Jan Habig Rallying

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Habig sidelined on final stage

18 August 2013

Jan Habig and Robert Paisley (Basil Read Ford Fiesta), in second place after day one of the Ford Rally were denied a finish after a cam belt failure in the final stage of the Gauteng event.

A very successful inaugural Ford Dealer Rally ended in Cullinan, on Saturday 17 August with another dominant national rally championship victory for reigning champions Mark Cronjé and Robin Houghton (Ford Dealer Fiesta S2000).

It was the current championship leaders' fourth win in five events and, with three rounds remaining, they enjoy a comfortable 30-point lead at the top of the standings. The team won eight of the 14 special stages over the two-day event, which took place in the historical diamond mining area of Cullinan east of Pretoria and included a special spectator stage on tarmac in the parking lot of the Mamelodi Plaza.

It was the perfect weekend for Ford. In addition to winning the four-wheel-drive S2000 class, Ford Fiestas also won the S2000 Challenge for older-specification, four-wheel-drive cars and the two-wheel-drive S1600 class. Toyota spoilt the party slightly by taking the manufacturers' award and extending their lead in the manufacturers' championship.

Henk Lategan and Barry White (Volkswagen Sasol Racing Polo S2000) were second overall, 1 min 16 sec in arrears. The 20-year-old Lategan, the hottest young property in rallying today, came from fifth overnight and added another three stage wins to the two he scored on Friday. Had it not been for a 20-second penalty for deviating from the route on Friday he could have finished the first day in third place.

Third were Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan in a Castrol Yaris, who finished 42 seconds behind the Polo and who in turn just managed to hold off a determined challenge from team-mates Leeroy Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee.

Poulter and Coetzee were penalised a total of 70 seconds for two jumped starts on Friday, which saw them drop from second to eighth overnight and lost them a second place finish. Seven top-three finishers in Saturday's eight stages saw them close to within six seconds of their team-mates at the finish at Zonderwater Prison in Cullinan.

Privateers Japie van Niekerk and Gerhard Snyman were fifth and enjoyed their best result of the season so far in only the second outing in their NAD Ford Fiesta S2000 Challenge entry. Former champions Enzo Kuun and Douglas Judd (VW Sasol Racing Polo S2000) scraped home in sixth place with a fast-finishing Giniel de Villiers and Greg Godrich (Imperial Toyota Yaris S2000) following just two seconds behind.

Completing the top ten were Jean-Pierre Damseaux/Hilton Auffray and Mohammed Moosa/Andre Vermeulen in eighth and ninth places in their Total Toyota Auris S2000 Challenge cars; with another Challenge entry, the Toyota RunX of Stephanie Botha and her father Willem Hugo, in 10th.

Defending S2000 Challenge champions, Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin (VW Sasol Racing Polo), were forced to retire with a broken engine valve after completing just one stage on Saturday.

Former national rally champions Jan Habig and Robert Paisley were cruelly robbed of a hard-earned fifth place on the very last stage of the rally, when their Basil Read Ford Fiesta S2000 suffered a broken camshaft belt.

Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries (VW Sasol Racing Polo S2000) had a weekend to forget. The former champions hit a gate on stage two on Friday and were forced to retire. They restarted on Saturday morning under Super Rally rules, which apply stiff penalties for all the stages missed, but only managed to complete two stages before retiring once again with a severe vibration.

The two-wheel-drive S1600 class honours went to a resurgent Ashleigh Haigh-Smith and Craig Parry (Castrol Ford Fiesta), who were 12th overall and 1 min 22 sec ahead of the second S1600, the Beurden VW Polo R2 of Chad van Beurden and Nico Swartz. It was circuit racer Van Beurden's best result in his first year in rallying and came after he and Swartz won the final stage.

Haigh-Smith had started fourth on Saturday morning after a puncture on Friday dropped them to eighth after the first three stages. They fought back magnificently to win the class for the first time this season. Third were Paul Franken and Henry Kohne (Manitou VW Polo) in their best result of the season, who were just eight tenths of a second behind after more than two hours and 160 kilometres of gravel road racing.

Another circuit racer competing in only his second-ever rally, Ernie van der Walt, was a very happy fourth in class with co-driver James Aldridge in their Ferodo Ford Fiesta. Fifth were Matthew Vacy-Lyle and Schalk van Heerden (Fragram Toyota RunX) ahead of Andrew Heine and Stephen Jones (Toyota Auris) and Lourens van Rensburg and Jason Plumbley (7 Films Ford Fiesta).

Completing the top 10 were six-times former class champion Craig Trott and Janine Lourens, whose rally was bedevilled by punctures and delays in other competitors' dust; championship leaders Clint Weston and Christoff Snyders (Reef Citroen C2); and Marko Himmel of Namibia and Gert Nienaber (Toyota Corolla).

Weston and Snyders had led throughout the day until dropping back to second behind the winners on stage 13 and rolling their car on the final stage.

Himmel's older brother Thilo and Armand du Toit (Toyota Etios), second in the championship, competed in the Super Rally on Saturday after suffering a broken drive shaft on Friday. They dominated the class stage times with five wins out of eight to Weston/Snyders' two and retired on the final stage with suspension problems.

The next round of the championship is the Toyota Cape Dealer Rally in the Western Cape on 13 and 14 September.

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