Secunda, Mpumalanga - Ford Racing crew Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton led from start to finish in their Fiesta S2000 to post their third consecutive National win of 2015 at the inaugural Secunda Rally.
But it wasn't all plain sailing, even after they won the first five stages in a row; the Fiesta clipped a fence in stage nine, ripping off its rear wing and a roof vent, and starting a slow puncture.
Cronje said afterwards: "With the vent sheared off we struggled with dust in the car, but the team did well to fix it and we could cruise home.
"It was quite slippery out there this morning, which made it difficult for us as we were first on the road, but we kept it clean and it paid off."
Henk Lategan and Barry White in the leading Volkswagen Polo were second, 26.9 seconds behind the Cronje and Houghton, at the restart. They quickly made up more than 10 seconds but then clipped a gate-post in stage nine, smashing the right rear wheel of the Polo and putting a premature end to their rally.
OUT THERE WITH A POINT TO PROVE
That promoted Dakar hero Giniel de Villiers and Carolyn Swan (Toyota Yaris) to second, but they soon came under pressure from works Volkswagen pair Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries, who were out there with a point to prove on their return to the competition.
Fekken steadily closed the gap to De Villiers' Toyota, until a broken rim in stage nine wrecked their chances as well, promoting team mates Gugu Zulu and Hilton Auffray to third despite having been penalised 30 seconds for changing the gearbox on their Polo.
Meanwhile, reigning champions Leeroy Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee (Toyota Yaris) were on a charge after a disastrous Day 1, were winning stage after stage, eventually moving up to forth after Fekken's involuntary retirement.
In the end, De Villiers and Swan came home 51.4 seconds behind the winning Fiesta, with Zulu and Auffray, in their first outing together another 32 seconds adrift in third.
Poulter/Coetzee were a distant fourth, followed by Volkswagen crew Thilo Himmel and Armand du Toit, who'd had problems with a misfiring engine in their Polo.
S1600
Guy Botterill and Simon Vacy-Lyle (Toyota Etios) came home sixth overall, more than a minute ahead of their closest S1600 challenger.
Chad van Beurden and Nico Swartz were running second in S1600 when their VW Polo blew its engine in stage eight, promoting Ashley Haigh-Smith and Damian van Ass to second in S1600, only for their Fiesta to pick up a serious misfire before the start of stage nine. Haigh-Smith played it safe, retiring on the spot rather than risk blowing his engine as well.
That moved the Ford Fiesta R2 of Richard Leeke Junior and Rikus Fourie up to second in class, ahead of Matthew Vacy-Lyle and Schalk Van Heerden (Toyota Etios) who finished third in class and eighth overall.
Andrew Heine and Robbie Coetzee (VW Polo) went out with a broken damper after stage eight, while the Polo of AC Potgieter and Tommy du Toit lasted another three stages before it too, cried enough.
Marko Himmel and Francois Schoombee (VW Polo R2) got back into Day 2 under SupeRally rules; they showed genuine sportsmanship by stopping in stage seven to help Nico Higgs and Etienne Lourens, whose VW Polo had caught fire.
The next round of the 2015 South African rally championship, the Bela-Bela Rally, will be run on 19 and 20 June in and around the Bela-Bela area in Limpopo Province.