Algoa Rally Club hosted the NRC rally that included the club rounds 3 and 4 on Friday 7th and Saturday 8th July at Mentorskraal and Longmore Forest. A spectator-friendly stage at Mentorskraal proved to be popular among the locals, the national teams went first, followed by the regional ARC club members. Stages followed in Longmore Forest, always challenging the competitors and cars, keeping a fine line between being fast versus conserving the car for the remainder of the rally. Some cars were not that lucky to survive the demanding forest stages and soon the starting field of 29 cars started to fade, one by one. Daniel Pienaar’s motorsport team did well but had a series of problems with the cars.
On Day one (round 3), the A1 1.4i golf piloted by the matric learner, Ulrich Roberts and navigator teacher, Wesley Schultz had an over-fueling problem which resulted in dead sparkplugs, including a cracked ignition coil after a good ice-cold water splash during stage 1. They had to super-rally stage 2, the pit crew managed to fix all the bugs and got them running in good order, just to be plagued by torn cv rubbers during the night stages. A temporary fix kept them going through the rest of the stages to parc ferme.
The 1.2tsi polo, piloted by matric learner, De Villiers Wessels and navigator teacher, Francois Anker, had a good run throughout the day. The forest tested them in the dark and soon took a bite during stage 4, they hit a bad patch and got stuck in deep mud, however, they managed to free the car, sustaining only minor cosmetic damages, and kept going with good momentum during the rest of the stages to parc ferme.
On Friday night after the cars were released from parc ferme, the pit crew was on standby, quickly doing a service and preparing both cars, fixing bent frames, cv joint rubbers, etc, in cold, dark conditions. On Saturday morning both cars were rally ready for round 4 of the ARC championship.
The day started off well with smooth stages in daylight.
Towards the end of the day, Longmore Forest showed its teeth again and the golf had a small caliper issue that was quickly sorted. The polo didn’t escape unharmed either, it managed to make it to the service park with a cracked gearbox mounting, in service the mounting was welded, and both the cars were able to complete round 4 all the way to parc ferme.
Results for the National Rally.
Round 3
Ulrich Roberts and Wesley Schultz received a 13th overall in ARC and 3rd in class ARC5.
De Villiers Wessels and Francois Anker received a 14th overall in ARC and a 4th in class ARC5.
Round 4
Ulrich Roberts and Wesley Schultz received a 9th overall IN ARC and 2nd in class ARC5 including 3rd position in the clubman’s class
DeVilliers Wessels and Francois Anker received a 10th overall in ARC and 3rd in class ARC 5
The overall results were outstanding for this school team, the hard work and long hours paid off, well done!
Published by: Francois Vermaak
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