Roger Houghton
19 June 2008
Johannesburg — EVENT sponsor Toyota must be hoping the seventh successive win by a Nissan bakkie in the Toyota 1000 Desert Race will mark the beginning of seven lean years for the Rosslyn-based manufacturer.
Toyota last won its own event in 1999 when Apie Reyneke and Robin Houghton took the honours in a Land Cruiser.
Nissan has now won the Desert Race eight times since production and special vehicles were split into two categories from the start of the1992 SA off-road championship. Toyota has seven victories in the Botswana event in this period, with Mitsubishi and Ford scoring a win apiece before the start of Nissan's dominance in 2002.
After 1000km and 15 hours of gruelling desert racing, Duncan Vos and Louis Weichelt brought their Super Production (SP) Nissan Navara home three minutes ahead of Castrol Toyota's off-road racing team leaders Mark Cronje and Chris Birkin in a Hilux.
Cronje and Birkin had fought back from 27th at the start on Saturday after two punctures slowed them during Friday's 100km prologue. They were then slowed by inoperative rear brakes on the last section on Sunday. Last year, Cronje and Birkin had been leading comfortably until they swerved for a donkey and damaged the suspension on a tree stump. They limped home in seventh place.
Vos, who won last year with stand-in co-driver Louis Weichelt, drove a well-controlled race to ensure Nissan built further on its proud record, and increased his lead in the national driver's championship.
Third spot was filled by the Ford Ranger of Neil Woolridge and Kenny Skjoldhammer, ahead of four-time Desert winner Hannes Grobler, who had Juan Mohr co-driving his Nissan Navara. Grobler again made a characteristic charge from behind after puncturing in the prologue and then having the throttle pedal assembly fall apart at the start of the second day, losing him another 25 minutes.
Anthony Taylor continued to get to grips with off-road conditions as he put up a strong performance in the Castrol Toyota Hilux he shared with experienced multiple SA champion co-driver Robin Houghton. They finished fifth overall and were members of Toyota's winning manufacturers' team with Cronje and Birkin and George and Sharon Barkhuizen, who finished in sixth place in a similar Hilux.
Class D in the production vehicle category was won by Henri and Maurice Zermatten in a Nissan Hardbody, while Class E honours went to Jannie Visser and co-driver Joks le Roux in a Hilux.
The race sponsor had some satisfaction in that nine Hiluxes were among the 16 production vehicles that qualified as finishers from a field of 31, compared with four Nissans and three Ford Rangers.
The special vehicle category saw Shameer Variawa rewarded for persistence as he scored his first Desert Race win in 15 attempts. Sharing the glory in the Team Total Porter PR1 was Siegfried Rosseau. Runners-up were Nick Harper and Andrew Chalupsky in a BAT Spec 2, ahead of championship leaders Karl-Heinz and Quintin Sullwald. Only 11 of the 28 special vehicles reached the finish at Game City, Gaborone.
The 2008 Toyota 1000 Desert Race, organised by the Four-Wheel Drive Club of Southern Africa, is the biggest event of its kind on the continent now that an Africa-based Dakar Rally is no more.
Besides the 59 cars, it was also contested by more than 200 motorcycles and quads and, for the first time, all three categories raced on separate routes on each day. This meant more than 400 people were needed to ensure the smooth running of the event, assisted by 600 members of the Botswana Police Service.
The winner of the motorcycle category was Gray Dick on a Yamaha, with Enrico da Silva, riding a Suzuki, taking the honours in the quad race.
The Botswana tourism department, which fully backs the event, said millions of Pula were annually derived from the race and that it was one of the country's biggest events.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
