007, 0.07 or 00.7? DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
author: Leon Botha
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Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock - overal winners of the Rally of South Africa
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No matter how you look at 007, whether it is straight forward or with a decimal between the first and second zero - it remains impressive!
To win a rally by 0.07 seconds, or to lose it by that margin is equally impressive and I am very glad we do not have to rely on hand timed results anymore!
Looking back at the preview on the event I could not help but quote myself saying: "Problem is - 56 kilometres are unfortunately longer than most people can concentrate, unfortunately more than many tyres will stay inflated, longer than a number of engines and gearboxes will last - sadly too long for all to be competitive! "
True?
Definitely - but I must admit that one of my candidates to do very well through this stage was Enzo Kuun and unfortunately he personally did better than the usually ultra reliable Polo! The poor thing's engine decided to pick this particular stage to call it a day while Enzo was still all fired up and ready to attack!
Then of course - I was a bit split on deciding if Hergen would have a clean run through this stage as I had no doubt that he would see this one as make or break. The fact that he attacked from Stage One was also a factor to bear in mind as he normally settles in at 104% before switching to 124% of car and 110% of his ability only by stage 3. This time it was all guns ablaze before he hit the dusty street!
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Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries - victims of Stage 3
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I managed to stay out of an institution for nervous breakdown treatment and although I bit out a tooth over the weekend I am still OK this morning - OK meaning I am still outside the institution!
When we went over the stages for the final run to do the route note changes on Thursday I wanted to "run" away.
Most of the expected repairs were done, but some repairs brought changes and especially through the rocky sections albeit artificial - lots of road character changes took place.
It became obvious that some rocks were moved away while others were merely loosened! This meant that the first or second car over the section would pull the rock or rocks into the road and needless to say, someone would suffer the consequences. And a few did!
It is hard enough to warn "normal" people against things, let alone try and slow down hot-headed rally drivers who have been struck by adrenaline inflicted deaf- and blindness!
Give me 30 Jan Habig's and I am off the tranquilisers!
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Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford - flying in every possible sense of the word!
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I am serious - ... In fairness there are more drivers who are good at anticipating problems by looking at the road conditions, many can read road surfaces well and I suppose most have above average reflexes - but few can apply these talents as well as he can.
You don't have to tell me about the red haze that befalls rally drivers when the helmet goes onto the head. I believe I was one of the prime candidates who decided before the stage what I was going to do with it.
I am not ashamed to say that during my career I hit a few blind-rises (without the benefit of Route notes) as hard as a car could go in the highest possible gear without having a clue what was waiting on the other side - but, when the time came I usually had a 'feeling' and that "feeling" is what makes the difference between looking in the mirror to try and see what you hit and being able to anticipate the problem!
The fact that the Route Notes could not be blamed for any of the incidents - does not make life any easier as my aim is to get everybody to the end of the event and to try and spare them some serious damage!
The problem however comes in when the roads are rough and testing, and teams start looking at the DVD and decide to change warnings to lesser goodies. A danger becomes a caution and the caution becomes a major incident if not an accident!
It is fair to say that if you look at the DVD picture that incidentally is single-vision you can not blame people for saying that I may have had a senior moment and that the jump, bump, dip or whatever is not as severe as I thought!
What they forget is that I am more bound and driven by the fear that I may cost them time by over-cautioning than I am to let them jump a metre or two?
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Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich fell prey to Stage 3
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That is why - if on the final run over the stages a call remains "dangerous" I am sure that it is actually dangerous and I am also sure that it will at least cause some serious discomfort in even an S2000!
Maybe some day - probably after I stopped doing the Route Notes, someone will say - "You know what - he seemed to have a good feeling for road behaviour? The warnings were actually not too bad!"
To those of you who made it to the end - thank you it helps and for those of you who did not, maybe you will now start realising that I truly worry and honestly want you to get to the end?
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Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh - undisputed winners of the ROSA Challenge on Saturday!
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As said Hergen Fekken did not fool around and took the fight to the Ford of Conrad Rautenbach who also immediately accepted the challenge and the war was on!
Hergen won the stage by 1.6 seconds while Habig also made his intentions clear posting third fastest time, a mere 1.1s off Rautenbach's pace.
Then followed Cronje, Kuun and Wilken.
Johnny Gemmell had a slightly troubled start and immediately saw an ocean almost 22 seconds wide appear before the event started properly. Many an enthusiast thought that we were going to witness a Volkswagen benefit.
The Top16 spots were occupied by S2000's!
Gavin Cronje and Van Aardt Schoeman, and also the team of Stefanie and Willem Hugo did not make it through Stage 1.
As expected Mark Cronje came out of the blocks on the limiter in Stage 2, but he managed to beat a determined Gemmell by only 0.06 of a second while Hergen not needing to make up time like the two Toyota drivers had to, was satisfied with third spot exactly a second off the winning pace.
Conrad Rautenbach could again not really cause the havoc he would have liked to and had to be content to add two second more to his tally than Cronje did.
The gates to an almost uncontested win in Class A7 opened for Gugu Zulu when Chris de Wit and Dean Redelinghuys packed their bags for a holiday on the Natal coast!
Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries now held a 2.5 second lead over Rautenbach as they went into the battle of Jessevale!
Regular readers will remember that I predicted a winning time of 36m44s through the stage and you would like to hear that the traditional crowd at the end of SS3 stood waiting anxiously to prove me wrong!
36m44s after Hergen started out on the stage came and went! 38m44 came and went! Then on 41m44s the first car popped out of the stage and it was not Fekken, neither was it Kuun - it was a green white and red Castrol Toyota driven by Mr Gemmell! His time 37m44s exactly a minute slower than I predicted - but he got caught in Hergen's dust for a while.
The Volkswagen support swallowed twice, rubbed their eyes in disbelief and then stood closer to Gemmell who was busy talking to Mr TV - our friend Waldo.
"Hergen was progressing slowly - he caused a bit of dust. Enzo was parked....!"
Then Habig came out all skew and I considered hitting the road back to Pretoria! Mark came out in a winning time - but both he and Robert Paisley looked if they came back from an American Indian Festival or out of a suntan spray booth where an apprentice spray painter did a bad job! Robert flicked his eyes at me and you could actually see the dust flying. By then I did not want to ask what happened as my nerves would not stand another story! Marks winning time was 37m29.9s - which if you will forgive me only about 45 seconds off my prediction.
Ford - Rautenbach - nothing, ziltch, niks, bugger-all, f.......
Ford - Wilken - nothing, ziltch, niks, bogger-all, fo......
Oh dear, oh dear!
It seemed if a mysterious force was nailing every Volkswagen and Ford somewhere insde that stage ....then thank goodness Evan Hutchison came through and ....then we heard Theuns Joubert and Carl Peskin were standing next to their car scratching their heads while looking suspiciously around!
The story goes that they apparently hit a rock that was pulled into the road. According to the tale it was a big rock and Theuns duly stopped so that they could change the flat wheel.
He did not want to damage the car unnecessary! Or so the tale goes on!
They jumped out, first without loosening their belts, then again after loosening them. They ripped open the rear door, Theuns grabber the jack and Carl the wheel-spanner - then they came to the right rear wheel that required replacing and .....
To their surprise there was no wheel to change, no hub, no shock-absorber. There was only a big vacuum where these parts normally fit! End of the rally - but as witnesses said - they stood around scratching their heads.
The overall standings changed dramatically.
Cronje and Paisley now led the rally by no less than the proverbial rally-light-year or if you have a tendency to split hair, by 29.7 seconds from Johnny Gemmell and drew Sturrock who celebrated his 21st birthday hardly a week ago!
Guess who was suddenly in third spot overall?
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Hein Lategan and Johan van der Merwe - incredible run, incredible roll!
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Hein Lategan and Johann van der Merwe in the Pirtek Auris. This was incredible for a privateer to dare stick his nose in the works pie so early on in the event?
Habig was fourth despite the fact that he almost lost two minutes due to hitting a bank at high-speed damaging some suspension parts.
JP Damseaux and Carolyn Swan were in 5th and Rueda/Lewkovicz followed in 6th. Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman were 7th, while Gugu Zulu and Cindi Harding were in a commendable 8th.
Jaco van Dyk and Des de Fortier were in ninth while Leeroy Poulter and Henri Dearlove at this early stage already, made up the Top10 in an A6 Toyota.
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Jaco van Dyk and Des de Fortier - excellent 5th overall
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Fekken, Kuun, Rautenbach, Wilken, Joubert and also the A7 team of Michael Otto and Tommy du Toit were all out of the event. That is FIVE S2000's and one A7 in one foul swoop!
That completed the happenings for Friday. Some were lucky and some were not!
On Saturday morning early the atmosphere was a bit tight to say the least.
The two leading Toyotas of Cronje and Gemmell seemed too far ahead to be touched, Hein Lategan was in a rather 'safe' third spot and the first and for that matter only Volkswagen that stood any chance of causing an upset was that of Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford?
Both the Fords were back under Super Rally rules and they competed in the Rally of SA challenge.
Rautenbach did not fool around and opened the days stages with a proper win beating second fastest Charl Wilken by a handsome 8.8 seconds in the Challenge section.
In the real rally Hein Lategan surprised quite a number of sceptics who keep on underestimating his ability as a rally driver, by winning the stage overall and instead of giving way for Habig to overtake - opened the gap by no less than 2.3 seconds.
Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman experienced all sorts of trouble in this stage and lost no less than 17 minutes trying to get the gear linkage of the car fixed.
The biggest upset though was when Mark Cronje left the road on virtually the first corner of the stage and damaged his suspension. The "caution Left 6 over dip" or something to that effect did not work so well for this crew and they dropped from a rather comfortable lead into fourth overall once again proving that there were hardly any place for mistakes in modern rallying. You either get it right consistently or it will get you!
Gugu Zulu and Cindi Harding also did not have a great stage and lost a bit of time.
Gemmell was now leading Lategan by 22.2 seconds and knowing Hein, he was going to try and reel Gemmell in!
Habig was now 24.6 seconds behind Hein and we all looked a bit surprised!
Cronje according to rumours was still in fourth but his race apparently was run?
JP Damseaux and right behind him Fernando Rueda and Dave Lewkovicz offered a good shield between the leaders and the Volkswagen of Jaco van Dyk.
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Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove - doing their best around a Left 15!
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Gugu was 8th and leading the two wheel drive brigade, but Leeroy Poulter was closing in!
Visser du Plessis' problems saw him having a fight for the last place overall for a few moments.
Gemmell realising that he had to take the fight to Habig won the stage from the latter but only by 0.3 of a second. JP Damseaux was third fastest while Hein Lategan managed 4th.
The two Fords running in the challenge section managed fastest overall time with Rautenbach taking 1.7s less than Gemmell through the stage, but that was purely academic.
Mark Cronje predictably withdrew in stage 5 and another great opportunity for this talented driver went astray.
The Top three overall positions remained unchanged, while the rest all moved up one spot due to Cronje's demise.
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Gugu Zulu and Cindi Harding Winners Class A7
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It was good to see Mohammed Moosa moving back into Top10 but most impressive was the steady run by Leeroy Poulter (A6) who was now in 8th spot, right behind Gugu Zulu who was leading A7.
In his determined effort to keep Habig behind him, Lategan won stage 6 overall - and that for the record included both the Fords who were on a run of their own.
Lategan read the signs absolutely correctly as Habig intended to make a huge dent into the deficit between him and Lategan as his second fastest time proved. Hein extended the gap by another 2 seconds and now the dice for second overall was really and truly on!
JP Damseaux once again posted a time which we got used to in the past and beat Gemmell who only had to protect his lead by 1.6 seconds.
Wilken could only manage 6th fastest but beat the 7th quickest Rueda by almost 6 seconds.
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Mohammed Moosa and Grant Martin - finished well after an eventful rally!
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There were hardly any overall changes after this stage.
Mohammed Moosa managed to force Poulter down and moved up to 8th spot.
Class A5 leaders Morne Janse van Rensburg and Derick Jacobs dropped two positions after a bad stage, while Visser du Plessis only managed to move up one spot and was now lying in 21st position.
In Stage 7 Rautenbach again set the pace and Gemmell took up Lategan as well as Habig's challenges by posting the actual fastest time for the rally.
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JP Damseaux and Carolyn Swan - back on the podium!
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JP Damseaux was actually doing his best to wipe out the 35 odd seconds between him and Habig and posted second fastest time - but managed to take only a single second from Habig who posted 4th fastest time after a very determined Lategan who managed to beat him by another 0.8 of a second!
Gemmell was now leading by 21.9s from Lategan who in turn led Habig by 19.1and Habig had a 33.9s cushion between him and a charging Damseaux.
Moosa moved up into 7th past Gugu Zulu.
Then in Stage 8 - much of the excitement disappeared when Heinrich misread a double danger call - decided that it was not that bad and rolled right out of a possible overall win?
Johnny Gemmell also had a moment at the same spot when he also jumped so bad that his "Hans Device" or whatever you call that thing that gives me claustrophobia just looking at it, also chopped his neck so hard that he apparently lost consciousness for a few seconds giving young Drew Sturrock the fright of his life!
Hopefully this experience will make some teams realise that I do not warn them because I have nothing else to do? it may not look so bad on DVD - but unfortunately this is not a computer game - real life tends to differ somewhat from what you see on DVD.
Nicolas Ryan had a rather good stage and posted a top three time for the first time on this event.
Piet Bakkes and Johan Aucamp also retired in this stage.
The difference between Gemmell and Habig was now exactly 25 seconds and if you know Habig, anything resembling a second a kilometre and there were still 43 rally kilometres to go!
JP was now in 3rd, Rueda in 4th, van Dyk in 5th while Moosa made up 6th.
Zulu, Poulter, Conradie and Ryan made up the Top10.
With the fight really getting serious between the rally contenders, Rautenbach could only manage 4th fastest. Habig predictably won the stage, but the margin was much bigger than even we expected it would be. He took no less than 11 seconds from a still slightly shaken Gemmell and the gap shrank to 14.3 seconds and the red lights probably went on for Gemmell as there were still 34kms to go!
Rautenbach scored a psychological point for the next event by posting fastest time again in SS10 while the fight between Gemmell and Habig was serious. He managed to beat a fighting Gemmell by no less than 6 seconds while Gemmell did what he set out to do, and that was to re-open the gap between him and the charging Polo of Habig.
The gap between first and second was now 19.2 seconds but the top two were simply annihilating the rest of the field and the gap between second placed Habig and third spot Damseaux was 91.1 seconds.
Stage 11 went to Habig who shrank the gap by 4.6 seconds to 17.9 and with only the two short super special stages to go - it looked like a fete accompli that Gemmell had bagged the Rally of South Africa?
Habig took no less than 10.2 seconds from Gemmell in the first run over the Super Special after Gemmell landed in dust with the sun right in his eyes.
Suddenly Habig's task did not look so impossible and all depended on the outcome of the last Super
Special!
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Joos and Danie Stassen - winners in class N4
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To say that Jan Habig posted an almost impossible time over the last Super Special will not be a total exaggeration! He actually beat the Ford of Rautenbach who sure as hell wanted to win the final stage just to prove a point, by no less than 2.5 seconds and he also beat Gemmell by 7 seconds!
This left Habig exactly 0.7 of a single second short of winning the rally overall!
Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock gave Toyota their first overall win this year and this achivement also made Drew the youngest member of a National crew to win a Championship rally overall in South Africa! Now that is something to take home to Scotland!
Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove won Class A6 and if it was not for Habig's effort I would have gladly handed the "man of the rally" award to Poulter, but one should also look closely at the efforts of Tjaart Conradie and Tiaan Rabe - who despite the second place in A6 may actually deserve the award even more than Poulter and Dearlove?
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Tjaart Conradie and Tiaan Rabe - second in A6 after another great rally
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No matter who deserved what, it is great to have this sort of talent in the same class and we can surely expect to see some great action in the second half of this season.
Gugu Zulu and Cindi Harding pulled off an A7 class win, while Joos and Danie Stassen did very well to keep Tjaart Coetzee and Pierre Jordaan at bay.
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Andre Cleenwerck and Kesevan Naidoo Class A5 winners
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Megan and Oliver Verlaque did well to claim the N3 prize, while Andre Cleenwerck and Kesevan Naidoo finally got their act together again to win A5 from Ashley Haigh-Smith.
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Megan and Oliver Verlaque - winners in Class N3
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