lubricants has put Team PIRTEK in a confident mood, and the team looks forward to continuing in their quest to win the Privateers Challenge and mix it up with the works teams during the remainder of the season.


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