Serge Damseaux and Robert Paisley gave the Castrol Toyota team the perfect start to the 2007 South African Rally Championship with a convincing win in their Super 2000 Toyota RunX RSi in the Toyota Dealer Rally, which took place at the weekend.
Damseaux and Paisley, national champions in 2004 and 2005, led throughout the event and won seven of the nine special stages that made up the distance of 202km on Friday (four stages) and Saturday (five stages). They finished 48 seconds ahead of 2006 champions, Jan Habig and Douglas Judd (Super 2000 VW Polo) and 1min 31seconds clear of Etienne Lourens and Andre Vermeulen (Super 2000 Toyota RunX).
Both Habig/Judd and team-mates Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson, the defending champions, had brand new S2000 Polos which were described by VW Motorsport team manager, Andre van der Watt, as lacking in power. Habig, nevertheless, put in one of his trademark charges in the second half of the event, winning two stages and finishing second in two others.
Champions Kuun and Hodgson had a relatively subdued event, finishing sixth in their Polo, over 2 minutes behind the winners and more than a minute behind Habig and Judd.
Jean-Pierre Damseaux, son of Serge, and Cobus Vrey had an impressive S2000 debut in a Toyota RunX, finishing fourth overall, just 26 seconds behind Lourens/Vermeulen and 1 min 57 sec behind the winners.
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