Cape Town - National championship special-stage rallying will come to the Western Cape this weekend for the first time in 2014.
Round 6 of the South African Rally championship, the Toyota Cape Dealer Rally, to be run on 19 and 20 September, has been given a fresh look, with a short first day comprising only 45km of special stage rallying on one gravel stage, two tarmac stages and two night tarmac town stages over a one-kilometre course. Seven stages on the second day will cover 127km.
The weather could play an important role in the outcome of the event - last year the battle for overall honours was fought in cold and windy conditions on the Friday and wet and slippery conditions on the Saturday after overnight rain that continued throughout much of the morning - but what competitors can count on is the challenge of the traditional tight and twisty gravel roads in the Malmesbury and Moorreesburg areas.
The 529km rally will start from Imperial Toyota CapeGate in Brackenfell at 2.30pm on 19 September, with SS1, 15km from Durbanville, starting at 2.35. SS2 and SS3 on Friday will be run at the Killarney circuit from 3.30pm - stage three will be a repeat of stage two. SS4 and SS5 at Imperial Toyota CapeGate will start at 7pm, bringing the total racing distance for Friday to 47km.
Saturday's action will begin with the first of the day's seven stages getting underway at 8am at Langgewens, 72km from the Brackenfell overnight stop. The first three stages, all on gravel and covering a total distance of 63km, will then be repeated as SS9 SS10 and SS11, before a 76km liaison to Meerendal, on the slopes of the Tygerberg Hills near Durbanville, for the final stage.
THREE-WAY BATTLE
Leeroy Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee (Toyota Yaris) increased their lead in the standings to 27 points over factory team-mates Hergen Fekken and Carolyn Swan when they won Round 5 in Gauteng in August.
With three rounds remaining Poulter and Coetzee have 103 points from three wins and a second, and are looking good to land Toyota its first SA Rally title since 2004.
Fekken, in his first season with Toyota after many years and two championships with Volkswagen, and Swan have 76 points with a second and two thirds, regaining their second place in the championship after finishing third in the Cullinan event behind Poulter and Coetzee, and Japie van Niekerk and Gerhard Snyman (Ford Fiesta).
Defending champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (Ford Fiesta) have 72.5 points and are the only other crew to have won a round, claiming two wins in a topsy-turvy season that has seen them fail to finish once and complete one round under half-points Super Rally rules.
The Ford pair is used to winning - seven out of eight rounds in 2013 on their way to their second championship - and by winning two rounds this season they have sent out a strong signal to their rivals that they're still in the hunt.
Poulter and Coetzee haven't failed to finish a round, neither have the VW factory crews currently fourth and fifth in the championship - the visiting Dutch/Belgian duo of Hans Weijs Junior and Bjorn Degandt (VW Polo), are tied with fifth-placed team-mate Henk Lategan in a second Polo on 68.5 points.
Weijs and Degandt have three third places to their credit while Lategan, who has also finished each event to date, with a second, a fourth and a sixth to his credit since switching to current navigator Barry White in Round 2.
Any one of the top five is capable of winning a round before the season ends, as are seventh-placed privateers Van Niekerk and Snyman, whose pace and performance in the Ford has improved as the season has progressed. Their runner-up spot in the last round was Van Niekerk's best result in six years.
Former S2000 Challenge winners for older specification four-wheel drive cars, Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin (VW Polo), will be looking for a first top-three finish in their maiden season in the top class.