A good result on the recent Ford Motorite 400 has seen the Ford Racing pair of Neil Woolridge and Kenny Skjoldhammer, close to within four points of the Production Vehicle championship leaders in the Absa Off Road Championship.

Former champions Woolridge and Skjoldhammer finished second to the Proudly South African Nissan Navara, in the hands of Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford, on the Limpopo event. And with championship leaders Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan, in the second Nissan Navara, falling out of the fourth round of the championship, the overall and Super Production Class championships are delicately poised at the halfway mark in the season.

In the overall drivers championship Grobler and Woolridge lead Class E frontrunner Manfred Schroder (Ford Racing) and Class D leader Chris Visser (Tyco Trucks Toyota Hilux) with Vos completing the top five. Among the co-drivers Jordaan and Skjoldhammer lead Japie Badenhorst, who sits alongside Visser, Pitchford and Juan Mohr who finished third on the Ford Motorite race with Mark Corbett in the Century Property Development Nissan Navara.

The SP Class championship is also delicately poised and here the Ford pair lead Grobler and Jordaan by nine points. Woolridge and Skjoldhammer, however, have a 100 percent finish record so far this season and still have to drop their worst score.

Nissan now have three wins this season via two from Grobler and Jordaan and the Vos/Pitchford triumph in Limpopo. Woolridge and Skjoldhammer won the Nissan Sugarbelt 400 and have been models of consistency in the Ford Racing Ranger, which made its SP Class debut this season.

Class D leaders Visser and Badenhorst have daylight between themselves and Coetzee Labuschagne and Johan Gerber in the Raysonics Nissan Hardbody. The Nissan crew lead Cliff and Louis Weichelt (Bosal Toyota Hilux) and Hugo and Jaap de Bruyn (Castrol Toyota Hilux), but have a 100 percent finish record so far and they must also drop an event.

The Ford Motorite 400 win saw Visser and Badenhorst, the reigning Class E champions, score their third win of the season. The other win went to the father and son Weichelt team.

On the Class E front KwaZulu-Natal pair Manfred Schroder and Ward Huxtable are running away with matters. After a good start to the season Schroder, in the diesel powered Ford Racing Ranger, has hit a rich vein of form with three victories in a row.

Behind Schroder and Huxtable a string of Toyota crews are fighting it out for the minor places. Among the drivers former circuit racer Fabio Tafani, in his first season off road in the Club Refrigeration Toyota Hilux, is in second place ahead of Brian Martin (Castrol Toyota Hilux), Jaco Swanepoel (IDM Cement Toyota Hilux) and Jannie Visser, brother of Chris, in a Toyota Hilux. Where the navigators are concerned Mike Baron leads Grayham Bishop, Ockie Fourie and Joks le Roux. The Visser/le Roux combination have only competed twice this season but a pair of second places has seen them rocket up the standings.

In the perennial battle between the pair in the prestige SA Manufacturers Championship, Toyota have opened up a 16 point lead over Nissan. Ford are in third place but a long way adrift of the frontrunners.

The next round of the Absa Off Road Championship will be the Lesotho Sun 400 in Lesotho on September 1 and 2.

ABSA OFF ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP
INTERESTING SITUATIONS IN ABSA SPECIAL VEHICLE POINTS

With the ABSA Off Road Championship at the halfway mark some interesting situations have developed in the battle for national titles in the Special Vehicle category.

Second overall on the Ford Motorite 400 has lifted Motorite BAT pair Alfie Cox and Hennie ter Stege into a tie at the top of the overall and Class A drivers and co-drivers standings. The pair are level pegging with reigning champions Terence Marsh and Mike Whitehouse (Nashua Mobile BAT), with Cox and ter Stege holding a slight advantage at this stage of the season.

Competitors have to drop one result at the end of the season with fourth place overall on the Limpopo event seeing Marsh and Whitehouse preserve a 100 percent finish record. Dropping an event at this stage would leave Marsh third in the drivers standings behind Cox and Brandon Harcus (Motorite BAT), with Whitehouse second to ter Stege in the co-drivers.

A pointer towards the intensity of the competition can be found in that all four races so far this season have produced different winners. Harcus, Evan Hutchison/Achim Bergmann (Motorite BAT), Nick a nd Ryan Harper (Karetek BAT) and Gary Bertholdt and Henry Kirstein (Atlas Copco Porter) have all won this season, and the championship race looks as though it will go all the way to the wire.

In Class B the top two crews, brothers Jan and Hendrik Kraaij (Keymax BAT) and Swazilanders John Thompson and Clinton McNamara (Zarco) both have 100 percent finish records. The Kraaij brothers currently hold a five point lead over the Swazi pair with Johan and Etienne Bezuidenhout third in the Adenco BAT.

Class B has also seen four different winners in the four races run so far. Bes Bezuidenhout/Johan de Bruyn (Adenco BAT), Rudi and Pierre van Graan (Technochair Zarco), Giel Nel/Johan Smalberger (Bosal LUK Truggy) and the Kraaij brothers have all won, and this is another championship that looks like going all the way to the final race.

There were only two Class S finishers on the Ford Motorite 400 and second behind first time winners Gary Gillingham and Peter van Vuuren (Shell Racing BMW Raceco) saw reigning champions Richard Schilling and Chris Davies, in the Plastotech Aceco, take a tight hold on this year’s championship. Schilling has an 11 point lead over Nic Goslar (Kopanong Hotel Superteam Raceco) in the drivers standings, with Davies having an 21 point advantage over Craig Doubtfire (Nashua Mobile BAT).

The Gillingham/van Vuuren win moved the Botswana pair up the drivers and co-drivers standings. Gillingham moved into fourth among the drivers behind Schilling, Goslar and Archie Rutherford (Nashua Mobile BAT), with van Vuuren into a tie for third place with Richard Carolin (Kopanong Hotel Superteam Raceco) among the co-drivers.

A non finish saw the Nashua Mobile pair of Rutherford and Doubtfire lose a little ground.

The next round of the Absa Off Road Championship will be the Lesotho Sun 400 in Lesotho on September 1 and 2.