Fast and fearless at motor rally

Robbie Coetzee, manager of the Total petrol station in Primrose and a Sunnyridge resident, competes in the National Rally Championship, which is held all over the country, from Cape Town to Polokwane, with eight events a year.

Coetzee is the co-driver in team Electrothread, which includes driver Chris Coertse and the mighty Toyota Etios R2.

Rallying is an extremely exciting sport on any day of competition, but with 16 rivals, all incredibly closely matched for speed, the action at the Polokwane Motor Rally was taken to new heights.

The penultimate round of the 2013 South African National Rally Championship was held on October 18 and 19, on the sandy, but fast, gravel roads around the Limpopo capital city’s district. Championship points and positions take on a new meaning as the season draws to a close, and the Polokwane Motor Rally’s 11 stages, 180.65km and two days of action saw no less than five crews vying for the S1600 Class victory.

In his first full season in the National Rally Championship, Coertse and the all-new Etios R2 have together grown in speed and confidence throughout the season’s seven events thus far.

In a results-driven environment such as motorsport, Electrothread’s slogan “Harnessing Superior Performance” has been the mantra for this young team, as they score ever-improving results.

Equipped with the company’s wiring harnesses, as fitted to the factory Toyota Yaris S2000, Volkswagen Polo S2000 and Dakar Rally factory Toyota Hilux race machines, performance of these products have been unquestionable.

For Team Electrothread, day one of the Polokwane Motor Rally proved to be a difficult time.

The bane of rallying is punctures and: no crew escapes this fate, but when it strikes the same crew twice in two stages, it makes for a frustrating day in the rally office.

On the opening loop of stages on day one, Coertse and Coetzee were hit with two punctures that cost them valuable stage time and dropped them out of contention for a podium result.

The rally stages are held over fast gravel roads, and the twisting roads challenge drivers.

The sandy roads make for difficult going in two-wheel rally cars, but it was the rocks and stones that proved to be the undoing of many crews and only 20 of the original starters reached the finish on day two without penalty.

Bravery, tempered with caution in places, proved to be the winning secret, and Coertse and Coetzee were the epitome of this on day two of the event.

Moving from an overnight 10th place in the S1600 Class, this crew took the fight directly to their rivals on the second day of the competition.

They picked off their adversaries one by one on the stages, and moved up the leader board to finish fifth in the S1600 Class and in 15th position overall.

Had this pairing not lost time due to punctures on day one, a strong podium position would have been realised.

Rallying can be a cruel sport in such situations, but Coertse and Coetzee are encouraged by their fight back on day two and are already eagerly awaiting the season finale on the Garden Route Rally, next month, to showcase their true speed.

“We go away from this rally with mixed feelings; disappointment in suffering two punctures on Friday that effectively took us out of the fight for the podium, but also great encouragement and satisfaction from the performance we produced overall,” said Coertse.

“Robbie and I were able to up our pace considerably from previous events, getting to grips with the car and really gelling as a team for the first time.

To be competitive at this level the crew has to have complete trust in each other and on this event we really made a breakthrough in this regard.

We now know that we have what it takes as a team and we also know that our Toyota Etios R2 is fast developing into the class act of the S1600 field, both in terms of reliability and performance.”

“We look forward to Knysna and even more to 2014, when, we believe, we will be able to compete for class wins and ultimately the championship,” Coertse added.

Team Electrothread will next be in action in George, for the Garden Route Rally, on November 15 and 16.