Algoa Rally Club will host round 5 of their championship at Aldo Scribante Raceway on Saturday, with an event comprising four stages aimed at bringing rallying up close to the spectators with a mix of dirt and tar racing for the eighteen teams that have entered.

The husband and wife pairing of Juan and Tarryn van Rooyen (Innova VW Polo) have a slender lead in the overall championship, with a mere two points separating them from Riekus Schmidt. In third place is the Humansdorp Toyota-backed team of Jeandre Marais, who has Tegan Taljaard alongside him reading the notes in their classic Toyota Conquest. Yet another consistent performance from the pair could see them moving up to second place in the championship. Currently tied in fourth place overall are the Daniel Pienaar Technical High School entries, with Devilliers Wessel and Francois Anker in their VW Polo level pegging alongside the VW Citi Golf of Ulrich Roberts and Wesley Schultz.

National competitors Neels Vosloo and his navigator Rikus Fourie will be hoping to get their disastrous season back on track after rolling out of contention early in round one of the championship and then blowing their engine in their Herotel/Hella-backed VW Polo just before the start of the doubleheader weekend of rounds 3 and 4 in Jeffreys Bay and the Longmore Forest. It will undoubtedly be a cautious approach for them in this weekend’s event as they run in their new engine.

A team to watch as they are now getting to grips with their powerful Toyota Etios is the Triple L Plant Hire Team of Deon Kretzmann and navigator Jason Schreiber. They hope to continue their upward momentum after their class win in round 4

Defending champion Oliver de Man (Ocean Truck Sales) will have his regular navigator back next to him as Ingrid Jeacocks returns from doing national rally duty. They have had a relatively tame first half of the season and are in tenth place in the championship hunt.

Unfortunately, some big hitters will sit out this event after suffering major engine failures in the last round. They include Ross and Roxanne Bartle (Triple L Plant Hire), Nick Davidson and Ashley Bezuidenhout (Stu Davidson and Sons) and class ARC3 leaders Clyde Challenor and Grayham Bishop (GMP Motorsport).

Leading the ARC3 class are Jody van Zummeren and James Johnson in the Border Towing and Recovery-backed Datsun P510, just 2 points ahead of Johan Viljoen in a VW Polo in second, while Eddie Banks in his crowd-pleasing BMW E36 is currently in third.

The gates to Scribante will be open for spectators from 06h30, entrance is absolutely free and there will be a variety of food and coffee vendors in attendance. The first stage of the rally is set to start at 11h35, stage 2 at 12h40, stage 3 at 13h35 and stage 4 at 14h50.