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Disappointment for Hutchison and Curtis
The dusty, grimy faces of the off-road racing gods didn't smile on Evan Hutchison and Darryl Curtis (Motorite BAT Spec 3) in the 4x4 Mega World 400 on Saturday.
The fifth round of the Absa Off-road Car Championship was a fast and dusty affair with the high water table in the area throwing up some difficult mud obstacles that caught out some of the more high-profile competitors.
The reigning national champion in the Special Vehicle category and the multiple former national off-road and enduro champion started Saturday's 356km race from Carnival City in third place among the Special Vehicles after Friday's 67km prologue. Halfway through the first of the two 178km loops that made up the testing course, they were in the lead and running strongly ahead of Hermann and Wichard Sullwald (SVR V8) and Kallie and Quintin Sullwald (BAT Spec 4).
Then 20km from the compulsory stop at the Designated Service Point back at the start area, the BAT's V8 engine started to misfire.
"We were going well and maintaining a good rhythm and keeping an eye on the Sullwalds, who weren't that far behind," said Hutchison. "We kept going, but the misfire got progressively worse and it took us 20 minutes to complete the last 1.5km into the DSP. By that stage we had dropped far back in the field and we reluctantly decided to call it a day."
"Of course, it is very frustrating," he continued. "There's a whole team behind you and there is a lot of preparation and hard work put in to prepare a car for a race. This time it was very important for us to get a good result after missing out on the points in two of the previous rounds. With three races remaining, including the Toyota 1000 Desert Race next month, it's going to be a tough task to retain our championship title."
"Shameer (Variawa) was also out of luck today but retains his lead in the points standings, so we remain 39 points in arrears with a maximum of 75 on offer. It's not an impossible task."
The Sullwald father-and-son combination of Hermann and Wichard went on to win the event from Hermann's brother Kallie and his son Quintin. Third was the Porter of Jimmy Zahos and Stefan Coetzee.
