It’s that time of the year again – Total Rally time.
author: Leon Botha
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Polo Super 1600
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It’s that time of the year again – Total Rally time – not the traditional Total Rally everybody came to know and love many years ago when it went from Pretoria to Mozambique or Maputu as it is known today.
Those were the days when rallying was still rallying and our chances to get through a normal day in SA was about 90% if you had your heart attack near a hospital – even the H.F. Verwoerd was OK, as you did not go in with only a heart attack and came out with several incurable diseases.
I have always wondered why Africa countries can not keep up the infra structure that was in place before take over by the majority – show me one country where you could see actual progress in this regard, and I will apologise on Church Beware in the centre of the city of Tswane at 12h00 on a Wednesday. Now if that is not brave, then I don’t know.
Anyway, when rallying was still rallying – when spotlights were part of the outfit, 8 tyres was a luxury, racing fuel a miracle, odo-cables running on the outside of the cars forced you to go into corners wide, and come out wide, but if you had reasonable radial tyres fitted to the car, you normally made it.
There were sponsors like Total (the good old Total), Lucas, Molyslip, Duckhams, Castrol (a bit later – now you see the “mad about oil” people limited to one make) Wesbank when Total ran out of fuel during the National Party invented fuel crisis, Wynn’s, even the Pretoria News, Jurgens Caravans, Radio 5, SA Auto, and a couple of other sponsors – and we rallied away, enjoying ourselves, also fighting about things, but it seemed more open and cleaner fights.
Group One in those days, meant standard cars, as you bought them, with minor changes such as shocks, sumpguard and not even a roll cage fitted to change a piece of crap into a “wonder car”. Oh yes, there were crooks during those days already, illegal cams, skimmed heads, increased capacity etc. and nobody really checked depending on who you were and what club you belonged to. My Toyota Corona GSL was stripped because I overtook a certain competitor who thought he was doing well; I was protested because some good hearted mechanic fitted two of those windscreen deflector things to keep the blades against the windscreen at speed when it rained.
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Fiat Punto Super 1600
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No service crews – at least not for us, two spare wheels and a 10litre can of fuel that was it, and guess what; we did finish and we did win the class more often than not.
You saw Peugeot 504, Datsun 180U –the beginning of the end of Datsun’s passenger sales in SA – Alfetta, Ford Escort BDA, Chev, Renault Gordini, Volvo, NSU Wankel, Mazda Rotary, Mini, Ford Fairmont GT, DKW, Holden Monaro, Fiat, BMW, if it had wheels and worth anything, it was rallied – even the worst car the Lord allowed the human race to manufacture the Austin Marina – after 50kms of rough roads the front seats were leaning against each other, the chassis bend so low that we took cats eye’s out of the tar road, and when I jumped out closing the door at about 150km/h the windscreen jumped out – end of Marina, end of Leon’s career with Leyland – op slag! One time! Fare the well ol’ chap, I say.
The competition was also stiff in those days, the going tough and the rallies long – very long. We hardly had any sleep for three days during the real Total Rally, and then no sleep during prize-giving night and the next day. Sarel for one was fired once or twice from a team because of the extent some of those parties went to.
I suppose one has to let those memories go, sometime, but then you need something worthwhile to hold onto next.
And that brings us to the point – if we stop clinging to the past, have we got something to hold onto for the present and future, that will be worthwhile mentioning as “the past” sometime in the future?
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Peugeot 1600
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If we look at the situation in N4 for instance – how does that compare with a real production car situation – the top cars simply being homologated super cars and I will tell you for free even with a rather average driver behind a car like that’s steering wheel, let alone a good one, you will need plenty of bucks to catch it.
During the Toyota Dealer Rally even Fernando Rueda admitted that I was right about this N4 thing in the past. It got out of hand – and in his own words “I haven’t got R1.5m to spend to catch that thing” referring to Burger’s car. Too true – who has without serious sponsors?
What was supposed to be a great class to compete in, turned into a bloody nightmare because the people in control are too shit scared to take a stand, let alone make a decision. Nothing stops us, just as we can allow SA homologations, to disallow certain ridiculous FIA leniencies that were brought in to get the N4 cars closer to the real McCoy in WRC events.
Let us look at what you need to be competitive in this class. Let us presume you can really drive a car, and you don’t need to go all the way to stay on top. You will be able “they” say, to import a rather competitive car at say R600 000. A good check up and the altering of a few odds and ends will set you back about R25 000 before your first rally.
Then you need to change lets say the shocks and gearbox during the season. This on average will set you back between R80 000 and R170 000 depending if you want to stay at the same level or if you are willing to drop a half a second per km. Every rally will cost you a minimum of R35 000 if you do it sort of properly (not luxuriously – just sort of properly), which means you will spend another R280 000 for the year. Then don’t forget to pay the import tax or duty or whatever they call it of I guess something in the region of R180 000 and then you must not go off the road more than once per year.
So, we are looking at R1 215 000 give or take a few cent. “So what?” says you, you can sell the car at the end of the season – I hear some people fork out R750 000 as a joke – if you are lucky you can even make a profit on the car! (Ha!) Yes and what do you buy then?
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Picture by Linear Photographs
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On the other hand it can be done for less – we bought a new Subaru STi in 2002 – spend R360 000 – including the car, plus R150 000 running cost for the 2002 season, and won the championship. In 2003 we had virtually no budget and the moment we tried to stay with the Burger’s and Rueda’s of the world we destroyed the “standard production” car, because the pace was simply too fast. You can also drive faster only up to a point, and then you start opening the pearly gates with a wheel spanner.
Think about a competition where we have 15 of these real standard cars running – that will be something to see. The younger drivers would have something to chase, and the top driver pool will probably look quite different.
There are some who say that the new Super 2000 four wheel drive formula will work. We will have to wait and see – but I suggest we look at introducing a SA N4 class, bring in Super 1600 as the only FIA homologation class for those who can afford and want to spend serious money.
We should also “force” drivers to drive for one season or 5 events in for instance N3 before stepping into N4, Super 1600, Super 2000, A7 or A8. This will bring more cars into the sport, and probably slow down “cheque book” wins in top classes – although this is not a big issue.
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Pic by Linear Photographs
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No current national championship driver should be allowed to score points in any regional rally, or receive awards or acknowledgement for positions. They should be allowed to enter, but only to test their cars for national events. The number of events, national and regional, should be decreased but selected rally sprints should be added to count towards the championship points.
What do you think about these ideas – have a look around you – look what has happened in cricket – the one day match attendance figures went down, and they immediately introduced a better concept. The Rupert or Rembrandt group has bought a rugby club in partnership with a couple of heavy weights and people can not wait to see what comes from this.
Progress, Progress, then innovation, and you will see progress again.
Rallying? Huh? We don’t even know …………
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