Cars Motoring news
Toyota’s Johnny Gemmell took the fight to Volkswagen at this weekend’s VW Rally in Port Elizabeth, the fifth round of the eight event championship, winning the event by just 1.5 seconds from Enzo Kuun.
Gemmell and navigator Drew Sturrock took three special stages on Friday’s leg of the event to assert their authority on the rally.
The first stage was won by Conrad Rautenbach by a 12 second margin over Gemmell with the second quickest time. A win for Gemmell on the second stage saw the gap close to just 1.2 seconds with that deficit converted to a lead of 13 seconds over Jan Habig by the end of the third stage.
By the end of the first day Enzo Kuun had taken over from Jan Habig as Gemmell’s main challenger and was 5.3 seconds off the lead. Through the next five stages on Saturday Kuun kept up the pressure but was unable to move ahead of Gemmell.
Going into the final stage of the event, a 1.7km spectator special at Kings Beach in Port Elizabeth, the gap was the same as it was at the beginning of the day but a do-or-die on the part of the VW driver saw him close the gap to just 1.5 seconds in the final stage.
A close finish, but not as close as the 0,7 second margin held by Gemmell at the end of the Rally of South Africa six weeks ago.
“The VW Rally is one of the more treacherous rallies in the series,” said Gemmell afterward. “It’s a really quick event on typical forest roads with varying surfaces that can catch you out so easily. We knew that we had to very quickly find a pace that would get us in a position to challenge for the lead without taking undue risks.”
