09/03/08 - The 2008 Sasol SA Rally Championship kicked off in dramatic fashion – tough conditions saw the field decimated as the slippery KwaZulu North and South Coast sugar cane stages took their toll on the 48 starters that left Umhlanga Rocks on Friday afternoon.

Defending champions Jan Habig and Douglas Judd took a somewhat lucky with in their S2000 BP Ultimate Volkswagen Polo after day two leaders and team mates Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries succumbed to an engine misfire over the final 24,7 km special stage.

Habig and Judd led the field away under sweltering summer conditions, sweeping the roads clear of the notorious fine gravel that makes the stages so technical and slippery. Road position is crucial on this event and Habig was 4th overall without the same grip levels as their rivals on the opening stages.

“I figured we were 30 – 40 seconds shy for Saturday to be in with a chance of a win”, said Habig at the Durban finish. “I was not expecting this (win) but we decided to keep pushing and keep it clean – no mistakes. We were a bit lucky in the end though because we had a water leak in stage 9. If the stage had been another kilometre longer we would have been in trouble”.

Fekken was devastated to see his win evaporate so late in the day. “ We did everything right – I took time when I needed to and matched Jannie over the last three stages. We changed a sensor after stage nine and the car lapsed onto three cylinders. The crew gave us new plug leads as we left and I changed them before stage 9. That cost us 4 minutes of lateness as well”, Fekken explained.

Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson, the 2006 Sasol SA Rally Champions, had a fraught event. Kuun wrecked the right rear corner of his BP Polo in stage one and dropped to last position before clawing his way back to 12th overnight. In the late stages of the rally, he was into 3rd overall before an engine fire in the final stage brought them to a sudden stop.

Japie van Niekerk and Robin Houghton claimed the final podium place in their S2000 Castrol Toyota RunX after a measured drive. This was Van Niekerk’s first run in the top class and he settled well.

Toyota’s Mark Cronje and Robert Paisley led the event after taking a clean sweep of three out of the first three stage wins on the opening leg, building up a 23 second cushion at the overnight halt. A mistake in Saturday’s first stage ended the young charger’s run, the RunX off the road.

Johnny Gemmell/Peter Marsh (S2000 Castrol Toyota RunX), dropped from an early 3rd position after a last stage roll on Friday dropped them to 7th. Mid-morning on Saturday, and Gemmell too slid off the road and out of the rally in stage 7.

The S2000 privateers fared no better: Nicholas Ryan/Schalk van Heerden (Philips/Jonnesway Toyota RunX) retired from 4th place with gearbox problems. Jon/Douglas Williams (S2000 Guma Volkswagen Polo) took over 4th place but they also retired with a failing engine after the penultimate stage.

Jean-Pierre Damseaux/Cobus Vrey (S2000 Total Evolution Toyota RunX) held a brilliant 2nd overall after stage 3 but were forced out after a cylinder lost compression after completing stage 6 on Saturday.

Fernando Rueda/Gert van Rensburg (Total Evolution Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9) ended 4th overall and won the production car category as well as class N4 in spite of losing over two minutes on day 1 with wrong slots as the new driver/navigator combination found their feet.

Charl Wilken/Greg Godrich (Sasol/Konica Minolta Subaru Impreza N12B) made the early production car running, holding down a highly competitive 5th place overall until the car plunged off the road on Saturday’s first stage, landing in a dry river bed.

This left the way clear for Hein Lategan/Johan van der Merwe (SAC Diesel Volkswagen Golf TDi) to claim 5th overall in their non-points scoring machine. Paul Pfeiffer/Cindi Harding initially finished 5th overall but were excluded for running non-homologated shock absorbers in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6. Richard/Natasha Vaughan (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6) ended 6th overall with a polished performance.

Kosta Koumantarakis/Barry White (Toyota RunX) claimed a storming N3 win and 7th overall. The only other class finisher was the Sasol Toyota RunX driven by the 2007 N2 class champions Etienne du Toit/Patrick Vermaak, who fell victims to route arrow tampering and wrong slotted in stage 7, costing an additional two minutes.

Three class A6 Total-backed Toyotas filled the balance of the top 10. Champion Craig Trott/Tony Ball (Toyota RunX) got the better of Mohammed Moosa/Grant Martin (Toyota Corolla) and another RunX driven by Salie/Armand du Toit.

The much anticipated Ford re-entry into rallying fizzled out on day 1 when Etienne Lourens/Elvene Coetzee ‘s Ford Racing Fiesta ST stopped at the end of stage one with an overheating engine caused by a broken radiator. Martin Steyn/Van Aardt Schoeman crashed their similar Fiesta ST in stage 2.

Theuns Joubert/Hennie Botes (Salom Group Volkswagen Polo) claimed a maiden class A7 win after overcoming a catalogue of misfortunes. They were followed home by Michael Otto/Sipho Mhlanga (Barloworld Toyota Corolla) and Chris de Wit/Dean Redelinghuys (Total Toyota RunX) after battling with a rally-long misfiring engine.

Andre Cleenwerck/Des de Fortier (BP Ultimate Volkswagen CitiGolf) took class A5 honours ahead of the privateer pair Piet Bakkes/Tommy du Toit’s Toyota Tazz. The Sasol Toyota Yaris pedaled by track racer Dave Compton and Paul Leslie suffered a double shock absorber failure in stage two, but ran on Saturday under the SuperRally rules to gain much-needed seat time.

Other notable retirements included:

· Adrian Karth/Duncan English (A7 NetConnect Volkswagen Polo)
· Gugu Zulu/Carl Peskin (A7 BP Ultimate Volkswagen Polo) – broken engine mountings SS2
· Evan Hutchinson/Michael Houghton (A7 Motorite Toyota RunX) – accident stage SS7
· Stevan Wilken/Llewellyn Fourie (A6 Pannar Seeds Volkswagen Polo)
· Visser du Plessis/Gerhard Snyman (N4 Pirtek Subaru Impreza N14) – did not start –misfire)
· Lola/Megan Verlaque (N4 Total Evolution Subaru Impreza) –accident
· Rodney Visagie/Carolyn Swan (N3 Total Toyota RunX) – engine SS1
· Chase Attwell/Gareth Dawe (N3 Toyota RunX) – accident Ss1
· Tjaart Conradie/Tiaan Rabe (A5 Techwood/Sasol Toyota Tazz) – accident SS7
· Steve Mearns/Ciaran Nunan (A5 MPC Toyota Tazz) – drowned SS2