The young Pretoria crew of Christiaan du Plooy and Henk Janse van Vuuren will be aiming for a repeat victory at the Sun City 400, round five of the Donaldson Cross Country Championship, on Friday and Saturday.
Du Plooy and Janse van Vuuren, in the RFS BMW X3, scored their first national championship win at last year’s event. On a perfect weekend for du Plooy and Janse van Vuuren they won the prologue that determined race start positions, and then romped to victory ahead of the Castrol Toyota factory team of Anthony Taylor and Chris Birkin.
This season has not been so kind to the RFS team. With veteran former champion Hennie ter Stege standing in for Janse van Vuuren who wife was having a baby, du Plooy scored the squad’s first points with a solid fifth place on the recent Toyota 1 000 Desert Race in Botswana.
“After three hugely disappointing results it was a relief to finally get some points on the board,” said du Plooy. “Henk and I had a streak of bad luck on the run up to the Desert Race but hopefully that is now behind us.
“Hennie and I had a very solid outing in Botswana, the car was perfect and hopefully that proves to be the turning point this season.”
Du Plooy added that the Sun City race was one of the toughest on the Donaldson series calendar. This year’s race was again likely to be dusty, and the prologue to determine grid positions would be important.
“Winning the prologue was the key to last year’s win,” said du Plooy. “It was very dusty and being at the front of the field gave us a massive advantage.
“I think it will be the same this year and a good start position is going to be vital.”
The event is again based at the Sun City complex with public entry to race headquarters and the designated service park free of charge to the public. The prologue to determine race start positions starts at 12h30 on Friday and the race at 08h30 on Saturday.
