Toyota crews dominate season-opening rally

That became clear in KwaZulu-Natal over the weekend, when the season opened with the Tour Natal Rally.

The event was won overall by Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee in their Castrol Toyota Yaris, leading home the identical car of works Castrol Toyota crew Hergen Fekken and Caroline Swan.

Third were Hans Weijs/ Bjorn Degandt (Sasol Volkswagen Polo), leading home Giniel de Villiers/ Greg Godrich (Imperial Toyota Yaris) and Henk Lategan/ Pierre Arries (Sasol Volkswagen Polo).

The rally again lived up to its reputation as a dream shatterer.

Less than 500 metres into Friday’s first special stage, reigning South African champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton spun their Dealer Team Ford Fiesta at over 160 km/h, hit a tree and rolled the car into a ball.

Others to drop out were Nic van der Westhuizen/ Stefan Cilliers (SA Earthworks Toyota Auris) who rolled, Thilo Himmel/Armand du Toit (Investec VW Polo) who flattened a large area of sugarcane and a rock, and Gugu Zulu/ Carl Peskin, who suffered an engine failure while running well in their Sasol VW Polo.

v Wilro Dippenaar/ Kes Naidoo (PZN Panelbeaters Toyota Auris) were sixth overall and first in the S2000 Challenge for older specification four-wheel drive cars.

They ran as high as third overall on the Friday until an overheating engine and alternator failure forced them out of overall podium contention.

Second S2000 Challenge crew home and seventh overall was the combination of Piet Bakkes and Shaun Visser (Toyota RunX).

Japie van Niekerk/ Gerhard Snyman (New Africa Developments Fiesta) went off the road in the opening special stage on Friday, but competed on Saturday under Super Rally rules and were classified eighth overall.

–  Guy Botterill and Simon Vacy-Lyle (Yato Tools Toyota Etios) convincingly won the S1600 class for front-wheel drive vehicles.

They finished ahead of Willie van Straaten/Scott Howden (Toyota RunX), Andrew Heine/ Robbie Coetzee (Toyota Auris), Lourens van Rensburg/ Pierre Jordaan (7 Films Ford Fiesta) and Matthew Vacy-Lyle/ Schalk van Heerden (Toyota Auris).

Current champions Clinton Weston/ Christof Snyders (Reef Tankers Citroen) suffered electronic bothers throughout and retired on Saturday.

Other notable retirements included that of Chad van Beurden/ Nico Swartz, who rolled their Beurden Construction VW Polo, Chris Coertse and his 16-year-old co-driver Mari van der Walt (Electrothread Toyota Etios), who rolled, and Marko Himmel/ Francois Schoonbee (VW Polo R2), who broke a side shaft.