It came down to a gearbox gremlin and a gritty last-day charge, but when the dust settled on the Ingco Ermelo Rally, it was Jono van Wyk and Nico Swartz standing tallest on the podium, snatching a dramatic overall victory in their NRC1 Volkswagen Polo.
Jono, affectionately known as the 'Swazi Cowboy', entered Saturday’s finale in third place, trailing championship pacesetters Benjamin Habig and Barry White. Habig and White had looked untouchable through Friday’s seven stages, bagging five stage wins to build a comfortable overnight buffer over Paul van Niekerk and Willemjan Human in the second NRC1 Polo.
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But rallying has a cruel sense of humour. On Saturday morning, Habig’s machine locked into third gear, and despite frantic efforts from his crew, the problem refused to budge. The championship leaders limped through the day, showing immense character to salvage a runner-up finish – but they had no answer to van Wyk and Swartz, who reeled them in with a composed, calculated drive. To add salt, van Wyk also demoted van Niekerk and Human to third, completing a remarkable turnaround.
Van Niekerk and Human had their own headaches to manage, yet they held off a charging Chris Coertse and Elzaan van der Schuyff in their Mazda2, who settled for fourth overall.
In the NRC3 class for front-wheel-drive machines, the brother act of Kent and Justin Rutherford put their Polo on the overall fifth step, proving that two-wheel drive can still mix it with the all-wheel-drive brigade. They outpaced the NRC2 duo of Lynton Swatton and Tommy Coetzee, as well as Bruce Swatton and Craig Reyneke, both in Polos.
The top ten was rounded out by George Smalberger and Etienne Lourens (Polo), Rudolf Pretorius and Jack Radford (Toyota Auris), and Anton and Isabel Raaths in another Polo, with Russell Stone and Jonty Brown’s similar machine just outside the count. In the NRC4 scrap, Drian and Yvonne le Grange’s Volkswagen Golf got the better of Hennie Mostert and Willem Morgan’s Nissan Sentra to claim class honours.
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Meanwhile, on the regional front running parallel to the national event, Juan de Wet and Gert Nienaber made it a clean sweep in their NR1 Subaru Impreza, winning both Friday and Saturday’s regional rallies. They were chased home on both days by Johan and Wallie du Bruyn’s NR2 Nissan 350Z, while Johan Strauss Jr. and Kemaine Venter (NR1 Subaru) and Anton and Isabel Raaths (NR3 Toyota Auris) traded places across the two days. Hanró and Andre Ehlers kept their Toyota Tazz consistent to take NR4 on both legs.
Saturday’s club rally honours went to Rinus Plomp and Hannes Pienaar in their Subaru Forester, ahead of the Du Bruyn Nissan and the Strauss Jr./Venter Subaru.
While Habig and White still hold a commanding lead in the national championship standings, van Wyk and Swartz have now firmly planted themselves in the fight for second, turning up the heat on Coertse and van der Schuyff. The next stop on the Dunlop-shod calendar takes the field to the rescheduled Algoa Rally in Gqeberha on 25-26 September – and if Ermelo is anything to go by, nobody will be taking anything for granted.
Colin Windell for Colin-on-Cars in association with
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