Multiple national off road champion Hannes Grobler and former champion co-driver Hennie ter Stege (RFS BMW X3) got the new season off to the best possible start with victory in the Production Vehicle category of the Adenco 400 in the Western Cape on Saturday. They crossed the finish line in Darling after nearly 400 km
of racing in a time of 5 hr 39 min 42 sec and finished 4 min 25 sec ahead of the Nissan Navara of Thomas Barden and former champion co-driver Juan Mohr. Jannie Visser and Joks le Roux (Toyota Hilux) were third, a further 8 min 26 sec in arrears.It was the second win for the diesel-engined RFS BMW X3 in the Absa Off Road Championship since its first race less than a year ago and was the sixth win by a privateer in the last nine races. The Pretoria-based pair sounded an early warning to their rivals on Friday afternoon when they took the honours in the Donaldson prologue, a time trial run over a 68-km route, to determine the start order for Saturday’s race.
They fought off a determined challenge from the Rundle/Mohr Nissan, who had finished second in the prologue. “We had a good weekend,” admitted the popular Grobler. “Winning the prologue was important. A good start position is very important and once we had that we knew we were in with a good chance. This is the perfect start to our season and is a great result for the whole team, who have worked very hard to be ready for this first race.
“Thomas pushed us hard in the beginning and I was keeping a careful eye on him. He passed us once when we took a wrong turn, then they made a mistake and we regained the lead.
“We had a puncture on the first of the two 155-km loops that made up the route and then were forced to slow our pace after damaging the propshaft. The car was vibrating badly in fourth gear so I nursed it to the halfway service stop, where we took more than the allowed time to fix it and picked up a two-minute penalty.”
They had reached the halfway point in the lead, but dropped back to second behind reigning champions Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst (Ford Ranger) as a result of the lengthy pit stop. They retook the lead when Visser encountered problems and then had a clear run to the finish.
“The only problem was that I sat on some dubbeltjie thorns when we changed the rear tyre on the first loop,” said Grobler with a broad smile. “They pricked me in my backside right through the second loop!”
RFS team-mates Christiaan du Plooy and Henk Janse van Rensburg finished seventh in their Toyota Hilux after problems on Friday’s prologue saw them start in seventh position among the Production Vehicles, but well back in the combined field of Production and Special Vehicles.
“We got stuck in soft sand and battled to dig the car out,” reported Du Plooy. “We thought we couldn’t accept outside assistance, but as it happened we were in a dangerous position and could have been towed out sooner. We lost about 15 minutes, which meant we had to start far back on Saturday. We had no further problems in the race, other than having to contend with the dust from all the cars in front of us. We just had too much to make up.”
The next round of the championship is the Toyota Dealer 400 in Mpumalanga on April 8 and 9.
They fought off a determined challenge from the Rundle/Mohr Nissan, who had finished second in the prologue. “We had a good weekend,” admitted the popular Grobler. “Winning the prologue was important. A good start position is very important and once we had that we knew we were in with a good chance. This is the perfect start to our season and is a great result for the whole team, who have worked very hard to be ready for this first race.
“Thomas pushed us hard in the beginning and I was keeping a careful eye on him. He passed us once when we took a wrong turn, then they made a mistake and we regained the lead.
“We had a puncture on the first of the two 155-km loops that made up the route and then were forced to slow our pace after damaging the propshaft. The car was vibrating badly in fourth gear so I nursed it to the halfway service stop, where we took more than the allowed time to fix it and picked up a two-minute penalty.”
They had reached the halfway point in the lead, but dropped back to second behind reigning champions Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst (Ford Ranger) as a result of the lengthy pit stop. They retook the lead when Visser encountered problems and then had a clear run to the finish.
“The only problem was that I sat on some dubbeltjie thorns when we changed the rear tyre on the first loop,” said Grobler with a broad smile. “They pricked me in my backside right through the second loop!”
RFS team-mates Christiaan du Plooy and Henk Janse van Rensburg finished seventh in their Toyota Hilux after problems on Friday’s prologue saw them start in seventh position among the Production Vehicles, but well back in the combined field of Production and Special Vehicles.
“We got stuck in soft sand and battled to dig the car out,” reported Du Plooy. “We thought we couldn’t accept outside assistance, but as it happened we were in a dangerous position and could have been towed out sooner. We lost about 15 minutes, which meant we had to start far back on Saturday. We had no further problems in the race, other than having to contend with the dust from all the cars in front of us. We just had too much to make up.”
The next round of the championship is the Toyota Dealer 400 in Mpumalanga on April 8 and 9.
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