THREE top Namibian rally teams were tested to the max during this past week-end’s sixth round of the South African Rally Championship, where they drove through extremely wet and slippery conditions over ten special stages.
Thilo Himmel and Armand du Toit achieved a fine victory in the S1600 category of the very challenging Toyota Dealer Cape Rally in the Swartland over the 13 – 14 September. Young Himmel never set a foot wrong and the Toyota Eios 1.5 never missed a beat.
However, reigning Namibian rally champ Wilro Dippenaar and Kesevan Naidoo was less fortunate when they were part of a three car mishap on Special Stage one. First 6x SA champion, Jannie Habig, and Robert Paisley left the road at high speed in their Basil Read S2000 Ford Fiesta 4×4. They cleared an almost 2metre wide ditch and had to drive some 1km in the wheat field to regain the correct route.
Then Japie van Niekerk and Gerhard Snyman slid straight into the same ditch with their NAD S2000 Ford Fiesta 4×4 coming to rest on it’s nose. They were joined next by young Wilro who followed suit in the S2000 Challenge McCarthy Toyota Auris 4×4, and sat it our for the remainder of the .
According to Wilro, his brakes had failed, and the car lost it in a corner on the slippery surface sliding headlong into a ditch, just next to the blue Fiesta. “We were fine and there wasn’t much damage to the car,” he said, adding that he is going all out to defend his Namibian championship title this year.
Another Namibian team who were setting a cracking pace, was father and daughter Stephanie Botha now competing in SA, and Windhoek businessman Willem Hugo. They looked set to achieve a podium result in S2000 Challenge but landed in a very deep pool of rain water in their Griffen Mining Toyota Run X 4×4 on the second day of the event.
Overall the defending South African Champions, Mark Cronjé and Robin Houghton, were awarded first position by a scant 1.8 seconds when a reported jump start penalty was found to be unsubstantiated. The Ford Dealer Team S2000 Ford Fiesta 4×4 making it five out of six victories for the season whilst the ever unlucky Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan found themselves in second place again with the very impressive Team Castrol S2000 Toyota Yaris 4×4.
By Motoring reporter