Lydenburg, October 3 - Nissan Motorsport continued its domination of the Absa Off Road Championship for production vehicles with a seventh successive win in Lydenburg on Saturday. Newly crowned champions Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford claimed their fifth win in seven races in the class SP Donaldson Nissan Navara when they completed the penultimate round of the championship.
Nissan team-mates Ivar Tollefsen and Quin Evans were third, Hannes Grobler and Juan Mohr, winners of last year’s event in Mpumalanga, were fifth. They led the race in the early stages but dropped back to 11th after a puncture and problems with the jack lost them 3½ minutes.
"It was a really tough race and Ralph and I were under a lot of pressure," said Vos. "We couldn’t relax for an instant."
Nissan also won class A (Vos and Pitchford) and class E, with Leeroy Poulter and Rob Howie bringing their Nissan Motorsport-prepared Ferodo Nissan Hardbody home 16th overall. For Poulter, a former circuit racing champion, it was his second class win in their first season of off road racing together and it came despite problems with a broken shock absorber in each of the first two loops of the race.
Vos/Pitchford, Tollefsen/Evans and Grobler/Mohr combined to give Nissan the manufacturers’ challenge award for the event.
The season is just the RFS Magalies 400 remaining on November 6 and 7 as the final round.
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