Subaru One - Two in Leesol Gauteng Championship Rally
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Schalk Burger - Leesol rally winner in the very quick Subaru Impreza.
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As we predicted before the rally, Schalk Burger in his Subaru Impreza did not experience too much problems to win the Leesol Rally on Saturday. He simply out drove the competion, but we were pleasantly surprised that he managed to get only 1 min 56 seconds ahead of one of the Cane Rats from Kwazulu, who came especially from Natal to teach the locals a thing or two.
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Let\'s have a closer look - was that really the old man driving?
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Mally Saville surprised friend and foe by finishing second overall in his Subaru Impreza. They almost had to take some lateness after stage five, when they experienced a typical Subaru \\"problem\\" when one of the local rims caught on the caliper. They did manage to get away in time with the help from the service crew of the by then, down and out, Jacuqes Botha and Conrad Fourie. Saville kept his cool and brought the Subaru home, almost a minute and a half ahead of even bigger surprize, Willem van Rensburg in his sideways, Nissan Skyline.
The long and super fast straights suited all three the top teams very well and Etienne Lourens (fifth) just shook his head in disgust. \\"The harder I go, the further the get away\\" he said when asked if anything was wrong. The long straights also suited Callie van der Merwe in his Exa, but a full minute penalty cost him a definite third place, and he had to be content with fourth position.
Visser du Plessis, worried that his good finish would cause problems for some of the top runners in the championship, decided that he would throw away almost one and a half minutes in the last stage, doing a Baricello, but all he managed to do was make us the \\"moor in\\", and lose a possible third place overall. We sincerely hope that this rally was now the turning point for this talented young driver, and that he will build on this good, but not yet his best run.
If the Saville, van Rensburg upset of our prediction was not enough, the excellent run of Phillip Smit/Cobus Bohmer in their Nissan followed closely by the Toyota of the young Burger/van Greunen team. Rocky Reynecke had another trouble some run and finished ninth overall.
The top ten was completed by Hennie Lourens and Menno Havelaar, in their Golf. They had a good and clean run except where old man Menno was not sure about an instruction and lost them time - I am lying - I\\'m lying - they only hesitated at an instruction that apparently caused a bit of confusion, but did not really lose any time.
The long straights must have been very frustrating for the young Michael Houghton and Craigh Jennings who won Class N2 despite finishing a \\"lowly\\" 19th just ahead of Jose Ferreira in the Italian Panelbeaters Nissan Sentra.
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Do you think the Gogga will notice that we forgot to fit the rear shocks??
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It was also good to see Allen Worms and Ciaran Noonan bringing the stock standard Toyota to the finish. They actually had to \\"flare\\" the wheel arches slightly to be able to fit rally tyres at a service point. This will now also hopefully be another turning point in a career, as Allen have the talent, but have been plagued by accidents and bad luck.
We expected a better run from John and Cherry Saunders, but they also picked up some penalties in what seemed to be quite a troublesome run.
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Ok, so if you can\'t speak, just try to show me where to go? Jacques Botha and rookie nav. Conrad Fourie.
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Jacques Botha had the task to give a newcomer, Conrad Fourie, his initiation run in the Pretoria Subaru Impreza. This was to fall in with the motorsport plan of this enthusiastic Pretoria dealership. Jacques is currently building Danie Naude of Supreme Cars Pietersburg a new rally car in which Danie and Conrad will participate in the All Tar Rally later this year.
Having now sorted out the power problems we experienced in the Subaru during the Hencom Panelbeaters rally, we were really optimistic that we should have been able to put up a great show on this rally. Unfortunately some of the turbo pipes kept coming off and at the end of stage four the turbo decided enough was enough and poooooffff up in smoke it went.
The rally was well organised, the roads not bad but unfortunately, the straights were just too long and the powerful cars had a huge adavantage over the lesser competitors.
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What arrow??
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TMCC LEESOL RALLY
1 Schalk Burger {+} Martin Botha {+} Subaru Impreza {+} 01:00:01
2 Mally Saville {+} Shane Saville {+} Subaru Impreza {+} 01:01:57
3 Willem v Rensburg {+} Flip Hattingh {+} Nissan Skyline {+} 01:03:24
4 Callie van der Merwe {+} Gideon Trollip {+} Nissan Exa {+} 01:03:56
5 Etienne Lourens {+} Andre Vermeulen {+} Toyota {+} 01:04:05
6 Visser du Plessis {+} Greg Gericke {+} Toyota {+} 01:04:28
7 Phillip Smit {+} Cobus Bohmer {+} Nissan {+} 01:04:31
8 Schalk Burger Jnr {+} Wimpie van Greunen {+} Toyota {+} 01:04:33
9 Rocky Reynecke {+} Andre Pheiffer {+} VW Golf {+} 01:04:36
10 Hennie Lourens {+} Menno Havelaar {+} VW Golf {+} 01:05:19
11 Nico Nienaber {+} Marius Steenkamp {+} VW Golf {+} 01:05:21
12 Jaco Baker {+} George Baker {+} Toyota {+} 01:05:35
13 Jan Delport {+} Amanda Pretorius {+} VW Golf {+} 01:06:25
14 Johan vd Merwe {+} Leon vd Merwe {+} VW Golf {+} 01:06:30
15 Hein vd Merwe {+} Wynand vd Merwe {+} VW Golf {+} 01:07:02
16 Ken Westermeyer {+} Detlief Wedekind {+} VW Golf {+} 01:07:32
17 Jose de Gouveia {+} Pieta Labuschagne {+} Toyota {+} 01:07:58
18 Robin Goodman {+} Irma du Plooy {+} VW Golf {+} 01:08:03
19 Michael Hougton {+} Craig Jennings {+} Toyota {+} 01:08:14
20 Jose Ferreira {+} Tony Barbosa {+} Nissan {+} 01:08:28
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Nico Nienaber /Marius Steenkamp doing their thing
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Stage analysis to be loaded on Monday (2nd Sept) eve - check how well you really did - stage for stage.
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