Team Toyota’s Anthony Taylor and his co-driver Dennis Murphy are winners of this year’s edition of the Toyota Botswana 1000 km Kalahari Desert Race. The duo beat a strong field of drivers, among them the race’s defending champions’ team of Duncan Vos and Rob Howie, also of Toyota, to clinch their maiden crown in Botswana. Starting fifth on the grid when the race started on Saturday, Murphy and Taylor had a race of their life as they ensured they finished the first day on pole position.
The team never looked back on the race’s final day on Sunday as they dictated proceedings from the word go. By the time they started the second and final 220 km loop on Sunday, Taylor and Murphy had already opened a sizable lead over their closest competitors, Hugo de Bruyn and Henri Hugo. The two, who had started second on the grid when the race started on Saturday managed to cling on to their position to finish second on the podium. Third position went to Ford Racing Team of Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst.
For their third position, Ford’s team of Visser and Badenhorst had to come from behind to just edge off another Toyota team of Vos and Howie. Having started eighth on Saturday, the Ford team managed to move only one place to start on seventh position on the final day. The team however showed aggression and resilience on the final day as they steadily pushed up and were on fourth position behind Vos and Howie when the race went into its last 220 km loop.
The Ford team then managed to edge off Vos and Howie, who were the race’s defending champions, into fourth position by the closest of margins. Meanwhile, another crowd favorite, the BMW X3 team of Christiaan du Plooy and Hennie ter Stege finished off the race’s top five positions. After dominating the races prior to last year’s, fan favorite Nissan Navara had a torrid year in this year’s edition as they could only master sixth position.
Despite starting the last day on third position, Nissan Navara’s team of Thomas Rundle and Juan Mohr started, encountered some difficulties and had to settle for an out of top five position. Seventh position went to Johan van Staden and Mike Lawrenson in Toyota while the BMW X3 of Hennie de Klerk and Keith Solomon settled for eighth. The top ten positions were completed by Terence Marsh and Gerhard Schutte of Nissan Navara and a team of Jacques and Lizelle van Tonder (Ford Ranger) who came ninth and tenth respectively.
The race took part in the new route that it never ventured into with 90 percent of the route completely new. A new Four Wheel Drive Club of SA organising team under event director Alan Reid has completely revamped the course for the 21-23 June off-road race, round four of the Donaldson Cross-Country Championship.
“The Saturday and Sunday routes offer technical tight sections, two rocky mountain passes, thick bush, sandy river beds and some spectacular river bank driving,” said Reid. “It is a course that also includes everything else teams have come to expect. This is a race that always tests man and machine to the limit and this year will be no exception,” said Reid when announcing the new route.
This was the last year that Kumakwane is playing host to the race that is the biggest sporting and social event in the Botswana’s outdoor calendar.
“Kumakwane has acted as the race headquarters for the past three years with 2013 being the fourth and last year. Plans to move the race have commenced and will be known to the media in due course,” Myra Sekgororoane, the Botswana Tourism Chief Executive Officer revealed. revealed.
