TEAM PIRTEK ON A HIGH ALTITUDE HIGH
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A picture by Motorpics.co.za
Team Pirtek - Heinrich Lategan & Johan van der Merwe
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Saturday, 21 August 2010, saw the running of the OSRAM Rally hosted by The Sports Car Club in Barkly East. Thirty of South Africa’s top teams fell under starter’s orders for the sixth round of the SASOL South African National Rally Championship.
Consisting of eight special gravel stages, the Osram Rally took place in an area steeped with historic significance and natural beauty. Competing at altitudes in excess of 1700 metres above sea level on the freshly graded stages of the Southern Drakensberg is quite challenging as competitors have to take cognisance that altitude reduced engine performance variances can play a vital role in keeping the rally car pointing in the right direction.
Team PIRTEK’s Heinrich Lategan and Johan van der Merwe finished in 6th place with their team mates Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman backing them up in a respectable 7th position overall in their identical Toyota Auris S2000.
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A picture by Motorpics.co.za
Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman
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The race strategy of, Lategan and van der Merwe was to mount a sustainable challenge on the works teams; Lategan commented, “I benchmark myself against the works teams, under normal circumstances they are able to determine the pace of a rally and when the pressure is on they even have the ability to turn it up an notch or two. The works teams need to know that I am right behind them and ready to capitalise on the slightest mishap that they might experience”.
Du Plessis and Snyman enjoyed their second clean run since stepping up into class S2000 at the beginning of the season. With du Plessis adding, “My objective was to be within a second a kilometre of my teammate, to achieve this, I needed to have an incident free event from a mechanical and driving point of view; Gerhard and I achieved this and we enjoyed the mixture of fast and flowing stages interlaced with the very tight, technical sections associated with the Osram Rally”.
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A picture by Motorpics.co.za
Visser du Plessis and Gerhard Snyman
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Partnering in with this success is the likes of SASOL, who offer their expertise and superior quality racing lubricants, and this has put Team PIRTEK in a confident mood. The team looks forward to continuing their quest to win the Privateers Challenge and mix it up with the works teams during the remainder of the season.
Team PIRTEK’s next outing will be the penultimate round of the Sasol South African Rally Championship is the Swartland Rally in the Western Cape on 17 and 18 September.
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