Sasol/Konica Minolta team dominates Production Car Rally series

17 December 2009

Charl Wilken and Greg Godrich extended their grip on the Production Car category of the Sasol South African Rally Championship, picking up in 2009 where they left off the previous season – on the top step of the podium.

Armed with a new Sasol and Konica Minolta-backed Prodrive N14 from the UK, the Pretoria driver was never headed and frequently beat the much-vaunted highly modified top class S2000 entries from the factory Volkswagen and Toyota teams.

Wilken and Godrich set an impressive string of six wins from six starts, with the season’s highlight coming in the opening round in KwaZulu Natal where they ended a delighted second overall, beaten by only the top Toyota factory driver and counting the entire three-car Volkswagen factory team amongst their scalps, including the defending champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries in their VW Polo.

Conditions in the KZN sauna ranged from a scorching 35°C on Friday to a chillier 18°C with rain on Saturday, highlighting the extreme conditions faced by the crew.

The Pretoria-based team’s other phenomenal performance came high in the snow-capped Southern Drakensberg mountains around Barkly East and Lady Grey in August, claiming an excellent 4th overall, finishing ahead of the reigning Sasol SA Rally Champions Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries and six times former champions Jan Habig/Douglas Judd, both in factory S2000 Volkswagens.

The Sasol/Konica Minolta Team was relishing the final two rounds with the aim of an overall win once freed from championship pressures, but it was not to be for the car and service van was destroyed in an accident en route to the Cape Swartland Rally, which claimed the lives of two of the team’s technicians, a devastatingly tragic end to such a dominant season.