Well, it's Thursday morning and I'm still recovering from a weekend of hardcore rally watching. It was an amazing amount of fun, I highly recommend it. The next round of the rally will be held on the 17th and 18th of October in Gauteng (I will post details as I get them, but so far it looks like it is in Bapsfontein). I highly recommend you come out and have a look, bring the family, bring the skottel, and make it a day.

JP Damseaux and Cobus Vrey won the Swartland Rally in their Toyota RunX 2.0, with a spectacular display of driving skills. They won the rally almost a minute ahead of Jan Habig and Judd Douglas in their VW Polo 2.0. It was quite a historic event as JP and Serge Damseaux are the first father and son to win a round of the national rally championship. “When we had a minute in hand, I backed off because there was only one gravel and one tar stage remaining. I’m really happy we’ve won because it’s only our second year in a car that gives us the opportunity to win. It is a bonus that it happened down here in the Cape in front of a whole generation of Damseaux fans. S2000 is an amazing class to race in – there are nine of us trying to win, so make no mistake it’s not easy. We’ve been quick all year but there have been quite a few annoying, niggly things that happened to us, so it’s really satisfying to finally pull it off" said the jubilant driver.

Johnny Gemmell and Peter Marsh managed fourth in their Castrol Toyota RunX. They would have pulled off a podium finish had it not been for their damaged clutch. “There wasn’t time to sort the clutch out before the tarmac stages at Killarney, so I had to start each stage on the starter motor. That cost us four to five seconds each time”, Gemmell said.

Mark Cronje and Robert Paisley had a short-lived rally in the S2000 Castrol Toyota Auris. “We approached a long water splash and the engine ingested water. There was no warning and no second chance. It is extremely disappointing; more so because we know after the Osram Rally what the Castrol Auris is capable of”, lamented Cronje. Mohammed Moosa and Grant Martin were the first two wheel drive car home in their new Total Evolution Toyota Auris, claiming the Auris’ first win in rallying with a brilliant 10th overall and first in class A6. The Auris beat the bigger-engined class A7 cars, where Chris de Wit/Dean Redelinghuys top-scored for Toyota with a podium place. Keep your eyes peeled on this blog for an exclusive interview with Grant Martin.

Toyota Motorsport Manger Wammy Haddad summed up the weekend: “It’s is an excellent result for JP. The weekend was pretty good all round - but expensive. We lost two engines because of all the water. The Auris has shown well in class A6 and will be a great platform for the next generation of privateer cars”.

I look forward to bringing you more rally news at next months final round. Don't forget, we'll be blogging and tweeting the rally as it happens. We've also got tons of footage and images from this weekend, which should be going up soon. In the meantime, check out the results.