I’ve always been fascinated by rally drivers simply because it must take nerves of steel to be able to push those souped-up cars to the limit on often slippery dirt roads, knowing that the slightest miscalculation could result — as it often does — in costly accidents.
It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to try because I’m more at home on a properly tarred racetrack, but rallies are nonetheless among the most gruelling of motorsports and are therefore a good indication of the driver’s as well as the car’s abilities.
The Osram rally takes place every year in Dewetsdorp about 70km out of Bloemfontein and while it certainly isn’t the most glamorous rally on the South African motorsport calendar, it did have quite a few good spectator points where you get fairly close to the action and the dust.
The rally started at 7.30am which meant that those of us who had stayed over in Bloem had quite an early start.
There wasn’t a high number of spectators, but given that the event was in a very small town in the middle of nowhere, the fact that there was 200 spectators was impressive. It seems that low attendance has become an issue for the organisers who would obviously like to see more people getting behind such events, but I’m not so sure that they could cope with any more spectators.
Rallies comprise a number of stages with intervals in-between certain stages for the cars to be serviced. Before the beginning of a stage, there are three vehicles that run the course of the stage to ensure there’s no traffic on the roads about to be used by the rally drivers as the roads are normally used by resident farmers and their staff. Usually the 000 car drives the course about 30 minutes before the start, then the 00 car about 20 minutes before and the 0 car about five to 10 minutes before. It’s generally accepted that once the 00 car passes, no traffic should be allowed through the cordoned off areas and spectators should start to settle down.
There was a long straight with a 90° right turn so cars would obviously be coming down the road at high speeds and vehicles were still being allowed through after the 0 car had passed. If specatator numbers are to increase at such events, marshalls need to be more clued up to ensure the safety of all those involved.
However, despite the safety glitch, the Osram rally proved to be a very watchable event with John Habig and Douglas Judd taking first place in their BP VW Polo, Etienne Lourens and Andre Vermeulen coming in second in their Total Toyota RunX and third was Serge Damseaux and Robert Paisley in their Castrol Toyota RunX.