We here at Autodealer LOVE our motorsport, we started the year with the Dakar Rally, we are waiting with great anticipation for the Formula 1 season to start as well as our very own local rally season.
Here is something very interesting for this year’s rally season.
Some interesting and exciting innovations will be introduced when the Tour Natal Rally, opening round of the 2015 South African National Rally Championship, gets underway in Scottburgh, KwaZulu-Natal, in three weeks’ time, on Friday, 27 and Saturday, 28 February.
These innovations, aimed at adding more value to the rally spectacle and making it even more exciting for spectators, will include a “power stage” (much in the same vein as the power stages run in the WRC) on the final day.
This “power stage” at Isontevideo, next to the Scottburgh airport, will see the running order being reversed with the slower competitors running the stage first. Besides the inverted grid there will also be a knock-out (or rather a knock-off) competition:
At the end of the stage a hot seat area will be demarcated adorned with a couch where competitors setting the fastest time for the stage will sit in waiting.
As the faster cars negotiate the stage and the stage times tumble, the crews setting the previous fastest time will move down the couch until literally being knocked off the bench… In the end only the stage winners will remain on the couch.
According to Deputy Clerk of the Course Jimmy Dewar, the route for the “power stage’ is right next to the airport runway, so there will be ample parking and vantage points for spectators. “We will be running this stage three times during the course of Saturday, the final time as the ‘power stage’.
“To make it even more exciting there is a spot in the stage where the cars will get airborne. Prizes and trophies will be awarded to the teams entertaining the crowds with the longest and most spectacular jump,” said Dewar.
Another change this year is that the participating crews will have two opportunities to reconnoitre the route ahead of the rally.
According to Richard Leeke, President of the National Rally Commission and Clerk of the Course for the Tour Natal Rally, rudimentary pace notes will be made available to competitors, but they will be allowed to do two reconnaissance runs before the event.
“This will give the crews enough opportunity to refine their pace notes for the event,” said Leeke. The top eight seeded drivers in the two principal categories of the SA National Rally Championship – the four-wheel drive S2000 and the two-wheel drive S1600 class – will draw their starting positions for the event.
Dewar added that this year’s route for the Tour Natal Rally will be quite similar to last year’s with a centralised service park and the first three stages after the start at the Scottburgh Country Club to be repeated – for a total of six stages on day one.
On the second day another five special stages will be run on the fast loose gravel roads in the sugarcane farm lands of the South Coast for a total of 11 stages over a distance of approximately 400 kilometres.
“While entries only close at the end of this week we expect the crème of South African special stage rally teams to gather for the traditional opening round in the Scottburgh area of KwaZulu-Natal,” said Dewar.
“We have already received some entrants for the new NRC2 class for older 4-cylinder two wheel-drive cars, and also expect some entries for the new Challenge and entry-level series. We look forward to an exciting and successful event.”
Meanwhile, planning for the Sasol Rally, round two of the SA National Rally Championship and the Africa Rally Championship, is on track.
The event, to be run in its traditional home towns of Sabie, Graskop, White River and Nelspruit in Mpumalanga, will also aim to entertain the fans with the spectacular and very popular Spaghetti Junction super special being run twice.
There will be eight rounds in this year’s series with a team’s seven best results counting towards the championship.
