Rallying, which has been a major part of the local motorsport scene since the national championship was instituted in 1960, is facing a bleak future now that the S2000 era has ended after 11 years.
S2000 was an international formula that attracted much interest among South African motorsport men and women from 2005 to 2016. At its height, there were 19 S2000 cars competing in local rallies, more than in any other national championship in the world.
Toyota and Volkswagen developed cars in SA that complied with the international regulations, while later Ford and Peugeot S2000 cars were imported from Europe.
Toyota developed three generations of S2000s — the first one based on a RunX, the second on an Auris and the third on the Yaris. This was good for the sport as the previous models were sold on to privateers which swelled the fields.
During the 11 years, 95 national championship rallies were staged.
Successful
A total 21 driver/co-driver pairings won rallies in the S2000 era, with the most successful combination being Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton, who won 18 rallies in a privately owned Ford Fiesta. This put them four wins ahead of Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee, who rallied a Toyota Yaris for the Castrol Toyota team.
Cronje was the most successful S2000 driver with 22 wins, followed by Poulter with 14 and Enzo Kuun and Hergen Fekken with 10 victories each.
The S2000 era was ushered in with the Hitachi Power Tools Tour Natal Rally in 2005 and it was little more than a muted roar as only one new S2000 car — a RunX for multiple champions Serge Damseaux and Vito Bonafede — was ready for action. The BP Volkswagen crews had to use their 2004 A7 Golfs as the new Polo S2000s were still being built.
Several mechanical and electrical niggles saw Damseaux’s RunX side-lined on debut and Kuun and Hodgson won in a Golf.
The S2000 category matured over the years and then entries started falling as the original cars got older and unreliable as well as being expensive to run and maintain. In the end the S2000 era came to an end at the Hallspeed Rally, held in the Bronkhorstspruit area recently.
The formula went out with a whimper with only two S2000s in the entry of just 12 cars in the national championship and a few more in the regional championship.
Victory in a rally that was hardly worthy of national championship status went to rallying first-timer Luke Botha and his experienced co-driver, Barry White, in a Ford Fiesta S2000.
The future of local rallying certainly looks bleak, with a switch from four-wheel drive cars with powerful 2.0l engines to front-wheel drive cars with 1.6l engines in 2017, all in the hope of cutting costs and attracting new competitors.
Dearth of sponsors
Unfortunately, it seems there will be no factory-supported cars for the 2017 series and with a dearth of event sponsors it will be tough to put on a show as there will no longer be a rally marketing fund such as the one supported by the participating manufacturers and major sponsors for many years.
A fall-off in interest in rallying at a national level is a worldwide problem. It will be interesting to see how the powers that be tackle the problem of keeping rallying alive in SA.
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