The BP Volkswagen rally team claimed their first podium position at the Tour Natal held on Friday and Saturday, 13 and 14 March over 15 stages. Defending champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries finished third overall in the event behind the wheel of their S2000 BP Volkswagen Polo.
Right behind Fekken and Arries was the BP Volkswagen team of Jan Habig and Douglas Judd who crossed the line for fourth overall after a hard-fought event. What the results do not highlight is the drama experienced by the BP Ultimate-powered team.
Just four kilometres into the first stage, an aggressive cornering manoeuvre for Enzo Kuun and navigator Guy Hodgson had unexpected results. A hard right into a steep downhill saw their BP Volkswagen Polo forced up onto the left-hand wheels.
Kuun managed to control the car and prevent it from rolling, but still hit the embankment on the opposite side of the road. The impact of landing back on all four wheels was enough to damage the suspension and their Polo rolled to a halt, just metres further down the road.
On the narrow roads criss-crossing the sugar cane fields, their BP Volkswagen Polo proved an effective roadblock, disadvantaging the following two competitors – which happened to be their BP Volkswagen teammates, Habig and his navigator Judd as well as the defending champions Fekken and Arries.
Officials at the event decided that the delay experienced by the two BP Volkswagen S2000 competitors would stand and Habig and Judd thus recorded a time of 10:03 minutes and Fekken and Arries a time of 08:54 minutes for the first stage. Habig and Judd’s time was all the worse as they were the first car on the scene.
This should have effectively eliminated the S2000 BP Volkswagen competitors from the event, but apparently they didn’t get the memo. Instead of accepting the situation, both S2000 Polos simply upped the pace and by the end of the 15 stage event, Fekken and Arries had posted the fastest times on five of the 15 stages with Habig and Judd winning stage 10.
Just to make things that little bit tougher for Habig and Judd, the pair picked up a further two minute penalty after experiencing a minor mechanical issue when exiting a service park. Without this penalty they would have finished ahead of their BP Volkswagen teammates Fekken and Arries.
While there was drama aplenty up front, the class A5 BP Volkswagen Citi Golf entries of defending class champion André Cleenwerck and navigator Des de Fortier as well as Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin got down to the serious business of rally competition. The driver and navigator pairing in both of these entries are proven champions in the class and competition between them was tough.
Cleenwerck and De Fortier built up an early lead, easily leading the pack and it looked certain they would cross for line honours by the end of the event. As rally competition goes, it was the unpredictable that stepped in and a gearbox change on Friday evening saw the duo incur a lateness penalty.
This provided the opportunity for Zulu and Peskin to slip into the lead, an advantage they capitalised on to claim the class victory for A5 at the first national event of the season.
What the Tour Natal did prove is that the 2009 rally season is set to become a pitched battle between these two class A5 entries as their performance outshone much of the rest of the field.
There is just three weeks before the BP Volkswagen team will head to the Western Cape to compete in their second event of the season. This does not leave a great deal of time for preparation and the workshop pace until then is guaranteed to be just as frenetic as out on the rally stages.
The result of the Tour Natal has ensured one thing, the BP Volkswagen team are now even more determined to repeat their one, two, three championship-winning performance of 2008.
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