Toyota dominates in desert race

FREDERICK KEBADIRETSE
Staff Writer | Monday June 24, 2013 00:00

 

Anthony Taylor/ Dennis Murphy of Team Castrol Toyota roared to the finish line ahead of everyone else in their Toyota Hilux to claim victory in the round four and only marathon event of the Donaldson Cross Country Championship.Second was Hugo de Bruyn/ Henri Hugo of H.Hugo team, also driving a Toyota Hilux while Ford Racing's Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst came third in their expensively modified Ford Ranger.

Taylor had started the race at position five, one minute, 13 seconds ahead of Leeroy Poulter who started on the pole position following the qualifying Donaldson prologue on Saturday. Despite starting ahead, a fierce competition was expected between Taylor's teammate and last year winner Duncan Vos and Ford Racing's Visser.The two were separated by only 16 seconds at the race start on Saturday with Visser taking off seconds before Vos on spot number 10 and 11 respectively. The Toyotas started separating from the chasing pack towards the end of the first 250 kilometre loop with four Toyota Hilux in the top seven at the end of the first day on Saturday.

Ford meanwhile managed to keep up with the competition with their two entrants in the top 10 for the whole of Saturday.Taylor had overtaken the four vehicles that started ahead of him to assume the lead he would carry until the end of the race yesterday. De Bruyn, who started the race on second position, was not giving up easy to Taylor putting pressure on him for the entire day on Saturday. He was on the lead for the first 250 kilometres, elapsing the loop with a time of 03: 34:09, while Taylor elapsed it with a time of 03: 38:46. Taylor would however gain advantage in the final 250 kilometres of Saturday taking the lead to complete the loop with a time of 03:35:40, while de Bruyn came second on 03:31: 39.

Visser managed to push up to position six by the end of Saturday and Vos finished just seconds behind him, as it had been the case throughout the day. Taylor and de Bruyn maintained their positions at the top on the second day and looked like they were not going to surrender to anyone in the chasing pack. Competition now shifted to Visser and Vos as the latter came in position three at the end of the first loop, while Visser came fourth.For a while it looked like Toyota will at least have two podium finishes until Visser came in behind Taylor and de Bruyn at the finishing line.The first to arrive in the special vehicle category was Hermann Sullwald and Wichard Sullwald of Elegant fuel in their styker sand master. They finished fifth overall. Meanwhile the BMW X3 of Christiaan du Plooy and Hennie ter Stege of RFS Sport came sixth after struggling to keep up with the leading pack for most of the race.