Tzaneen - The guttural bellow of a heavily modified rally car echoing through the trees as it speeds down a forest road at full tilt is something every car fanatic should experience at least once in a while.
This weekend an old national rally calendar favourite, the NTT Tzaneen Rally, made a welcome comeback after a 16-year hiatus. Staged in the lush, scenic town of Tzaneen in the Limpopo Province lowveld, this is certainly a bucket list event for rally enthusiasts and Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) invited us to experience it first hand over the weekend.
The rally, which took place over Friday and Saturday, August 12 and 13, treated spectators to a mixture of forest and town stages, including a night stage in Tzaneen’s CBD, which was enthusiastically welcomed by spectators, who came in their droves and supported the event with great enthusiasm. The highlight for me, however, was the forest stages, for the speed and sound that could be experienced close up (something you should always do from the inside of a corner). Take a quick look at a forest stage in the video below:
It was, however, an event of highs and lows for the Toyota Gazoo Racing team. GTC national circuit racing driver Mandla Mdakane made his rally debut in an S2000 Toyota Auris, alongside navigator Kes Naidoo, but unfortunately the pair were forced into retirement on the second day due to a faulty gearbox.
Sadly the retirement fate also awaited TGR’s leading duo Guy Botterill and Simon Vacy Lyle in their Toyota Starlet. The pair had led the rally on the first day, only to have a faulty injector push them into retirement on Saturday.
When the dust had settled after the last stage, JJ Potgieter and Tommy du Toit emerged as overall winners. It was their first outing in the Hyundai i20, which they had acquired from championship leaders Chris Coertze and Greg Godrich. The latter pair, in their new Mazda 2 1600 turbo, finished eighth overall, just over 10 minutes adrift of the leaders.
Toyota Yaris privateers Theuns Joubert and Schalk van Heerden finished second overall, ahead of Jono van Wyk and Ingrid Jeacocks in a Ford Fiesta.
Toyota’s Guy Botterill and Simon Vacy Lyle managed to score maximum points on the opening day of the rally as their Starlet ran faultlessly, and the pair were even able to dial things back later in the day in order to preserve the car. However a faulty injector pushed them out of contention on Saturday, and that was not something that could be fixed on the fly given the layout of the Starlet’s powertrain.
“With a faulty injector you can damage the engine quite badly, so I think it was a good call (to retire),” Guy said after the event. “At least we’ve got only one issue that we can fix relatively easily, and come back stronger for the next event,” he added.
Having retired on both days, Mandla Mdakane felt his team-mate’s pain, but he did learn a lot on his rally debut. On Friday Mandla had to contend with a puncture as well as gearbox gremlins which the crew stayed up until the early hours of Saturday to repair. Sadly on the second stage the gearbox got stuck in second and the team elected to retire to avoid causing more damage.
“We’ve had quite a tough first rally, but we’ll pick our heads up and remain positive for the next two that we hopefully get out to do,” Mandla said after retiring. “Besides that we’ll be getting out of the dust and I look forward to getting back in the Corolla for the next round in GTC2.”
South Africa’s next National Rally Championship round takes place from September 16 in Delmas, Mpumalanga.
Results: 2022 NTT Tzaneen National Rally
1 - JJ Potgieter / Tommy du Toit (Hyundai i20) Time: 1:13:43.5
2 - Theuns Joubert / Schalk van Heerden (Toyota Yaris) +2m06s
3 - Jono van Wyk / Ingrid Jeacocks (Ford Fiesta) +20.6s
4 - Johann Strauss / Elzaan Venter (Subaru Impreza) +12.9s
5 - Michael McGregor / Shaun Visser (VW Polo) +5m28.4s
6 - George Smalberger / Robbie Coetzee (VW Polo) +45.2s
7 - Magriet Potgieter / Rikus Fourie (Ford Fiesta) +2.4s
8 - Chris Coertse / Greg Godrich (Mazda 2) +1m34.9s
9 - Anton Raaths / Mari Ducasse (Toyota Auris) +39.5s
10 - Gerald Klopper/ Johan Aucamp (Toyota Etios) +2m07.4s