Pretoria Fees Speed Rally – No. 1 of Season 7

By Garth Calitz

Back in 2018, Jonty Esser and Rob Jonkers came up with the Speed Rally idea to get more pilots into Rally Flying. No one thought these Speed Rallies would become as popular as they are now. In the early days, they had a limit of forty participants, and lots of events hit that max. Sadly, this time around, they didn’t get those numbers, only ten teams signed up, and just eight showed up at Rhino Park. It makes sense, though, since it was held over Easter Weekend and the weather forecast leading up to Saturday wasn’t looking great.

We kicked off the morning bright and early with a safety briefing, where they went over the basic rules and handed out race numbers to everyone. David le Roux took a few minutes to introduce all the event sponsors, because let's face it, these events wouldn't happen without them. So, if you ever need their services, consider giving them your support.

After the briefing concluded, the teams proceeded to their aircraft to get ready for their flights. There was a significant 40-minute gap between the takeoff of the first and last teams, attributed to the speed difference between the Rainbow Cheetah and the Piper PA-28 Cherokee.

The Cheetah took off at 11:00, and all the aircraft were supposed to be back by 12:30, assuming they followed the course perfectly at their handicap speed. While the teams were out flying, everyone headed to the hangar to watch the live tracking. Surprisingly, all the teams flew really accurately, especially considering it was the first Rally since the last competition quite a while ago. The first team showed up right on time, and there wasn't much of a gap between the first and last finisher.

After a brief wait, Iaan Myburgh released the final results. Although Iaan participated in the rally as a navigator for Leon Boutell, they were not included in the official competitive results, as Iaan was responsible for setting up the course.

The rally is scored in two classifications, Handicap (flying as close to handicap speed as possible) and Track Accuracy (which is pretty self-explanatory). In the Handicap classification, the team of Aldo Naude and PC van Rooyen came out on top in their Jabiru SP, with the father and son team of Quinton Kruger and Johan Whiteman in second. The veteran team of Ron Stirk and Martin Meyer navigated their way to third.

In the Track Accuracy Classification, Johan and Quinton managed to edge out Alod and PC by only 0.6% to take top honours. Sean Cronin and Dean Nicolau came home in third place, only 2 % adrift.

The Combined Overall Classification is what really matters in a Speed Rally. In third place overall was Ron Stirk and Martin Meyer in a Cessna 150. Ron and Martin have been involved in Speed Rallies since the inaugural rally in Secunda in 2018.

Second place belonged to Aldo and PC in the Jabiru SP. Both Aldo and PC are very experienced pilots competing in their first Speed Rally.

The number one spot, which counts towards the annual championship and comes with bragging rights, belonged to Quinton and Johan in their Piper PA-28 Cherokee.

While the prizes were being awarded, a representative from decided to join the party and donated a prize for first, second and a wooden spoon for last place, which happened to be Aldo's father, Dave Naude and his navigator, Andre Gruindelingh.

A special word of thanks must go to Gert Botha from Ledends MX Adventure Farm for allowing a Speed Rally to take place during "Die Protoria Fees".