Other rally

Toyota Western Cape Prologue summary

TOYOTA SWEEPS THE BOARDS IN NISSAN DEALER 400 PROLOGUE The Castrol Toyota Off Road Team has high hopes for this weekend's Nissan Dealer 400, round two of the Absa Off Road Championship, after its works and privateer teams grabbed seven of the top ...

Published: Apr 23, 2005, 4:58 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

TOYOTA SWEEPS THE BOARDS IN NISSAN DEALER 400 PROLOGUE

The Castrol Toyota Off Road Team has high hopes for this weekend's Nissan Dealer 400, round two of the Absa Off Road Championship, after its works and privateer teams grabbed seven of the top twelve qualifying spots in today's 40km Prologue that determines the starting order for tomorrow's gruelling 345km main event in the Darling area.

2004 Class D championship runners-up by one point Mark Cronje and Chris Birkin qualified a fine third overall in the Production Vehicle category in their Castrol Toyota Hilux 2.7i but only nine seconds ahead of Class D winners on the Nissan Sugarbelt 400 Manfred Schroder and Alec Harris in the Team Ford Racing Ranger V6.

"We had a clean run but found the going in the soft sand a little tough," said Cronje. "We're delighted to be starting ahead of our archrivals and that's where we aim to stay throughout the race."

Reigning Class E champions Hugo and father Jaap De Bruyn in the Castrol Toyota Hilux 2.7i grabbed the top spot in Class E by qualifying 6th fastest and are only 1m12s adrift of Cronje and Birkin and 27 seconds ahead of their closest Class E rivals husband and wife Marius and Tracey van Vuuren who qualified 10th overall in the Bosal N1 4x4 Toyota Hilux.

Castrol Toyota pair Gavin Cronje, who is having his first outing in the Western Cape, and veteran co-driver Robin Houghton qualified eighth overall in the Production Vehicle category and second in Class D in their Hilux 2.7i and were followed two seconds later by teammates Paolo Piazza-Musso and Ockie Fourie in the Class D Castrol Toyota Hilux 2.7i in which Piazza-Musso won the class in the 2004 Nissan Dealer 400.

Next up were the van Vuurens followed by Durbanites Zane Pearce and Hennie Vosloo in the third placed Class E Castrol Toyota Hilux 2.7i and father and son Cliff and Louis Weichelt in the Class D Bosal N1 4x4 Toyota Hilux.

"We are delighted by the performance of the works and privateer Toyota crews today," said Toyota Motorsport manager, Wammy Haddad. "The scales are certainly weighted in our favour and if the crews have their wits about them we are confident of a podium finish and victories in Class D and Class E."

-toyota.za-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Western Cape Prologue summary

Next article UK: Rally of the Lakes preview

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

How Formula 1 proved the naysayers wrong – for once

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

How Formula 1 proved the naysayers wrong – for once

Kyle Larson, Cliff Daniels and the Hendrick 5 are who we say they are

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

2 h

Kyle Larson, Cliff Daniels and the Hendrick 5 are who we say they are

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

6 h

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

6 h

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts