Bronkhorstspruit, South Africa, 21 August 2022: The Neil Woolridge Motorsport Ford Castrol Team had excessive hopes coming into this weekend’s third spherical of the South African Rally-Raid Championship, having launched a number of upgrades to its two Class FIA T1+ EcoBoost-powered Ford Rangers. Unfortunately, the weekend didn’t go to plan, as sudden entrance CV joint points on the entrance driveshafts plagued their problem for honours at the #TeamHilux Bronkhorstspruit 400 race on 19 and 20 August 2022.
Improvements from the NWM Ford Castrol Team
Nevertheless, the improved tempo of the NWM Ranger was evident from the outset, with Gareth Woolridge and Boyd Dreyer (277) main the cost in Friday’s brief 14km dash qualifying session by posting the quickest time. This loop was in the end cancelled as a consequence of navigation discrepancies amongst among the opponents, that means that their benefit was neutralised.
Friday’s 82km race loop thus turned the opening stint for all crews, with Gareth and Boyd ending the day in third place after a barely tentative outing, having narrowly missed rolling their car within the earlier prologue. They completed 1 min 28 sec behind the main Toyota of Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings, and a mere 35 sec adrift of the second Toyota of Giniel de Villiers/Dennis Murphy.
With team-mates Lance Woolridge and Elvéne Vonk (234) successfully out of championship competition as a consequence of two consecutive non-finishes, the workforce has elected for them to check a number of high-mileage race elements for the rest of the 2022 season as a part of the essential improvement programme for the T1+ Ranger. Although they’d good tempo for a lot of the 82km Friday loop, they suffered a entrance CV joint failure at the 65km mark. They struggled to take away the broken driveshaft, however ultimately made their manner again to the pits in two-wheel drive, relegating them to the again of the sphere.
Tough race situations
The groups had been greeted by icy situations on Saturday morning, however the motion was anticipated to be scorching, quick and livid. The high three crews had been evenly matched all through a lot of the day’s first 160km loop, with Gareth and Boyd comfortably in third place till 10km from the tip when their Ranger additionally encountered a CV joint difficulty. They limped again to the pits, dropping 10 minutes within the course of which dropped them again to 10th general and fifth in Class FIA T1+.
The NWM technicians effectively changed each entrance driveshafts inside the allotted 30-minute service interval, permitting Gareth and Boyd to battle again on the ultimate 160km loop, which they accomplished with out incident. They in the end completed seventh general and held onto fifth place in T1+.
“There were a lot more positives than negatives this weekend,” Gareth says. “We’ve made nice progress since Upington with quite a few upgrades on the Ranger, which have made it a lot better. This gave us the chance to essentially be within the battle for the lead on as we speak’s first loop, however then we had the identical CV joint difficulty that Lance had on Friday. We misplaced plenty of time there as a result of the driveshaft additionally punctured the tyre. We had a clear run on the second lap, however it was tough to make again time.
“Getting fifth place today isn’t ideal for our championship, but with the next two events both being double-headers it’s all still to play for. We just need to have a couple of good races without any issues,” he provides.
Lance and Elvéne had a troublesome activity battling by way of the sphere within the intense mud, however their tenacity in the end counted for little as a second CV joint failure – and the ensuing injury attributable to the driveshaft – midway by way of loop two noticed them retiring.
“We had good speed today, with Gareth and I third and fourth-fastest through the first two splits, just 14 seconds off the times posted by the two leading Toyotas,” Lance says. “It shows that the upgrades we’ve done on the T1+ Rangers have worked well. However, as is often the case in motor racing, when you fix one thing something else comes up. We have some time before the next race, so we’ll be hard at work sorting out the CV joint issue.”
NWM workforce principal Neil Woolridge echoed the sentiment. “This race was very irritating, as we put in an enormous effort after the Desert Race, staying in Upington and doing three days and round 2 000km of testing. We learnt lots and carried out at least 10 pretty substantial upgrades on the Ranger.
“We showed this weekend that the changes moved us significantly forward, and our pace has been very competitive against our rivals which is very gratifying,” Neil says. “The niggly problem we’ve had with the driveshafts is very disappointing, though. Obviously, a change we made on the front suspension has created an unexpected but identical issue on both cars, so we will go back and figure out what the problem is and rectify it for the next race.”
NWM-supported privateers
Christo Rose and Arno Olivier (T58) had been the one NWM-supported privateers competing in Class T in Bronkhorstspruit. They loved a fault-free weekend within the V8-powered NWM Ford Ranger, protecting their championship problem alive with a third-place end.
The subsequent occasion is the double-header Nampo race close to Bothaville within the Free State on 30 September and 1 October 2022.
Ford and Neil Woolridge Motorsport are proud to be supported by the next sponsors and companions: Castrol, Ford Credit, Mastercraft, Wűrth, Bosch, Sparco, Sign Solutions, Tiger Wheel & Tyre, Ironman 4×4 and Shatterprufe.
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