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 | ABSA 2010: Consistency the key for Sullwald Team for ABSA BAT victory 2010.
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For the Phalaborwa father and son team of Kallie and Quinton Sullwald consistency was the key to winning the Special Vehicle overall and Class A titles in this year’s South African Absa Off Road Championship.
The Sullwald’s, in the Elegant Fuel BAT, took their second South African championship at the recent RFS Magalies 400 when seventh place overall was enough to take them three points clear of Team Total Porter crew Shameer Variawa and Siegfried Rousseau in the final standings. Variawa and Rousseau went into the RFS Magalies race with a six point lead, but were sidelined with a broken rear suspension.
The Sullwald’s missed the first event of the season and failed to score in the second race. Thereafter they scored two wins and three seconds in the remaining races with three appearances in the ‘did not finish’ column finally scuppering Variawa and Rousseau who scored three victories during the year.
The other feature of the overall championship was the appearance of two Class P drivers in the top five. Johan Van Staden made history early in the season when he and James Rossouw (Atlas Copco BAT) became the first Class P crew to win an Absa national event overall.
The pair finished third in the overall stakes with Archie Rutherford (Regent Racing Jimco) finishing fourth in the driver championship after he and Mike Lawrenson led a Class P clean sweep of the first three places at the RFS
Magalies 400.
Rutherford finished one point ahead of Herman Sullwald (Sullwald Racing SVR) in the driver championship but used three co-drivers during the season. This elevated Louis Alberts and Rudi Balzer into joint fifth place behind Wichard Sullwald in the co-driver title race.
In the Class A championship Variawa/Rousseau were the meat in a Sullwald sandwich. Here the first two places were the same as in the overall stakes, with Herman Sullwald and son Wichard third.
The Class B championship was a real family affair. When the dust had settled veteran Cape driver Bes Bezuidenhout and daughter-in-law Lindie (Adenco BAT) edged out the father and daughter combination of Coetzee and Sandra Labuscagne in the Raysonics Zarco.
Both teams ended with a flourish with the Bezuidenhout’s winning the Human Auto 400, the penultimate round of the championship, and the Labuscagne’s the final round. Third in the championship were brothers Keith and Andrew Makenete in another Zarco.
Van Staden and Rossouw dominated the Class P championship with van Staden winning the driver championship ahead of Rutherford and Swaziland based John Thompson in a Zarco. With Rutherford and Thompson both using three co-drivers during the season Balzer, Deon Bezuidenhout and Clinton McNamara and Philip Herselman (Atlas Copco BAT) all finished behind Rossouw in the co-driver championship.
The first round of next year’s championship will be the Adenco 400 in the Western Cape in mid March.
2010/11/26 | 12:49 CET | ARTICLE: MR/HS/FORTUNE
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