Rautenbach out to win

representative during this coming weekend’s Total Tour Natal Rally in Durban, South Africa.
The Total Tour Natal Rally is the opening round of the eight-legged 2011 South African Motor Rally Championship series in which Rautenbach and Robson Maganezi were Zimbabwe’s flagbearers last year.
Another top Zimbabwean motor rally driver Chase Attwell was recently reported to have entered for this year’s South African Motor Rally Championship series, which gets underway with the staging of the two-day Total Tour Natal Rally this Friday and Saturday.
But according to the entry list of the 2011 Total Tour Natal Rally, which was released in South Africa yesterday, both Attwell and Maganezi are missing from the South African motor rallying season-opener in Durban.
Attwell is reported to be still “fixing” his Subaru Impreza which blew its gearbox during Day Two of the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally in Ruwa two weeks ago.
Maganezi, on the other hand, is still without a car after he recently disposed of his class N3 Ford Fiesta and this has left Rautenbach as the only Zimbabwean entrant in this weekend’s Total Tour Natal Rally in KwaZulu Natal.
Rautenbach left Harare on Sunday night for Johannesburg and he is expected to team-up with his G-Fuel Team tomorrow in Durban in time for the start of the weekend’s event on Friday afternoon.
In Durban, the 25-year-old Zimbabwean motor rallying sensation will join a strong field of 38 cars that have entered for this weekend’s Total Tour Natal Rally. Rautenbach, who took a credible fourth place in his debut appearance in the same event last year, will once again compete in the main S2000 Class in his G-Fuel ethanol-powered Ford Fiesta.
Heading the strong 18-car entry in the S2000 Class are the factory BP Volkswagen Polo Vivos of defending champions Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson, former champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries, 2005 and 2007 champion driver Jan Habig and new co-driver Robert Paisley, and new team members Giniel de Villiers and Ralph Pitchford.
De Villiers, a former national off road champion and winner of the 2009 Dakar Rally in a Volkswagen Race Touareg, is making his rally debut, while Pitchford returns for a second year after navigating for Habig last year, according to reports from South Africa.
The strong BP Volkswagen line-up, with six consecutive championships between them, can expect a serious challenge from the Castrol Toyota factory team, which will be looking to regain the championship they last won in 2004 with the now retired Serge Damseaux.
The Ford challenge has been boosted to four privateer S2000 Fiestas with the addition of the new Sasol team of Mark Cronje/Robin Houghton and Jon Williams/Cobus Vrey.
They will be up against the returning Ford of Zimbabwe’s Rautenbach and his French co-driver Nicolas Klinger (G-Fuel Fiesta) and Charl Wilken/Greg Godrich (Basil Read/Bizhub Fiesta). Carrying Team Castrol Toyota’s hopes are Johnny Gemmell and Scotsman Drew Sturrock (Auris) and Leeroy Poulter and new navigator Elvene Coetzee (Auris). Also in Toyotas are Team Total privateers Jean-Pierre Damseaux and Carolyn Swan (RunX) and Mohammed Moosa and Grant Martin (RunX). Making their debut in South African rallying are two Peugeot 207s, which will be campaigned by the Pirtek team of Hein Lategan/Johan van der Merwe and Visser du Plessis/Gerhard Snyman.
Privateer Volkswagen Polos will be in the hands of Nicholas Ryan/Geoff Tyrer and Japie van Niekerk/Dave Lewkowicz. Sebastiaan Klaassen and Cindi Harding will be in a lone Subaru Impreza, which formerly competed in the now-defunct class N4.
This year sees the phasing out of classes A7 and N3 as a result of rising costs and falling entries, while the popular class A6 will become Super1600 and incorporate N3 entries for 2011 only. Class A5 becomes Super1400. Reigning champion Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin (BP Volkswagen Polo) will do battle in A7 with Rocky Reyneke and Christo Ackerman in another Volkswagen Polo.
Super1600 promises to be a closely-fought battle ground with former champion Craig Trott back with co-driver Robbie Coetzee in a Team Total Toyota RunX, Tjaart Conradie and Kes Naidoo (Silverton Engineering Toyota Auris) and Ashley Haigh-Smith/Hilton Auffray in a brand new Ford Fiesta likely to be strong contenders.
Making their debut appearance for Team Total is the all-woman crew of Stefanie Hugo and Angela Shields (Toyota RunX). Another all-woman crew in the form of Megan Verlaque and Lirene du Plessis will contest Super 1400 in a BP Volkswagen Polo Vivo, with competition coming from Henk Lategan/Pierre Jordaan in another Polo and Ian Young/Herman Groenewald in an Associated Alterations Toyota Yaris. The 38-car field is completed by seven KwaZulu Natal regional crews competing in class S20.
Organised by the Natal Motorcycle and Car Club, the Total Tour Natal will comprise 14 special stages over a total distance of some 161km over the two days.
The rally will start at 1:30pm on Friday from the Arbour Crossing Shopping Centre in Amanzimtoti, 30km south of Durban.