here - Handbrakes & Hairpins

EVENTS
GEMMELL AND TOYOTA TAKE RALLY OF
SOUTH AFRICA BY A WHISKER
SARC: RALLY OF SOUTH AFRICA
28 - 29 May 2010
0,7 seconds is all that stood between Johnny
Gemmell and Drew Sturrock (Castrol Team Toyota
Auris S2000) and Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford
(BP Volkswagen Polo S2000) after 13 stages and
187 km of hard, bruising forest gravel racing that
made up the Rally of South Africa, round four of
the Sasol South African Rally Championship.
Story: Staff Writer / Sasol Oils
Pictures: Motorpics
The casualty list at the end of Day One
read like a “who’s who” of rallying, with
no less than eight cars removed from
proceedings in the killer 56km-long
Jessievale stage (SS3): Hergen Fekken
(BP Volkswgen Polo S2000), Enzo Kuun
(BP Volkswagen Polo S2000), Conrad
Rautenbach (Ford Fiesta S2000), Charl
Wilken (Ford Fiesta S2000), Theuns
Joubert (Salom Volkswagen Polo S2000)
and others all failed to emerge from the
forests, leaving the Castrol Toyota team
in command, Mark Cronje/Robert Paisley
(Castrol Team Toyota Auris S2000) in
a healthy 30sec lead over Gemmell/
Sturrock and Hein Lategan/Johan vd
Merwe (Pirtek Toyota Auris S2000) in
a podium place. Even that didn’t last
long…
Gemmell and Castrol Toyota’s
fi rst win of the season was anything
but straight-forward for he saw a
comfortable lead whittled away by some
bizarre incidents on Day Two. He also
never set the fastest time in a single
stage, while Sturrock, at 21 years and
one week old, became the youngest
winner of a national rally.
When Gemmell took the lead
in SS5, he was stuck in thick dust from
his ailing team-mate, which cost 32sec.
There was a large herd of cattle in the
road in SS7, which cost more time, but
the most bizarre incident happened in
SS8 when a seat anchoring bolt sheared
after hitting a jump very hard. Gemmell
lost consciousness for a brief moment
Overall Classifi cation:
01) J. Gemmell/D. Sturrock
Toyota Auris S2000 - 02h 06m 33s
02) J. Habig/R. Pitchford
Volkswagen Polo S2000 + 0,7s
03) J-P. Damseaux/C. Swan
Toyota RunX S2000 + 03m 17,1s
04) F. Rueda/D. Lewkowicz
Toyota RunX S2000 + 03m 46,8s
05) J. Van Dyk/D. De Fortier
Volkswagen Polo S2000 + 07m 54,1s
06) M. Moosa/G. Martin
Toyota Auris S2000 + 12m 35,7s
07) L. Poulter/H. Dearlove
Toyota RunX A6 + 15m 03,0s
08) T. Conradie/T. Rabe
Toyota Auris A6 + 15m 54,0s
09) N. Ryan/G. Tyrer
Volkswagen Polo S2000 + 15m 59,6s
10) E. Hutchison/E. Coetzee
Volkswagen Polo S2000 + 17m 01,5s