The South African Cross Country Series has risen to a dominant position in the local motorsport landscape, especially among the various off-road classes. That can be seen in the size of the fields and also the sheer quality of local expertise, spearheaded by two manufacturers, Ford and Toyota.
Toyota backs Hallspeed, a Midrand based operation run by Glyn Hall. Glyn and his company have enjoyed a long successful involvement with the Dakar Rally and the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup. Hallspeed has built more than 30 off-road racing pickups, most of which have been sold to overseas customers and, in addition to winning numerous national and international races and several national championships in Russia, Europe and the Middle East, have performed with distinction in the Dakar Rally – most notably with South African Giniel de Villiers at the wheel.
Ford’s operation is conducted by Neil Woolridge Motorsport, based in the unassuming city of Pietermaritzburg in KZN. NWM was initially contracted to Ford Motor Company USA to design and construct the Ford Ranger Cross Country vehicles. Later partnering with Ford South Africa to compete in the South African Cross Country Series, one of the toughest and most competitive national championships in the world. This can be seen by the number of foreign drivers who come to South Africa to hone their skills; guys like Marcos Baumgart from Brazil who runs one of Neil’s cars here in SA and back home in Brazil.
This last weekend I attended the Parys 400, which as the name suggests covers 400km on dirt tracks around the small Free State town. It was the 6th and final round of the South African championship. With heavy rain having fallen overnight, I arrived at a muddy Parys Aerodrome at 6.30am to see the team’s furiously preparing for an early start after a schedule reshuffle to account for the Rugby World Cup Final later in the morning. The event is run over just two stages covering the same loop morning and afternoon.
After a day of chasing the field around the outskirts of Parys, stopping at various spectator points which were all festive and well attended, I can see why this is a growing form of off road racing. Few things are as South African as a bakkie and the thought of hurtling around a farm road in one that’s powered by a thumping great Mustang V8 puts a cherry on top.
The NWM Ford of Lance Woolridge and Ward Huxtable had already wrapped up the Class T championship before the Parys event, while Toyota is currently the only FIA class entrant (the fastest spec vehicles) where Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings took top honours in class and overall.
Giniel de Villiers had it all to play for though and was chasing hard for the overall championship’s runner up spot in his FIA-spec Hilux, which before the final round lay with Class T winner Lance Woolridge. Lance drove a solid and sensible race to finish one place ahead of the Giniel’s Toyota in Parys, which is pretty remarkable considering the lower spec rules to which his car adheres, thus sealing his second place.
Later that afternoon, once all entrants were in parc ferme and cooling off with a refreshing beverage, the good men at NVM in their Fords were kind enough to blast me around a short section of the stage. My Biznews colleague, Nick, was lucky enough to film a ride he had in a 2015 NVM Ford and he absolutely raved about it, which I can now understand for myself. These are serious pieces of equipment capable of handling the roughest of terrain while maintaining a sense of composure you’d never expect. They’re blistering quick too considering they tip the scales at 1.9 tons.
The fact that these same vehicles play on the world stage of cross country racing is testament to the level of expertise we have here in South Africa. Better still is that NVM and Ford are in the final stages of development of a new FIA class challenger that will take on the Toyota’s in next year’s South African Cross Country Series – and no doubt abroad too.
