25/07/10 - Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock drove their S2000 Castrol Toyota Auris to a narrow 1.5 second win on the Volkswagen Rally, round 5 of the Sasol South African Rally Championship, becoming the first team to claim a second victory in this closely contested season.

The win, over title rivals Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson (S2000 BP Ultimate Volkswagen Polo) sees the two championship rivals tied on 88 points with three rounds remaining.

Rounding out the podium was Jan Habig/Ralph Pitchford in another BP Polo, 12 seconds further adrift but it wasn’t plain sailing for any of the front runners.

The 28th Volkswagen Rally produced another classic fight for honours that played out in the Longmore Forest, classic fast and flowing rally stages that saw many fancied runners parked on the side of the road.

Zimbabweans Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh came out of the starting blocks with all guns blazing, rocketing their S2000 Ford Fiesta into an immediate 11 second lead, which he just held on to by 1.2 seconds after Gemmell took his first stage win while Rautenbach dropped 10 seconds after going off the road mid stage two.

From stage 3, which Gemmell also won, the rally was all about the Castrol Auris pair who never looked back in spite of varying levels of pressure along the way. Habig was initially the nearest challenger, but second to sixth places see-sawed between a host of top teams. Kuun took up the challenge for VW after stage 4 with Hein Lategan/Johan vd Merwe (S2000 Pirtek/Sasol Toyota Auris) filling 3rd as Rautenbach slipped away from the lead battle, his self-confidence shattered after his stage two incident.

Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich won both tarmac stages in their Basil Read/bizhub Ford Fiesta S2000 and were ranked 7th overall.

Major casualties on the opening day included the current champions Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries who recorded their third consecutive non-finish when a lower control arm broke on their BP VW Polo in stage 1, ending any hope of a third straight title.

Japie van Niekerk/Robin Houghton (S2000 NAD/CTrack Toyota Auris) and Jean-Pierre Damseaux/Carolyn Swan (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) both fell foul of stage 2, setting stage times of 47 minutes and 38 minutes respectively, while their peers were clocking 15 minutes through the 24.8km stage.

Van Niekerk overcooked it into a corner and faced a tree or a gate post - made of rock, and chose the rock, which moved 20 metres and wrecked the suspension. The pair strapped it up and eventually continued, but the makeshift repair broke with 5km remaining and they crawled out on three wheels. Damseaux suffered a broken suspension bolt and a broken sideshaft but they too made running repairs and continued. Damseaux just hangs on to his lead in the Privateer’s Championship, 2 points ahead of the recovering Rautenbach.

Saturday dawned overcast and cool, but the red-hot Sasol Rally Championship action continued unabated. Rautenbach had a new determination and set about cutting his overnight 32 second deficit. He used the Ford Fiesta to devastating effect, jumping into second place after the opening pair of stages, just 7.2 seconds shy of Gemmell.

A puncture in stage 9 dropped Rautenbach/Marsh back to 4th and 31 seconds to make up with just 12 km of stages remaining. The Zimbabwean thrilled the King’s Beach spectators with a superb display of opposite lock driving as he flung the Fiesta through the tight corners with smoke pouring off the tortured rubber, leaving fans to speculate what the outcome may have been with a flat tyre.

Habig took second place back from teammates Kuun/Hodgson in Saturday’s first stage, as the championship leader suffered a broken intercom. Kuun re-passed Habig in the following stage but both had to give way to Rautenbach, who muscled ahead of the VWs.

As stages rushed by, Kuun settled into 2nd, 8.5 seconds adrift of Gemmell. As Gemmell eased up in the final gravel stage at the PE Oval, Kuun slashed his shortfall to 4.7 seconds and with just 1,2 km on tarmac to go, took three full seconds from Gemmell. It was close!

Habig, who set the fastest time in stage 9 duly arrived home 3rd ahead of Rautenbach, who won his 4th stage of the rally but stayed 4th overall, 18 seconds behind the six times champion VW pair.

Wilken claimed his first points since the 2009 Osram Rally, much to the delight of both team and sponsors Basil Read/bizhub. Wilken ended the VW Rally with a flourish, setting the 2nd fastest time in the final gravel stage just 1 second behind Rautenbach, and set the 2nd quickest time around King’s Beach, 0.4 seconds off Kuun’s stage winning time, which bodes well for the Fiesta pair over the remainder of the season.

Missing from the action was Hein Lategan/Johan van der Merwe, who went off the road in stage 8, hitting a bank that caused Lategan to seek medical attention for a sprained hand, caught in the steering wheel.

Pirtek/Sasol team mates Visser du Plessis/Gerhard Snyman had their most convincing outing this season since stepping into the S2000 Toyota Auris, claiming a timely 6th overall, well ahead of the young Namibian Jaco van Dyk and co-driver Des de Fortier (S2000 Volkswagen Polo).

Van Dyk, in 7th, just fended off - by 0.8 second, the second Castrol Toyota Auris of Mark Cronje/Robert Paisley, who had a subdued first day before starting a charge on Saturday that ended with a puncture that took the wind out of their sails and cost three minutes to the leaders, leaving them frustrated.

Nicholas Ryan/Geoff Tyrer (S2000 Gabriel/RCF Vehicle Salvage VW Polo) had an uneventful run into 9th place ahead of Mohammed Moosa/Grant Martin (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) who scored their best result of the year in spite of running out of brakes in stage 2.

Fernando Rueda/Dave Lewkowicz (S2000 Team Total Toyota RunX) and Theuns Joubert/Carl Peskin (S2000 Salom Group VW Polo) ended 11th and 12th respectively. Rueda had a disastrous rally, enduring a puncture in stage 1, hitting a rock in stage 2 that bent a rear lower control arm, power steering failure at Aldo Scribante on Friday evening and hitting another rock on Saturday’s first stage that bent the steering arm.

Leeroy Poulter and Henry Dearlove (IMPERIAL Toyota RunX) took a comfortable 1600cc Championship win as is becoming customary, and took Class A6 line honours for the 4th time in as many events. Their nemeses, Tjaart Conradie/Riaan Erasmus (A6 Silverton Engineering/Hencom Autobody Toyota Auris) ended 2 minutes in arrears after a rock wrecked their power steering and CV joint in stage 2. They overcame a failing clutch on Saturday to nurse the car home in 14th overall.

Craig Trott’s cautious approach paid dividends with another 3rd place finish with co-driver Robbie Coetzee (A6 Team Total Toyota RunX), a result that keeps them in the 1600cc title hunt.

Talented teen Ashley Haigh Smith and Hilton Auffrey (React Toyota Yaris) took an untroubled class A5 win. Chad Lambert/Herman Groenewald (Lambert Steel Toyota Yaris) ended 2nd in class after running day 2 with a broken shock absorber. Andre Cleenwerck/Kes Naidoo (A5 BP Volkswagen CitiGolf) rolled heavily in the first stage, both crew members lucky to emerge relatively unscathed from their comprehensively destroyed CitiGolf.

Stephanie and Willem Hugo (N3 Wiel Toyota RunX) won their class after battling a misfiring engine throughout day one. Robson Maganezi/Shaun Visser (N3 Linking Africa Ford Fiesta ST) ended 2nd in class after a rear hub broke twice.

Class A7 self-destructed when Gugu Zulu/Cindi Harding retired their BP Volkswagen Polo with a failed steering rack mounting in the first stage, while Gavin Cronje/Van Aardt Schoeman (A7 Seasons in Africa VW Polo) left the road in stage two. The hot exhaust ignited the grass under the car and the crew was lucky to emerge back on the road. Their stage two time was over an hour and with service penalties incurred, were time barred.

Other retirements included:
Morne Janse van Rensburg/Derek Jacobs (GC Diesel/BP VW CitiGolf): accident SS2
Evan Hutchison/Elvene Coetzee (S2000 Motorite VW Polo) – gearbox SS1
Sebastiaan/Daniel Klaassen (N4 Subaru Impreza STI) – accident SS9
Megan/Oliver Verlaque (N3 Toyota RunX) – fuel pipe SS3
Abduraghman Amlay/Yusuf Ganief (N3 Toyota RunX) – engine SS6

The 6th round of the Sasol South African Rally Championship is the Osram Rally, which is held in and around Barkly East on 21 August.