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Lydenburg 400 - Sponsored by Toyota Thus being the 2nd last event of the year, the entry list was at the lowest with only 9 class A cars entering with 7 of these cars being BATS. The Prologue was very tough, as the terrain was virgin to all of us and the marking different to what we are used to. Brandon and Gary put in a good performance and out qualified the entire field by 33 seconds over Hannes Grobler and Richard Leeke. Once again BAT has proved to be invincible and continues it's domination of prologues.
Race Day kicked off with a 1/4 mile dice up the main street in the Lydenburg town starting 2 cars at a time side by side. This proved to be a huge hit with the crowds and competitors. Brandon and Gary led the way for the first 100km before overshooting and attempting a cheeky move to get back to the route by driving through the long grass and shortly found themselves in a big hole! After a very tense half hour, they managed to get the BAT out the hole and join the race in last position, clawing their way back to 5th position.
The race was action packed with Clint Gibson leading the way in the 2003 V8 BAT when he crashed into a ditch 30km from the finish line and limped home with Gerald Mundell closing in on them, who also ran into problems eventually allowing Mark Corbett in his 2003 V8 BAT and Gerhard Du Plessis to pass them with a few kilometres to the finish. Clint arrived at the last road crossing with 1/2 a kilometre to the finish line, he managed to take a wrong turn and proceeded down the race route instead of driving down to the finish line. This allowed Mark Corbett to get passed Clint and crossed the finish line 1st. Well Done to Mark and Juan, unlucky Clint and Mike... Congratulations to Danie Marais and Andrew Utterson on their 1st finish EVER! BAT Results are as follows: 1st - Mark Corbett and Juan Mohr 2nd - Clint Gibson and Mike Brown 4th - Gerald Mundell and Billy Bond 5th - Gary Bertholdt and Brandon Harcus 7th - Danie Marais and Andrew Utterson |
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