2004 Hitachi Tour Natal Review
author: Leon Botha
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One of the hundreds of stops of made by the two men.
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Following the two guys that did all the arrowing, Chris and Denver, did it for me. This is the most thankless job in rallying.
Go out and spend one of your weekends – no hard tack, only cool drinks, a four pound hammer, about a 1000, meter-long wooden pegs, just as many fluorescent arrows, a ½ kg stapler gun, your bakkie, and a road book with hundreds of instructions on. Drive up to every instruction, look at the genuine angle – compare with the route schedule – if you are satisfied reverse back 100m get out of the bakkie, select a wooden peg, and a green fluorescent arrow, hit the wooden peg at least 6 times. When securely into the ground, set the angle of the green arrow, staple it to the wooden peg, if satisfied walk back to the bakkie, place the hammer and staple gun on the back, get back in, drive a 100m forward, get out select two wooden pegs, your hammer, two red arrows, hit 12 times. Staple two arrows, scratch your head walking a few meters back, think about what the competitors are going to say about your angle, pull up your shoulders, sigh, get back into the bakkie after taking a sip of cool drink, and off you go to the next instruction which could be a 100m or whatever away.
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Four pounder above the head and let fly - a thankless job.
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Any volunteers – anything to say about it anymore? Next time before you open your mouth to criticize unnecessary – join the Arrowers just for one stage and you will probably keep you trap shut next time. I stood watching one leading competitor taking three arrows down in two stages – spoiling the advantage for the cars behind him. Goodness helps the Arrowers if they get the angle or the distance wrong.
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Serge Damseaux Robert Paisley - overall winnners
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Serge did not warm up tyres, look things over, or fool around in general after he dropped the clutch of that Run-X on the starting line on Friday. No sir, he simply went out there and showed the world why he is rated as the RallyStar top driver at the moment and took 14 seconds off the equal 2nd fastest times of Jan Habig and Go Big Rueda. 10:48 against 11.02 over 15.35kms – almost a second per km from the word go!
The new super car of Burger sounding unlike anything I have ever heard, and definitely not like a Subaru, showed the first signs of being deceptively fast.
Gemmel occupied 5th position after stage 1 immediately showing that he was not going to be intimidated by any price tag.
Hergen Fekken driving the “old” Polo painted in the new BP-colour’s had the rule makers worried as the A7 seemed as quick as last year's before the air intake and tyre sizes were limited to protect a bunch of A8 cars that should be able to keep abreast of anything based only on driver reputation.
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Hergen Fekken - Class A7 winner
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Cliff Blackman made me swallow my words early on, as I thought that he would not really be able to stay with the other Class A8 cars in the wet conditions. In fairness to poor me – it was not that wet on Friday as the last rain fell on Wednesday eve – but no excuses – the BMW and Blackman were impressive.
Callie vd Merwe leading the back pack of Subaru’s set 9th quickest time, while Etienne Who? Completed the Top10. Huh?
Out of the very comfortable and sorted out A7 of 2003 behind the steering of the “unknown” Run-X with hardly any practice kms behind the belt – he seemed to be out of his depth. The car had different characteristics, it was “stiffer” and Lourens definitely needed mileage before he was going to get near where he left off last year.
The long awaited show of hands in N3 came to the fore with Rodney Visagie in the Total Run-X immediately setting the pace, followed 5 seconds later by Wilken in the Castrol Run-X and 6 later by the RallyStar Focus of Jacques Botha.
Having felt out each other in the first round, we could not wait to see what was going to happen next.
As predicted N2 as Chris de Wit country and nothing – read my lips – nothing was going to touch this talented driver in the Team Total Toyota, and to tell the honest truth he was in between the 2nd and 3rd N3 cars after stage 1. In turn the N3’s beat a number of the N4’s – so we knew this was going to be interesting.
If Serge did not try to be funny, the top ten positions would have been covered by 26 seconds.
Meanwhile back at the ranch there was great consternation in the Nel camp with Jurg Nel arriving apparently 1h40 late to start the rally. Oh dear – oh dear! What flew around all over the show you do not call paw-paw – no siree – that was pure shit if ever I saw shit in my life before. Poor Kobus Jansen who navigated twice in one go – his first and last time all in one for Jurgens must have felt pretty uncomfortable after making such a booboo. One can understand the disappointment, as there is big money that has gone into this team and the expectations are high, but as we all know even the best of our current Boks tend to knock the ball with an open line ahead of them. It is surely not above the driver and manager to make sure that the start time is right – the best of the best hashed that one before. We have received a letter from the Nel Team explaining the situation but will not publish its contents at this time, as we feel that the problems should be sorted out in the privacy of the team and not in public. So - good luck to them at this stage, while we move on to stage 2.
Just to make sure that he led the rally after SS2 Damseaux (the old one or is it the one and only?) posted yet another fastest time, but Johnny Gemmel showed severe disrespect for the big gunner driven by Burger and simply creamed him by 12 seconds, to take 2nd position overall, leading Burger in 3rd by 9 overall. Hergen proved his point in A7 by posting 4th quickest ahead of the two A8 works Golfs. This however was the stage where Enzo had his first run in with a local amateur rallyist who thought the should do his best to stay ahead of a rally car in the stage. The organizers will have to look at this situation carefully in future as this sort of thing can happen with two cars traveling in opposite directions coming around a corner. We need better control than a piece of bunting – yes, yes, I know it will be difficult, but unfortunately it will have to happen.
At first glance Callie van der Merwe was impressive in posting 6th fastest time, but then looking at the time difference of 28 seconds over 25.46 kms he should have been a bit closer if he was going all out.
A lot was said and expected from Stephan van Wyk and Mark Pym in the ex-Burger Impreza, but they looked a bit out of depth wherever we saw them, while a fantastic show was put up by Rodney Visagie in N3. He beat the likes of Barry Grobbelaar (9th), Mally Saville (10th), Jose Ferreira and Nicolas Ryan in their N4 cars, while JP Damseaux also did not come close.
This was the stage where Rocky Reynecke (Subaru) Andy Haigh-Smith Toyota RXi and Eric Storbeck VW Polo bid everyone farewell and went home.
Overall positions after SS2
Serge Damseaux / Robert Paisley ClassA8 TOYOTA RUNX RSI Total Time> 28:26
Johnny Gemmell / Greg Godrich ClassN4 SUBARU STI Total Time> 28:47
Schalk Burger / Vito Bonafide ClassN4 SUBARU IMPREZA Total Time> 28:56
Jan Habig / Douglas Judd ClassA8 VW GOLF 4 Total Time> 28:57
Hergen Fekken / Dave Lewcowicz ClassA7 VW POLO PLAYA Total Time> 28:59
Callie Van Der Merwe / Gideon Trollip ClassN4 SUBARU IMPREZA Total Time> 29:50
Cliff Blackman / Johan Klaasen ClassA8 BMW 320I Total Time> 29:56
Etienne Lourens / Andre Vermeulen ClassA8 TOYOTA RUN-X Total Time> 30:17
Rodney Visagie / Carolyn Swan ClassN3 TOYOTA RUNX Total Time> 30:25
Mally Saville / Andre Van Deventer ClassN4 SUBARU STI Total Time> 30:27
SS3 was 18.31kms long and would be the stage where most drivers settle in and really throw in all they have to settle into attacking or defensive positions. All the warning lights went up when Burger set 2nd fastest time just 2 seconds behind Serge, while the BP Volkwagens of Enzo Kuun and Jan Habig came home 3rd and 4th quickest respectively. The time differences from Serge’s time were 2 – 4 – 5 and 6 seconds up to Gemmel’s 5th fastest.
Rueda led Lourens who was followed by van Niekerk and Saville in 9th. Cliff Blackman completed the Top10 stage times.
Serge was now leading the rally by 27 seconds from Gemmel, who was 5 seconds ahead of Burger who led Habig by 4.
We bid goodbye to Danie van Hengel/Paul Bothma Corolla RSi; Joel and Anneke Ritson’s Subaru; and the Subaru of Visser du Plessis/ Johan Spannenberg. The latter is a long story, with many angles, but it is almost certain that we will not see Johan in a rally car again soon.
In SS4 tyre choices began to play a major role as it started raining again, while Burger was starting to get the hang of the brand new R1.4m Prodrive Subaru Impreza STi – “It feels like a Sunday afternoon drive” he remarked when I asked him about the car. “Simply incredible” – and he beat Serge by 2 seconds, Habig by 3 and Gemmel by a “massive” 8 through this stage.
Enzo managed 5th fastest time while Etienne was 17 seconds off the pace in 6th positon. Hergen Fekken was consistently in the Top10 and beat van Niekerk and 9th fatest vd Merwe by 2 and 4 seconds respectively. Top10 was completed by Cliff Blackman.
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Cliff Blackman had an excellent rally but had to withdraw due to his wife falling ill.
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This stage saw Jurgens Nel ending his “practice run”; while Bryan and Keith Heine (Citi Golf) and also Gary Swemmer and Peter Davidson in the N1 Golf also called it a day.
Fernando Rueda saw that he was not going to be able to go big, so he decided to go home. Time for a more expensive new car?
The rain kept on falling and the stages were getting wetter by the minute. Master Damseaux decided enough was enough of the all wheel drives and took advantage to win the stage from a 2nd placed Kuun, while Habig had to be content with 3rd spot – 14 seconds off the pace, not happy with the Golf’s handling in the wet at all.
Johnny Gemmel completed the stage in a time of 10:52, beating Burger by 2. It’s wet and the 2 wheel drives beat the 4 wheel drive cars?
Lets get this one straight once and for all. If you think that a 4 wheel drive in N4 form has an advantage over the lighter more nimble 2 wheel drive cars think again. You are not really in control when the all wheel drive car weighing 1500kg plus decides to go in a certain direction, and all that will save you is some hard grip while you are sliding along. When you do get that solid grip the car will of course respond and “overdo” the correction in another direction. In simple terms, the car is too heavy and with lots of the power intended to get you out of there taken away by the stupid restrictor, the direction of movement is mostly not in your hands. So – every time someone announces that it is wet and the 4 wheel drive vehicles will now have the advantage – I feel like advancing in my pants. These cars have many advantages, but driving in mud is not one of them (Legal N4 form).
JP Damseaux eventually came to the party and posted 6th fastest time in the A7 Corolla, followed by van Dyk in the Subaru. Cliff Blackman did well in the mud to finish the stage in 8th postion, while Hergen Fekken and Charl Wilken made up the Top10. Wilken making his first appearance in the Top10.
SS6 – and now it was getting serious “tyre choice time” – a wrong choice could make or break you, as this stage was 25kms long.
The first semi-casualty of the stage was Schalk Burger and Vito Bonafede who suffered a left rear puncture and had to drive like that for a few kilometers losing 2minutes in the process.
The 2 front-wheel drive cars proved my point and Kuun won the stage, followed by Damseaux and Habig. The first 4 wheel drive was that of Gemmel 32 seconds off the pace, followed in 5th by Etienne Lourens who slowly found his rhythm in the new car. JP was again in 6th fastest position, followed 4 seconds later by Hergen Fekken.
8th position for the stage belonged to Nic Ryan, followed 16 seconds later by van Dyk, and then 2 seconds later came 10th quickest driver – Cliff Blackman.
We know of two cars who made the wrong tyre choice going into the stage on dry’s – Callie vd Merwe – Subaru and Jacques Botha in the RallyStar Ford Focus. The latter could ill afford to make such a mistake and lost another 28 seconds to Wilken, although he stayed with Rodney Visagie this time around.
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Jacques Botha and Greg Gericke - need a bit of extra power and practice to catch up.
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Stages 7 and 8 were the Mickey Mouse affair in Pinetown and due to the fact that we landed in traffic jams, got lost, got fed-up and wet, we decided to go directly to the NMCC clubhouse – you want to hear the story of Phineas and Johnny again?
Saturday morning; all’s wet, all’s soggy and miserable. Stage 9, the only stage I felt did not even fit into the pattern of an otherwise well organized rally, was cancelled and saved the hides of a number of competitors.
The positions at the start of SS10 was:
1 Serge Damseaux / Robert Paisley A8 TOYOTA RUNX RSI Total01:22:26
2 Jan Habig / Douglas Judd A8 VW GOLF 4 Total01:23:23 Trailing leader by: 00:00:57
3 Johnny Gemmell / Greg Godrich N4 SUBARU STI Total01:23:47 Trailing leader by: 00:01:21
4 Enzo Kuun / Guy Hodgson A8 VW GOLF 4 Total01:25:05 Trailing leader by: 00:02:39
5 Schalk Burger / Vito Bonafide N4 SUBARU IMPREZA Total01:25:34 Trailing leader by: 00:03:08
6 Etienne Lourens / Andre Vermeulen A8 TOYOTA RUN-X Total01:27:09 Trailing leader by: 00:04:43
7 Hergen Fekken / Dave Lewcowicz A7 VW POLO PLAYA Total01:27:32 Trailing leader by: 00:05:06
8 Jean-Pierre Damseaux / Cobus Vrey A7 TOYOTA COROLLA Total01:27:45 Trailing leader by: 00:05:19
9 Cliff Blackman / Johan Klaasen A8 BMW 320ITotal01:28:20 Trailing leader by: 00:05:54
10 Callie Van Der Merwe / Gideon Trollip N4 SUBARU IMPREZA Total01:28:38 Trailing leader by: 00:06:12
11 Stephan Van Dyk / Mark Pym N4 SUBARU WRX Total01:28:57 Trailing leader by: 00:06:31
12 Barry Grobbelaar / Mike Burrows N4 SUBARU WRX Total01:30:12 Trailing leader by: 00:07:46
13 Charl Wilken / Robin Houghton N3 TOYOTA RUNX RSI Total01:30:21 Trailing leader by: 00:07:55
14 Craig Trott / John Costa A6 TOYOTA COROLLA Total01:30:30 Trailing leader by: 00:08:04
15 Rodney Visagie / Carolyn Swan N3 TOYOTA RUNXTotal01:30:34 Trailing leader by: 00:08:08
16 Nicholas Ryan / Brian Carrihill N4 SUBARU IMPREZATotal01:30:37 Trailing leader by: 00:08:11
17 Tony Ball / Alec Harris A8 VW POLO PLAYA Total01:31:15 Trailing leader by: 00:08:49
18 Mally Saville / Andre Van Deventer N4 SUBARU STI Total01:31:33 Trailing leader by: 00:09:07
19 Jacques Botha / Greg Gericke N3 FORD FOCUS Total01:31:35 Trailing leader by: 00:09:09
20 Peter Alterskye / Alan Bissett A8 TOYOTA CONQUEST Total01:31:59 Trailing leader by: 00:09:33
Stage 10 was a humdinger where speed and power really counted.
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Johnny Gemmel /Greg Godrich - winners Class N4
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Serge won the stage beating Enzo by 4 sec over 7kms, who in turn took 4 from Habig who beat Gemmel by 3. Etienne was 5th while Burger decided to take it a bit easier after his problem the previous day – clocking 6th fastest, while Blackman on a stage that suited the Beemer was 7th. Callie, Hergen and Mally Saville filled the Top 10 stage positions.
Gone home – Ferdi Koekemoer and Schalk van Heerden in the Clio, Ken Westermeyer/Loyd Curtis Polo Playa; Stephan van Dyk/Mark Pym Subaru; Hylton Belitsky/Kevin Flockhart Tazz; and another Subaru Rookie team Japie van Niekerk and Mark Boekee.
The next stage Montevideo 2 – was a repeat of SS4 on day one. This repeating of stages and central servicing is wonderful – not only for the crews, but also for spectators, and all we need to do now if we can all stick to this formula, is to make sure that we improve spectator facilities, and keep the safety factor up. The formula will ensure spectator growth, all we need to do is to get the advertising campaign right, and make sure that we follow Total’s example of optimizing the opportunity by handing out caps etc as souvenirs. Now you see nothing – the next moment there is a sea of red caps enjoying the rally.
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Havoc 75
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Now hold onto your seat – Damseaux won this stage setting exactly the same time as he did in the dry on Friday! And the other Damsoutjie bettered his previous day’s time by 8 seconds, while the only other driver who managed to improve was Gugu Zulu, improving by 6 seconds. Enzo came close but lost 1s, Gemmel lost 6 and Blackman only 5.
Shows you what all that wet practice in the Cape can do for you! Not sure what Gugu’s excuse is – but he will have one.
Then Stage 12 was also cancelled to the relief of many, as that must have been a slippery lot after 120 cars passed over it already.(Repeat of SS1 and SS5)
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Rodney Visagie winner class N3
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True to tradition the only RallyStar entry for this event slipped up in SS13 – got sucked in by a furrow on the right of the road, hauled into the sugarcane, sugarcane being much harder than expected and boof – radiator gone. End of Focus’ run while lying in 2nd place in Class N3. Charl Wilken having met his Waterloo in SS12.
Rodney Visagie now really had it all his own way after a ding dong battle in Class N3 with Wilken. This is going to develop into the most interesting battle on the rally scene, and when Jacques get the Focus sorted out properly, it should develop into a three way fight.
SS13 belonged to a certain Run-X that was followed by Habig in the BP Golf and Lourens in the Team Total Run-X. Lourens seemed slightly more at ease but still not near the form we expect from him.
Schalk Burger was in a no go zone – too far behind Johnny to really try and catch him, and too far ahead of Lourens to really worry, with stage kms running out – there were only about 45 kms left.
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Leon Botha
Stage one forest.
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Only 20 seconds separated the two top A7 cars of Fekken and Damseaux and anything was possible. Fekken did seem to have the upper-hand in this contest, but was definitely not as far ahead as he would have liked, also complaining about the handling on wet of the Polo.
Further down the field Rodney Visagie N3 Toyota was onto Ryan in the N4 Subaru’s case, while Barry Grobbelaar was putting the pressure on him for 13th spot.
Peter Alterskye did his best to make up the 6 secs between him and Chris de Wit who was flying the N2 Team Total Toyota to a class victory, while Gouveia in turn refused to let Alterskye off the hook, trailing by a mere 13 seconds.
In SS14 neither Enzo Kuun, Jacques Botha, Adrian Karth of the Rally Chicks Lola and Megan Verlaque started the stage and the field was now reduced to 25 competitors – the wet conditions mostly causing the damage.
Sege won 14 by a mere second denying Habig another stage win, while Fekken came home in 3rd. Burger stepped up the pace, while Etienne posted exactly the same time to share 4th quickest time with him. JP Damseaux was 6th, Callie 7th, Blackman 8th while Saville and Gemmel made up the Top10. Gemmel had a huge off in this stage, damaging the Subaru but not losing too much time in the process.
Burger stepped up the pace a bit more in SS16 getting slightly worried about Lourens, but the hottest news was that Habig claimed his first stage win for the season, beating Burger into 2nd place by 6 seconds, while the latter took 7 from Serge in 3rd, while 4th went to Lourens, while Gemmel finished in a slow 37 secs off the winning pace. The car was not handling well at all due to some damage sustained against the tree.
The penultimate stage was also won by Habig who this time held off an onslaught by Lourens, who in turn beat Burger to the line.
Serge having finished proving his point, finished in a lazy 4th position, beating Fekken and JP by 3 seconds each as they posted exactly the same time.
If you thought JP was trying to catch Hergen you are mistaken, all he was trying to do was to stay ahead of Blackman who after this stage was only 3 seconds behind him and in 8th position.
An even smaller gap was that between Chris de Wit and Peter Alterskye – 1 sec – with Gouveia only 5 behind de Wit.
Burger finished off the rally – sending out a definite message by winning the last stage, from Serge, Habig and Enzo who all put up a similar time of 4m50s.
Hergen Fekken and JP Damseaux also charged through the last stage both setting a time of 4m55s, while Gemmel posted a 5m01, and both vd Merwe and Saville achieving 5m02s, spelling out that the time for split second timing has arrived. Luckily we are starting tests on the Rally Time III system right now.
Serge walked away a clear winner from this event, with no serious competition in sight. One of the best performances was given by Rodney Visagie, who won N3 on his maiden N3 outing, and he seems to be the one to beat this year.
The RallyStar team will have to do some serious development to the Focus to be able to stay with the Run-X and will only be able to once we have signed our new sponsors.
In N4 Gemmel is still the man to beat, notwithstanding the very expensive new car Burger brought in, and I don’t think Rueda will be such a big factor.
The rest of the N4 field seems to be average with no real outstanding talent visible at this stage.
In N2 Chris de Wit is and will be the man to beat and only the best N3’s are going to stay ahead of him.
A7 is going to develop in a huge fight between Hergen Fekken and JP Damseaux, while A6 and A5 is still a bit of a mystery, although Craig Trott will be the leader in A6. Agie Stroh won the class although he did not set fastest class times and drove an average and consistent race.
For final results click on the button top right of this article.
All and all, a tough but good event, where the rain played a big role.
This coming weekend you will be able to read all about the Mexican Rally on RallyStar, but think of it – you can get the results direct wherever you are by registering for the RallyStar sms service.
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Winners Podium - Greg Godrich; Johnny Gemmel; Serge Damseaux, Robert Paisley; Jan Habig / Douglas Judd
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Pay in R200 for the rest of the year or R25 per month – RallyStar – ABSA Brooklyn 4057147990 and send your cell phone number to us.
If you have started to pay R20 per month – you are entitled to keep on doing that for the first year.
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