The INGCO Vaal 400, the fifth round of the SA Rally-Raid Championship that took place on Saturday, 17 August in the Parys area, was a dusty and technical affair that was won by Henk Lategan and navigator, Brett Cummings (Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux IMT EVO) after intense battles at the front of the field that saw mere seconds separating the teams.
After a fast INGCO Parys 400 the previous day, the INGCO Vaal 400 tested teams over a more technical and trickier 390-kilometre route. The day again started early with a 1,5km Castrol Qualifying Race that determined the starting order for the first of the two 193-kilometre stages. Lategan/Cummings were the fastest after the qualifier with only seconds separating the teams, and with the top 10 teams then drawing for their starting positions, Lategan/Cummings chose to open the road for Stage One.
They were furiously chased by the two Neil Woolridge Motorsport Ford Ranger T1+ teams, the defending champions, Gareth Woolridge/Boyd Dreyer and Lance Woolridge/Kenny Gilbert who elected to start from sixth and seventh place respectively after qualifying third and seventh. Also in the chasing pack, were the TGR Hilux IMT EVO teams of Giniel de Villiers/Elvéne Vonk who were ninth fastest in the qualifying race, and elected to start second; the winners of the INGCO Parys 400 the previous day, Guy Botterill/Dennis Murphy started Round Five in third position after qualifying eighth and Saood Variawa/Francois Cazalet were sixth fastest and elected to start fifth.
Like the previous day, Jayden Els/Johann Swemmer (King Price Xtreme SVR) again posted the second fastest time and this time chose to start further down the field in eighth place, just ahead of Chris Visser/Albertus Venter (Red-Lined Motorsport REVO T1+ GTR) while the leading team in the Adventurer T1 Class, Eben Basson/Leander Pienaar (#TeamHilux Rally-Raid Toyota) who were fifth fastest after the short qualifier, decided to keep out of the Ultimate T1+ battles at the front and started 10th.
It was the defending champions, Gareth Woolridge/Dreyer who took the early lead during Stage One and led for the best part of the race until bad luck struck 60 kilometres before the finish when a puncture resulted in them dropping back to finish fourth albeit a mere 93 seconds behind the winners, Lategan/Cummings (05:39:17). And after racing for more than five and a half hours, negotiating nasty rocky sections and billows of dust while keeping an eye on the opposition, a mere 78 seconds separated Lategan/Cummings from runners-up Botterill/Murphy who lost time early in Stage One having to replace a punctured wheel.
Behind them, Lance Woolridge/Gilbert, who could not complete Round Four the previous day after they rolled their Ford Ranger, were only one second adrift on overall time to round off the podium after a relatively incident-free race despite the rear differential that was replaced halfway through the race at the service park. Fourteen seconds separated them from their team-mates Gareth/Dreyer.
Not too far behind, young Variawa and French navigator, Cazalet, posted their second consecutive fifth place result (05:41:32), just under four minutes ahead of De Villiers/Vonk.
With the intense battles between the Ultimate T+ teams at the front, defending Adventurer T1 champions, Basson/Pienaar kept their noses clean to score a hat-trick of victories this season after not being able to complete the initial two events earlier this year. The team struggled for the best part of the race managing without power steering but were elated with the class victory and seventh place overall on their mission to defend their title successfully.
Gary Bertholdt/Danie Stassen (Toyota DKR Hilux T1+) were eighth (05:58:53) and were followed by the two Adventurer T1 podium sitters, Gerhard Heinlein/Andries Mynhardt (Red-Lined VK56 Evo2) and Johan de Bruyn/Adriaan Roets (Red-Lined REVO T1) who finished 23 seconds behind them. Another Red-Lined Motorsport team, Danie Ludick/Denzil Williamson (VK56), in their SARRC debut, finished just outside the top 10 in 11th place overall (06:06:53) and fourth in class. They were only two seconds ahead of Johan and Sean van Staden (Renault Duster) who had to settle for 12th place overall and fifth place in the Adventurer T1 Class.
The INGCO Vaal 400 took its toll on competing teams and only 15 teams managed to see out the full race distance. The Cape Town based Dutch lady driver, Puck Klaassen together with experienced motorcycle rider, Charan Moore in the navigator seat of the Can-Am Maverick Rotax, won the Challenger Class and finished 13th overall (06:13:01) while another young lady, the 16-year-old Taylor-Paige Trethewey, navigating for her father, Lance in the CR6, also completed the race with the team finishing both races, this time in 14th place overall.
And after not being able to bring their CR6 home the previous day, Lood du Preez/Juandre Kruger (Farmers Meat CR6) took on the INGCO Vaal 400 and finished 15th overall.
Between the teams who could not see out the total race distance, were the three Red-Lined Motorsport REVO T1+ GTR teams who came so close before their luck turned in Stage Two. Chris Visser/Albertus Venter ran into mechanical problems while Rients Hofstra/Wade Harris were forced to retire after hitting a ditch and the blown turbo on Dave and Tessa Klaassen’s vehicle resulted in their withdrawal. Other teams who did not receive the chequered flag included the Blignaut brothers, Fouché and Bertus (#TeamHilux Rally-Raid Toyota); the Dutch team, Rik van den Brink/Gydo Heimans (Century Racing CR7 Audi Twin Turbo) and the German driver, Jϋrgen Schröder/Rikus Fourie (Nissan Navara VK50) who also lost power steering and suffered numerous punctures. The two SSV Can-Am Maverick teams, Ruperd Fourie/Morné van Rensburg, who won the class the previous day as well as Darron Gudmanz/Quintin Lessing, who retired for the second consecutive day, were also amongst the not so lucky.
Competitors described the two INGCO events in the Parys area as totally different from each other, but they enjoyed the weekend although it was tough and testing. There are now two rounds of the 2024 SARRC remaining.
The penultimate Free State Phakisa 400 takes place on Friday and Saturday 13 and 14 September, with the final round scheduled for 8 and 9 November at a venue still to be confirmed.
Published by: SA Rally-Raid Championship (Charmaine Fortune)
Photography by: Dave Ledbitter
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