Under the invitation of Redline Motor Club, 11 South African crews including FUCHS Lubricants-sponsored Team Truggy represented the Africa Regional Rally Organisation (ARRO) at the 2017 Shell V-Power Cattle Country Rally in Gobabis, Namibia on 19 and 20 September.

Friday started with a Recce Run to familiarise the visiting teams with the terrain before the first race at 17h00.

Day 1: Four special stages were completed with Team Truggy’s Giel Nel and Dewald Hatting in their Zarco representing South Africa, had their race cut out for them with the Namibian teams of Stefan and Christiaan Labuscagne in v8 powered Land Rover, Bertie Smith and Dewald Venter in a Mazda Magnum and young guns Joop Koortsen and Wehan Meyer in their Toyota Landcruiser hot in their heels.

Day 2: All 17 entrants lined up to take on the nine remaining stages of the rally. Both the ARRO and Redline Motor Club teams knew that speed and discipline would be the deciding factor on this rally. At the end of the race, the winners were Wilro Dippenaar and Riaan Van der Westhuizen from Namibia with the fastest time and crowned the overall rally winners. Dean Bradbury and Timoty Botes from ARRO were the quickest of the South African crews finishing 3rd Overall on the event.

“Taking part in this invitational rally was an eye opener. The terrain in Namibia is difficult as it’s mainly soft, meaning we had to reduce tyre pressure to avoid getting stuck. This automatically meant we couldn’t put much power to the vehicle,” said Giel Nel, Team Truggy driver.

“Thank you, FUCHS Lubricants for the sponsorship and Redline Motor Club for the invitation an outstanding rally. May the 2018 event be even bigger and better with more local racing teams taking part,” he said.