Gugu Zulu king of the dirt once more at Garden Route Rally

It was Weijs/Degandt’s and Volkswagen’s first win of the year. They won seven of the 11 stages and had to overcome a 2 min 20 sec delay on Friday when they were forced to stop in special stage three to change a flat wheel.

 

Their popular victory was made all the sweeter by team-mates and former national champions Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson finishing second in another VW Polo, 33 seconds in arrears after 11 special stages run in the George, Wilderness and Knysna areas on Friday and Saturday.

 

Third, 55 seconds behind the winners, were Jon Williams and father Doug in a Sasol Racing Ford Fiesta , who were one of the few to avoid a puncture on the fast and stony forest roads cleaned by the recent rains.

 

Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (Sasol Racing Ford Fiesta) clinched the championship by finishing fourth overall and in the S2000 class for four-wheel drive cars, nine seconds ahead of their nearest championship rivals Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan (Castrol Team Toyota Auris), who were fifth. The final points score was 155 to 144 after eight rounds, with Cronje/Houghton winning five and Gemmell/Swan two.

 

Cronje and Houghton, who was the co-driver champion in 2011, had led at the overnight stop in Wilderness on Friday, over a minute ahead ofKuun/Hodgson and Williams/Williams, who in turn were separated by less than two seconds after almost 100 kilometres of gravel road racing.

 

Gemmell and Swan, who lost over three minutes with a puncture on Friday’s special stage four, were ninth overnight and pushed hard throughout Saturday to improve to fifth at the finish despite another puncture on special stage 11 and close the gap to the Ford pair from over three minutes to 9,5 seconds. They led t by nine seconds with one stage to go, but lost 18 seconds to the new champions on stage 11 when they had another puncture.

 Sixth were Japie van Niekerk and Gerhard Snyman (New Africa Developments VW Polo). Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin, who wrapped up the inaugural S2000 Challenge for older specification four-wheel drive cars in their BP VW Polo at the previous round in Limpopo, were seventh overall and again the first S2000 Challenge finishers.

 The Manufacturers championship was won by Ford with a total of 744 points in a closely contested battle with Toyota winners for the past 14 seasons, who finished this year with 710 points. Third was Volkswagen on 528 points