Ballito’s Botterill rallies for 1st season win

The sugar cane fields around Blythedale were a flurry of activity last weekend as Ballito resident and rally champion Guy Botterill tested his cars in preparation for the restart of this year’s South African Rally Championship. 

The event, to be held in Secunda on September 11, is the first to be undertaken since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.

Botterill and navigator Simon Vacy-Lyle have won their class for the past 6 years with the Toyota Gazoo Racing Team.

This is the first year that the duo have raced in the African Rally Championship with the Wildcat Racing Team, sending them across the continent and competing with a wider range of drivers.

They were able to complete one event in the Ivory Coast in February, but it was not without some trouble, 

“Our car kept getting delayed in shipment, so we had to hire one from our competitor and managed to come away with a win,” laughs Botterill. 

The car that they were waiting on is the first R4 rally car in Africa, a stripped down and reworked Toyota Etios. Botterill has raced the car on 3 occasions.

“I crashed it once, broke down once and won once. Every time that we’ve finished we’ve won,” he jokes. 

Rallying is a team sport and would be impossible without the help of a navigator.

Botterill and Vacy-Lyle have been together for 16 years and that level of trust is crucial as the driver must make split-second decisions based on calls from the navigator. 

“Sometimes a corner is not even noticeable to a normal car, but if you add 120km/h to that, then you can imagine what it feels like for us,” says Botterill.

Aside from those in the car, there is a travelling support team that is in place to overcome every possible obstacle in foreign and difficult conditions. 

“We have enough parts and machinery with us to pretty much rebuild a car from scratch wherever we are.”

Beyond the race aspect, Botterill also highlights the travels that the team have been on, and they plan to make a documentary when they have a full season in the African Rally Championship.