Carnival City, Friday – The prologue kings were back in action today with Colin Matthews and Alan Smith dominating the Special Vehicle category on the Donaldson Prologue to determine grid positions for tomorrow’s 4×4 Mega World 400 here.
Matthews and Smith, in the Century Racing CR2 running in Class P, are flyers and have a reputation for being prologue specialists. Tomorrow’s race is round six of the Absa Off Road Championship, and this afternoon’s performance was the best showing by Matthews and Smith since they won the opening event of the year, the Adenco 400, in the Western Cape.
Since then the Century Racing pair have racked up four non finishes, but they hit their straps today to upstage a string of premier Class A runners. Matthews and Smith were 45 seconds clear of Herman and Wichard Sullwald (Sullwald Racing SVR) who are locked in a championship battle with reigning champions Kallie and Quintin Sullwald in the Elegant Fuel BAT.
Kallie and Quintin Sullwald currently lead Herman and Wichard Sullwald by 11,5 points at the top of the Special Vehicle championship, who were a further 30 seconds adrift of Matthews and Smith.. The two Sullwald crews finished first and second on last year’s event with a friendly family rivalry in full swing.
“That was our best run since the opening event,” said Matthews. “We have done a lot of work on the car and hopefully we can keep the momentum going tomorrow.
“Reliability issues have been a problem for us, but hopefully we have turned the corner.”
Another good run saw Brett Parker and VZ van Zyl come home fourth in the Sizanane Plastics Porter. They edged out former Class P champions Johan van Staden and James Rossouw in the Atlas Copco BAT who completed the top five.