The lure of the Longmore
By Brendan Kelly
Algoa Rally Club plays host to one of the region’s premier motorsport events when the Algoa National Rally takes place in the Jeffreys Bay area and Longmore Forest this weekend. With over thirty cars expected to line up at the start of the rally at Mentors Country Estate on Friday, it promises to be an action packed affair where the local and regional competitors get the chance to share the big stage with the national competitors.
The event comprises two separate rounds of the national championship, with round five running into the night on Friday, and round six a day rally mainly in Longmore Forest on Saturday. It will be rounds three and four of the Petrefuel Algoa Rally Club Championship.
The planning of the event has certainly had many curve balls thrown, with massive damage to certain parts of the dirt roads in the forest following the recent heavy rains, as well as the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease on certain farms in the area. The organizers have had the Tripple L Plant Hire graders in the area working around the clock to carry out repairs not only to the rally route in the forest, but also at the very soggy Mentors Country Estate, where the exciting first and last stages of both days will be held.
Excitement is building as this is the first opportunity that local spectators and rally followers will get to see the new 4-wheel drive VW Polo that Jan Habig and his team in Natal have built for Benjamin Habig and navigator Barry White. Habig and White dominated the last rally and will certainly go into the Algoa National Rally as favourites to win outright.
Challenging the sole VW Polo will come from the pair of Toyota Gazoo Rally Starlets. Jono van Wyk with stand in navigator Ingrid Jeacocks, will try and emulate his rally win from 2023, and a second starlet of Mandla Mdakane and Kes Naidoo will give their equal best to be on that podium. One can also not discount the ever consistent Chris Coertse in his beautiful Mazda 2. Chris is the current points leader in the National Rally Championship, with a full event worth of points in the bag. Matt Kohler will be in the hotseat for this event.
Anton and Isabel Raaths in their Toyota Pretoria Noord Run-X have been very consistent in bagging the points, and we expect this husband-and-wife pair to get their reliable car to the finish line.
The top local team of Neels Vosloo and Rikus Fourie in their Hella sponsored VW Polo should be strong contenders for a podium finish in the national standings after a strong performance in the Cape Swartland National Rally, where they placed second overall and then followed it up by winning the local Paardepoort Rally in May.
Oliver de Man will take part in the National class in his classic Toyota Corolla E70 without his regular navigator, Ingrid Jeacocks, who joins Jono van Wyk in his 4 wheel-drive Toyota Starlet. Another local team stepping up to the national plate will be Deon Kretzmann and Jason Schreiber in one of the ex Botterill Toyota Etios R2 cars. Deon has been getting to grips with his pocket rocket, and we expect this team to put in a strong performance.
Nick Davidson and Ashley Bezuidenhout will be swapping their 4-wheel-drive Toyota Auris s2000 for a VW Polo 1 litre turbo (ex AC Potgieter car that won the event in 2019) this weekend as their Toyota undergoes some repairs and modifications.
The Daniel Pienaar team has carried out extensive repairs to their cars since the damage suffered at the Paardepoort Rally and will run both their VW Polo with Winley Maartin and Kaylin Kapp and Tashne Wait and Wesley Schultz in the VW Golf A1.
Etienne Malherbe and navigator Patrick Vermaak will once again team up as they celebrate forty years of rallying since they started at the Lowveld 500 on the 19th May 1984 with Malherbe finishing in 26th place in a Mazda RX2 Rotary and Vermaak finishing in 12th overall in an Alfa Guilia. This time, Malherbe will bring a surprise Toyota entry to the table.
The action gets underway on Friday from Mentors Country Estate at 13h00 following a street parade through Jeffreys Bay, and then at 08h00 on Saturday for round six. See you in Jbay!!
