The normally tranquil town of Steytlerville came alive on Saturday when the Algoa Rally Club held the fifth round of their championship there in perfect warm weather conditions. The event that had twenty nine starters became a rally of attrition with ten cars not making it to the finish as the heat and the high speed stages took its toll on the vehicles.

Nick Davidson and Ashley Bezuidenhout put their brand new 4-wheel drive VW Polo through its paces cautiously at first as they got to grips with the new vehicle and then going into the last stage realised that they down in about fourth place with Neels Vosloo and Rikus Fourie being the overall leaders. Davidson then unleashed the beast during the last stage to make up the time deficit and ultimately storm to victory by twelve seconds with Vosloo and Fourie in their two-wheel drive VW Polo 250 in second and Mpumalanga visitors Johan Strauss and Elzaan van der Schyff in their four-wheel drive Subaru Impreza in third.

Stage three of the rally unfortunately was cancelled following a medical emergency after Riekus Schmidt and Marco Griesel took a big jump in their four-wheel drive VW Polo 270 and landed awkwardly resulting in a spinal injury for Schmidt who was evacuated and taken to hospital for treatment.

Well known circuit racing champion Dawie van der Merwe made his rally debut with Steph Pieterse navigating for him in a virtually stock-standard 1.4 litre VW Polo Playa and stunned everyone by bringing the car home in eighth place overall and secured the class ARC5 win. Another rally debutant was Pikkie Marais who teamed up with Juandre Nienaber in a Toyota Etios 1.6 litre and they managed a tenth overall and fifth place in the very competitive ARC4 class.

The results were as follows –

Algoa Rally Club Championship, round 5 per class and overall

ARC 5 – 1^st Dawie van der Merwe & Steph Pieterse, 2^nd Francois Vermaak & Handre van Schalkwyk, 3^rd Leander Koekemoer & Kaylin Kapp

ARC 4 – 1^st Neels Vosloo & Rikus Fourie, 2^nd Juan & Tarryn van Rooyen, 3^rd JP Smit & Marisa Bernhardt

ARC 3 – 1^st Oliver de Man & Ingrid Jeacocks, 2^nd Ross & Roxanne Bartle   

ARC 1  – 1^st Nick Davidson & Ashley Bezuidenhout, 2^nd Johan Strauss & Elzaan van der Schyff, 3^rd Wade van Zummeren & Henry Adams

Clubman’s – 1^st Francois Vermaak & Handre van Schalkwyk

Overall – 1^st Nick Davidson & Ashley Bezuidenhout, 2^nd Neels Vosloo & Rikus Fourie, 3^rd Johan Strauss & Elzaan van Schyff