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Trade Brands Tour Natal Rally Hits The Kzn North Coast
Trade Brands Tour Natal Rally Hits The Kzn North Coast
The Rally season opener for the 2018 SA Rally Championship will be the Trade Brands Tour Natal Rally being held this year on the North Coast of KZN. The Tour Natal Rally which started back in 1959 ran in various parts of KZN over the years focussing mainly on the fast and sweeping sugar cane fields along the coastline
"NMCC have run a few rally sprints on the North Coast and with the amazing development that has taken place in Ballito and on the North Coast, we decided to look at the possibility of running the event from Ballito," said Rikus Fourie, National Rally Chairman.
"We are very fortunate to have people like Jimmy Dewar and Peter Chadwick on board whom have been organising events in this area for many, many years and built up good relationships with the farmers over the years. We are also very proud to have Trade Brands involved to be the event Sponsor for this prestigious event and on behalf of NRC would like to extend our gratitude to this fantastic team.
The Lifestyle Centre Ballito Rooftop will be the area where all the activity will be, with service crews from around the country setting up from early Friday morning 9 March. The ceremonial start will be at 15h00 as the first car will be flagged off to take on the challenge of winning the event over a total of 150km of special stages over two days.
The cars will make their way to some spectacular stages close to Ballito, and return after each stage to Ballito Lifestyle Centre. A night stage will be run in Old Ballito at 19h00 on Friday night. The rally cars will return to the Service Park after the first day's rallying in preparation for the longer Day 2 of the event. The cars will then be placed into an Overnight Stop at Ashton International College.
Saturday will see an early restart from Ballito and competitors will move onto some picturesque stages near Kwa-Dukuza (Stanger) and Blythedale.
The event is expected to finish at the Ballito Lifestyle Centre at 16h30 on Saturday afternoon outside Mythos with the podium prizegiving at 17h15.