2009 National Championships Round 4
Thursday, 22 October 2009 09:39
The BP Volkswagen rally team claimed the lead in the 2009 national championship at the Rally of South Africa – the mid-point in this season.
Defending champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries won the challenging event held in Ermelo on Friday and Saturday.
Reports of standing water on the stages, due to inclement weather, saw a number of the competitors opting for wet-weather tyres while Fekken and Arries instead stuck with their regular rally tyres. The gamble paid off and their BP Ultimate-powered S2000 Volkswagen Polo proved to be the car to catch at this event.
The pair is now in the lead of the national rally championships and go into their home event, the Volkswagen Rally, to continue the defense of their national title as the frontrunners.
Second in the Ermelo event was BP Volkswagen teammates Jan Habig and Douglas Judd. The pair clocked up seven stage wins of the total 13 stages, to finish just 23 seconds behind the leaders.
For Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson who suffered a puncture at the second stage, the event could perhaps have gone rather better. As the eighth S2000 car across the finish line, the Rally of South Africa will not rate amongst their best results.
For Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin, the Ermelo event provided a far better result than they were expecting. A class win in A5 behind the wheel of their BP Ultimate-powered Volkswagen Citi Golf saw them rewarded for driving hard, but keeping their eyes on the goal.
While they struggled with pace on Friday, they certainly made up for this on the Saturday, taking time on the rest of the field in every stage.
A puncture for their main competition gave Zulu and Peskin that little extra help they needed to post a rally win, rather than the second place finish they were expecting.
For André Cleenwerck and Des de Fortier, things did not go as well. A detour off the road saw the pair damage their suspension and also their driveshaft which put an early end to their event.
Visuals courtesy of Motorpics.
