Total Rally 2012

Dust clouds, cheering fans and the treacherously slippery gravel roads of KwaZulu-Natal’s central and south coast sugar cane fields characterised the 54th edition of the season-opening Total Rally. The thousands of spectators who lined the gravel roads over the two days of action were rewarded with action aplenty and high-speed thrills as befitting a series as competitive as the South African Rally Championship.

Contested by 32 crews in this the first round the 2012 South African Rally Championship, this event comprised of 16 stages over 196km of timed rallying. For this year the event organisers, the Natal Motorcycle and Car Club (NMCC) and Total South Africa, brought the sport to the people of Durban with a spectacular Super Special Stage run in the area around the Moses Mabhida Stadium. The Super Special Stages was run on Friday night and repeated on Saturday afternoon as the event’s grand finale in front of thousands of excited fans.

Finishing the event in first place overall was the Ford Fiesta S2000 of Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton, followed by Johnny Gemmell/Carolyn Swan (Toyota Auris S2000) with Charl Wilken/Greg Godrich’s Ford Fiesta S2000 claiming the final position of the winners’ podium.

The fight for the rally win was very much a three-way battle, but mechanical maladies, driver errors, punctures and two fires saw this enticing fight come to a premature end. Cronje was left to spar with Gemmell for the victory, and the Ford driver doggedly outpaced Gemmell on the final two speed tests of the event.

A fighting second place by Toyota Motorsport’s Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan (Castrol Team Toyota Auris) on Saturday was some consolation for the disappointment of losing the sister Auris of Leeroy Poulter and Elvene in a fire just four kilometres into the event’s opening stage on Friday. The loss of Poulter was of great disappointment due to the exceptional speed and talent of the 30 year old, 2011 Bridgestone/SA Guild of Motoring Journalists Motor Sportsman of the Year.

Poulter had hardly got into his stride when, just four minutes after the start, he went wide in a corner and beached the car on the edge of the road.  While he attempted to manoeuvre the car back on to the road the hot exhaust set fire to the dry undergrowth and it quickly engulfed the Toyota, reducing it to a smouldering shell within minutes.  The incident caused the stage to be abandoned after just six cars had completed it, including the Auris of Gemmell which returned the fastest time.

Interestingly, the all-new Volkswagen Polo S2000s of Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson, Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries and Hans Weijs jnr/Bjorn Degandt made a successful debut in the South African Rally Championship to push their Ford and Toyota rivals throughout the weekend. Special mention must go to the newly arrived Dutch pairing of Hans Weijs jnr and Bjorn Degandt, who experienced the local conditions for the first time in competitive conditions and finished in a commendable 6^th position.

Another driver to look out for in the rest of the championship is the wily old pairing of Jan Habig and Robert Paisley. Habig made the switch to Ford for the 2012 season and would still be coming to grips with a switch to a left hand drive set up – making his fourth place overall look rather promising.

The Tour Natal held all that one would expect from an opening round of the National Championship; with numerous unknown factors, teams feeling each other out and the usual thrills and spills of rallying. Now that everyone has a sighter under the belt, the next challenge is to tackle the forested gravel roads surrounding Sabie, Nelspruit and White River for the Sasol Rally – taking place on 20 and 21 April.

Final Classifications: