TOYOTA DEALERS GREAT NORTH RALLY : 18-19 Oct
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Sneaking in at the last moment - Etienne Lourens Team Total Toyota Picture Courtesy MotorPics.co.za
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The Toyota Dealers Great North Rally that ended in Tzaneen today, the final round of the national championship, produced the sort of finale to the season – and a sting in the tail - that no one could have scripted.
From the moment the event started in Polokwane in Limpopo Province on Friday it produced a scenario of shifting sands and fluctuating fortunes that produced one surprise after the other. Championships were won and lost by default and by the narrowest of margins, and a little history was made.
On a day when Sasol VW Golf pair Jannie Habig and Douglas Judd clinched the national drivers and co-drivers championships, history was made when Team Total Toyota Corolla pair Etienne Lourens and Andre Groenewald became the first Class A7 crew to win a national championship event. For Lourens and Groenewald it was a maiden national victory and one that clinched for them the Class A7 championship in the first year that Toyota have contested the category.
Shifting sands also produced a grandstand finish in the prestige South African rally Manufacturers Championship. Unofficial scoring gives the championship to Toyota, for the fifth year in a row, ahead of arch rivals Volkswagen.
In a dramatic sting in the tail Lourens and Groenewald were handed victory on a plate when Team Castrol Toyota Corolla factory crew Serge Damseaux and Robert Paisley, and Habig and Judd, running first and second, both fell out of the event over the last two special stages. Habig and Judd dropped out with engine problems after stage 14 and on the last stage the same problem sidelined the Toyota crew.
The final stage also claimed third placed Fernando Rueda and Martin Botha, in the Motion Mitsubishi Evo, and cost Rueda the Class N4 drivers championship. The demise of Rueda/Botha elevated Hergen Fekken and Dave Lewkowicz, in the Class A7 Sasol VW Golf, into second place with J-P Damseaux and Cobus Vrey (Team Total Toyota Corolla) third overall and Class A6 winners and champions.
Fourth place went to Leon Botha and Wiley Harrington in the Pretoria Subaru/Rallystar Subaru Impreza with Botha winning the Class N4 drivers championship by a single point from Rueda. He finished every rally he entered this year, making it a 5 from 5 with the worst result, an 8th overall. To rub salt into the wound for Rueda the Mitsubishi ran out of fuel with a suspected damaged fuel tank, 800 metres from the end of the special stage – and by such quirks of fate are motorsport championships won and lost.
But there were still more woes for Rueda and Botha. The non finish also cost them the overall Group N drivers and co-drivers with Team Total Toyota pair Dean Sanders and Ashley gericke sneaking in the back door.
Sanders and Gericke won Class N2 overall and with it the championship. The demise of Rueda and Botha, however, saw the Toyota pair pick up enough points to give them the overall Group N championship.
Fifth were Sasol VW Golf crew Barry Grobbelaar and Paul van Wyk, running in Class A7, with a terrific performance taking Kobus Roos and Brendan Nunan into fifth overall. That gave Roos and Nunan the Class A5 win, but they missed out on the overall championship by one point.
At the start of the rally Roos and Nunan had to finish fifth overall or higher, an almost impossible task in a Class A5 car, and take the class to win the championship. At the same time reigning champions Rodney Visagie and Carolyn Swan, in the Team Total Toyota Tazz, had to fail to finish.
The door was opened for Roos/Nunan when Visagie and Swan rolled on stage 11. The VW crew, however, could not make up the extra place needed to take the Class A5 title.
Just about the only championship crew not to go through drama were Geoff Mortimer and Gerrie Gericke, affectionately known as ”Team Geriatric” and with a combined age of excess 120. They won Class N3 and finished 10th overall in a Nissan Sentra but went into the event already having clinched the Class N3 drivers and co-drivers titles.
Earlier in the day Habig and Judd clinched the overall drivers and co-drivers championships when team-mates Enzo Kuun and Pierre Arries were excluded from the event at the overnight halt in Tzaneen. The two Sasol VW crews were in a straight fight for the championship when Kuun and Arries ran into a day one engine problem that cost them 35 minutes of lateness.
That exceeded their lateness allocation for leg one of the event, and Habig and Judd were champions. They started the day 19 seconds ahead of Damseaux and Paisley, but were gradually overhauled with the Toyota crew going into the lead after 13 of the 15 special stages.
Then came all the late drama with a rally that never lacked for interest turned on its head once again.
Results (unofficial):
1 E Lourens/A Vermeulen (Team Total Toyota Corolla) 2:46:10;
2 H Fekken/D Lewkowicz (Sasol VW Golf) 2:46:58;
3 JP Damseaux/C Vrey (Team Total Toyota Corolla) 2:49:37;
4 L Botha/W Harrington (Subaru Imprezza) 2:50:55;
5 B Grobbelaar/P van Wyk (Sasol VW Golf) 2:54:54;
6 K Roos/B Nunan (Sasol Dealer Team VW Chico) 2:55:11;
7 C de Witt/J Labuschagne (Toyota Conquest) 2:55:59;
8 D Sanders/A Gericke (Team Total Toyota Corolla) 2:57:31;
9 G Zulu/D McGregor (Sasol Dealer Team VW Cit Golf) 3:01:55;
10 Hein & Wynand vd Merwe VW Golf GTi 3:01:06
11 G Mortimer/G Gericke (Nissan Sentra) 3:02:52.
Class A8 – No finishers;
Class A7 – E Lourens/A Vermeulen (Team Total Toyota Corolla);
Class A6 – JP Damseaux/C Vrey (Team Total Toyota Corolla); Class A5 – K Roos/B Nunan (Sasol Dealer Team VW Chico); Class N4 – L Botha/W Harrington (Pretoria Subaru/RallyStar Impreza STi);
Class N3 – G Mortimer/G Gericke (Nissan Sentra);
Class N2 – D Sanders/A Gericke (Team Total Toyota Corolla); Class N1 – B Heine/K Heine (VW Citi Golf).
Article by Rory Brown.
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