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Houghton wins Garden Route rally

George - Heavy overnight rain that continued into the day caused the cancellation of Saturday’s seven stages of the season-ending Garden Route Rally.

Overall leaders after Friday’s five stages and Saturday’s first stage were newly crowned 2013 champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (S2000 Ford Dealer Team Fiesta) who have now been declared the provisional winners.

They won four of the six stages completed, including the one on Saturday. Second overall, 12.3secs behind, were championship runners-up Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan (Toyota Yaris),followed by their Toyota team mates Leeroy Poulter/Elvéne Coetzee, another 24.9sec back in another Yaris.

PROVISIONAL S2000 WINNERS

A distant fourth was the VW Polo of Enzo Kuun/Douglas Judd, 3min12.4 behind the leaders. Fifth was the leading S2000 Challenge car, the Toyota Auris of Mohammed Moosa/Andre Vermeulen (+3min58) and sixth outgoing S2000 Challenge winners Gugu Zulu/Carl Peskin (VW Polo), who missed out on winning the S2000 Challenge category by 4.7sec after a spin on Satruday’s only stage. They trailed the leaders by over four minutes.

Provisional winners of the S1600 two-wheel drive class were Clint Weston/Christoff Snyders (Citroen C2 R2), who finished a comfortable 1min18.9 ahead of Ashley Haigh-Smith/Schalk van Heerden (Fiesta) and 4min3.6 in front of 19-year-old rally rookie Ernie van der Walt and James Aldridge (Fiesta).

Fourth were Matthew Vacy-Lyle/Schalk van Heerden (Toyota RunX), fifth Megan Verlaque/Mari van der Walt (Polo) who finished 8.4sec behind the Toyota, and sixth were Chris Coertse and 2012 co-driver champion Robbie Coetzee (Toyota Etios).


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