The Total Tour Natal Rally once again is set to thrill Kwa-Zulu Natal’s many motorsport fans.
In a departure from the norm, and something that is sure to thrill rally fans, the event takes place over Saturday and Sunday 6th and 7th March. Chairman of the NMCC Total Tour Natal organising committee, Richard Vaughan, say that the reason was twofold, but a safety consideration was the primary reason. “On Friday and Saturday the Subaru Sani2C mountain bike race takes place on the same land that we use on the south coast. For safety reasons we cannot risk cars and bikes getting lost and meeting up in the sugar cane, so we will run south coast stages on Sunday.”
The Total Tour Natal Rally will kick-off at the Gateway Theatre of Shopping (Umhlanga) with scrutineering on Friday from 17h00 where rally enthusiasts have the opportunity to meet their favourite rally drivers. The first car will leave Gateway at 10h00 on Saturday morning before heading for four gravel special stages on the north coast area.
The cars will then return to the parc ferme at SUNCOAST Casino. Sunday morning the surviving crews head for the South Coast stages where they face eight special stages. The finish is back at SUNCOAST on Sunday afternoon.
Reigning champions Hergen Fekken and navigator Pierre Arries will be in a Volkswagen Polo and will their fiercest competition is likely to come from teammates, the former championship winning crews of Jannie Habig /Ralph Pitchford and Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson.
The Castrol Toyota team, now under the leadership of Glyn Hall, is expected to field two cars in the top class. Johnny Gemmell and Peter Marsh came close to taking the title last year but the driver line-up hasn’t been announced.
Team Total will field no less than four cars this season, three of them in the top S2000 class. Cape Town’s Fernando Rueda (Toyota Run X) will be hoping for a solid start to their season and also in a four-wheel drive Toyota Run X, Somerset West’s Jean-Pierre Damseaux is overdue for a good result. Mohammed Moosa and Grant Martin (Toyota Run X) won the class A6 championship last year and have moved into the top S2000 class.
The highly experienced KZN crew of Craig Trott and Robbie Coetzee will be gunning for the class A6 title in their Toyota Run X.
The big unknown surrounds last years N4 champions Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich who will give the new Basil Read Konica/Minolta supported Ford Fiesta S2000 its South African debut.
Another unknown is a new two-car team of Hein Lategan and Visser du Plessis who will be piloting a pair of S2000 Toyota Auris. Another unknown crew is that of 2009 A7 champions Evan Hutchinson and Elvene Coetzee who have armed themselves with a Volkswagen Polo and will run under the Motorite banner.
“The NMCC and Total worked very well together in 2009 and the Total Tour Natal was highly successful. It goes without saying that we are proud to have been selected by Total as their partner to organise the Durban leg of the SA Rally Championship again in 2010. We are refining and improving the event for 2010 and will also be adding a few surprises to make the event more exciting and spectator friendly. After all, it is the premier motorsport event in KZN,” said Vaughan.
Final route and entry details will be announced as soon as they have been finalized.