Toyota have been enjoying a good spate of wins over the last few weeks with impressive performances in both rally and offroad competitions.

Toyota got two more class wins in the Production Vehicle category and took the Manufacturers award on the Eastern Cape 400, round two of the Absa Off Road Championship in Jeffreys Bay over the weekend. Cliff and Louis Weichelt, along with Deon Venter and Ian Palmer, scored their second class wins of the season. The Weichelts took class D and Venter/Palmer took class E in a repeat of the results of the Adenco 400. The Weichelt’s, after a troubled prologue when a boost pipe broke, gradually wore down the opposition. In a close race they only had 19 seconds in hand over Dewald van Breda and Johan du Toit in the Northam Toyota Hilux D4D.

Toyota completed domination of Class D when Heinie Strumpher and Jan Hendrik van der Linde took third place in the Micaren Toyota Hilux in their second outing.

Unfortunately it was a rough weekend for the Castrol Toyota Hilux team. Anthony Taylor and Robin Houghton had a steering problem which forced them to miss their start time for the Friday prologue. Their fan motor proceeded to burn out which forced them to retire. “It happened just before we went into the forest section for the first time,” said Taylor. ”We decided not to risk serious damage to the engine and reluctantly called it a day.

There was a great result for the former Special Vehicle starts Gary Bertholdt and Andre Vermeleun. They came fourth in their debut in the Atlast Copco Toyota Hilux. They did have brake problems which slowed them down, but they were happy with their result.

There was also an encouraging result for the husband and wife team of George and Sharon Barkhuizen (AIM Toyota Hilux) who ground out a gutsy sixth place overall. The combined performances of Bertholdt/Vermeulen, Visser/Badenhorst and the Bezuidenhout’s were enough to give Toyota the Manufacturers Award.

Well done to the competitors for another amazing weekend of offroad action!