Nissan targets seventh successive win on Toyota Dealer 400

Nissan Motorsport takes on the penultimate round of the 2009 Absa Off Road Championship for production vehicles in Lydenburg, Mpumalanga, this weekend (October 2 and 3) already crowned champions for the ninth year in succession.

Defending champion driver Duncan Vos and former champion co-driver Ralph Pitchford (Donaldson Nissan Navara) claimed their latest titles in the previous round, the Highveld 400 in Gauteng, five weeks ago.  On Friday and Saturday they will have the luxury of fighting for their fifth win of the season without worrying about the overall championship race.  They will also be aiming for their third win on this event in four years and Nissan’s seventh in succession. 

The new champions and their Donaldson Nissan Navara team-mates, Hannes Grobler/Juan Mohr and Ivar Tollefsen/Quin Evans, as well as the Nissan privateers, will be concentrating on scoring as many points as possible towards the manufacturers’ championship and closing the 34-point gap to arch-rivals Toyota.  Nissan has won the prestigious title six times in the last eight years and has won the individual event contest in four of the last six rounds.

“It’s a bit of a numbers game this year,” said Glyn Hall, general manager of Nissan Motorsport.  “Even though we’ve been outnumbered in terms of entries by our main rival, particularly in the Toyota Desert Race, we’ve managed to stay in the hunt.  The challenge in the two remaining events is to score as many points as possible.”

Nissan will also be keen to underline their domination of this year’s championship with second and third place overall.  With Vos and Pitchford out of reach on 123 points, Tollefsen and Evans are currently third on 67 points, a single point behind Gary Bertholdt/Andre Vermeulen (Toyota Hilux).  Multiple former champion driver Grobler and last year’s champion co-driver Mohr are fourth with 51 points.  With 25 points for a win, 19 for second and 15 for third, the final outcome of the podium battle is likely to go down to the wire at the season-ending RFS Magalies 400 in Gauteng.

Backing up the Sasol-fuelled factory entries in the premier SP class will be the privateer entries of Terence Marsh and Pieter Groenewald (Regent Racing Nissan Navara) and Alfie Cox/Jurgen Schroder (PS Laser Nissan Navara).

Marsh, a former special vehicle champion, and Groenewald, in their first season of production car racing after switching from the special vehicle category, are currently a creditable sixth in the overall championship with 47 points.  Cox and Schroder, who completed the Dakar Rally in January in a hired SMG Buggy in their first event together, will be making their second appearance in a Navara built and prepared by Nissan Motorsport and in which they intend competing in next year’s Dakar alongside the Navara of Tollefsen and Evans.  The Norwegian/British combination finished a remarkable fourth overall in this year’s Dakar. 

Cox, a former national champion in both the production and special vehicle categories, showed his usual gritty determination and speed on his return to local off road racing.  Despite a poor Friday prologue and resultant lowly start position, they were having a good run until they got stuck in a mud hole and overheated the engine.

Last year’s class D championship runners-up Coetzee Labuschagne and Johan Gerber (Raysonics Nissan Hardbody) are making a bit of a comeback after a poor start to the season and will be looking for their third successive class victory.  They are third in this year’s title chase with 33 points, 21 behind leaders Dewald van Breda and Johan du Toit (Toyota Hilux). 

Former circuit racing champion Leeroy Poulter and Rob Howie in the Nissan Motorsport-prepared Ferodo Nissan Hardbody are fifth in class E after a troubled first season which has seen them make the running in all the rounds contested so far but only manage to finish twice.  This included a convincing win in the Sun City round and they will be looking to repeat this on Saturday.

Nissan Acknowledges Its Sponsors and Specialist Official Supplier and Technical Partners
Nissan Motorsport enjoys a mutually beneficial relationship with Atlas Copco, Bosch Automotive, Champion, Donaldson, Edgecam, Eibach, Ferodo, First Car Rental, LUK, Mastercraft, Pro Engineering, Sasol Oil, SKF, Spanjaard and Wiley X.