SA National Rally Championship: Rally cars bring action to Secunda

HIGHVELD – It is that time of the year again where adrenaline junkies will be competing in this year’s SA National Rally Championship over five rounds, starting with the ever-popular Lake Umuzi Rally in Secunda this week on 11 and 12 September.

Friday, 11 September will see the rally “double header” with Round 1 and Round 2 on Saturday 12 September, which will provide double the action and excitement.

The championship will extend beyond the usual R2N class, allowing all classes to compete for overall championship honours in a move to grow the sport.

Additionally, national teams will not be able to enter for regionals, allowing all regional cars to compete with each other.

The national rally circuit usually attracted large crowds of local spectators, however due to Covid-19 restrictions, fans will be able to view the action via online streaming and SA Rally social media channels.

“The Lake Umuzi Rally is always a great event surrounded by a community who loves motorsport action. The rally stages are uniquely situated within a 10km radius from Secunda. The business community and landowners put in a tremendous effort to grade the roads, market the event and support us as best they can,” said Mr William Louw, SA Rally administrator.

“We are also incredibly grateful to have the support of Ctrack, Electrothread, MRF, SS Telecoms, RaceDay TV, Lake Umuzi and TRACN4 in such challenging times.”

This year’s national rally will see an impressive new feature which is the R4 class.

This all-wheel drive FIA category was recently added to the FIA World Rally Car hierarchy to fill the gap between front wheel drives R3 & R2 categories and the all-wheel drive R5 and WRC classes.

Driver, Guy Botterill, reigning SA champion and navigator Simon Vacy-Lyle, will be changing to an R4 spec Toyota Etios, fully FIA homologated and known as Rally 2 kit on the international stage. It is a 1600 turbo all-wheel drive, making it a little monster compared to the previous R2N class which was a front wheel drive with no turbo boost.

“It’s going to be thrilling to see these cars perform as they will be super competitive. In fact, they are even faster than the 4WD S2000 cars which we were used to seeing compete for top honours up to a few years ago. We expect to see some hungry drivers biting at one another’s heels in these monsters so the action will be intense,” said Mr Louw.

This year will also be seeing another exciting new class, the Polo Vivo GT Cup.

VW Motorsport’s Mike Rowe said this is an entry-level class that aims to make the sport more accessible to newcomers.

“The class is designed for production based 1000cc turbo charged Volkswagen Polo cars, adapted for rallying of course. We look forward to seeing the likes of Benjamin

Habig and Jayden Els joining the ranks – two youngsters who have made a great name for themselves in carting. Benjamin is the son of multiple rally champion Jannie Habig, who is no stranger to the Volkswagen brand, so it will be wonderful to see the legendary Habig name on the side of a rally car again!”

The South African National Rally Championship is a series of rallying events that has taken place each year since 1960. Rallies are held on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. This year marks the 60th anniversary.

Follow the action though the SA Rallying social media channels where links will be posted for live streaming, as well as regular update reports and results.

Round 1 and 2: Secunda, 11-12 September

Round 3: Venue TBC, 17 October

Round 4 and 5: TracN4 Rally Dullstroom, 27 – 28 November

For more information on this or other upcoming events visit www.sarallying.co.za