Champions fight back in season’s final event
In a race with more plot twists and heart-stopping moments than an afternoon soap, defending champions Anthony Taylor and Dennis Murphy added the 2014 Donaldson Cross Country Championship title to Castrol Team Toyota’s tally for the year.
The pair finished fifth overall – high enough to bag the title – in the Atlas Copco Gold 450 after a disappointing qualifying round that saw them start from the back of the field.
“Anthony and Dennis really had an amazing race,” said team principal Glyn Hall after the final event of the season. “They had to take part in the mass start, but they fought back relentlessly and finished fifth when the dust settled. Enough to win the 2014 title by what turned out to be a comfortable margin in the end.”
Taylor/Murphy was embroiled in a battle for the title with the Malalane Toyota crew of Johan and Werner Horn, who ironically campaign Taylor’s championship winning Toyota Hilux from 2013.
Just 14 points separated the two teams before the final round, and when things didn’t go according to plan for Taylor/Murphy in the prologue, it was clear that the fight was going to go to the wire.
Leeroy Poulter and Rob Howie, in the second Castrol Team Toyota Hilux started strong. An unfortunate accident near a road crossing saw them collide with one of the special vehicles ahead of them, which caused significant damage to their Toyota Hilux’s oil-cooling system.
They were forced to retire, and as a result had to settle for fourth overall in the championship. In Class S for older-spec race vehicles it was 4×4 Megaworld’s Deon Venter and Jaco van Aardt, who took class honours in their Toyota Hilux, piping newly crowned class champions Jannie Visser and Joks le Roux (Ruwacon Racing Toyota Hilux) by 10 minutes.
“We are overjoyed by our motorsport results this year,” says Hall. “Thanks to the great results achieved by some of the privateers who also race Toyota products, we have won every single class we entered in 2014, in both the South African National Rally and the Donaldson Cross-Country championships.”
Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee bagged the South African National Rally Championship title in their Castrol Team Toyota Yaris S2000, while Guy Botterill and Simon Vacy-Lyle achieved the same in Class S1600 (Yato Toyota Etios R2). In the Cross Country Championship it was Taylor/Murphy in Class T (the top class for production vehicles), and Visser/Le Roux in Class S.
