Ford has unveiled its challengers for this year’s SA Rally-Raid Championship (SARRC), with a three-car team to line up at the season-opening round near Thabazimbi on June 27 and 28.
The opening round of the six-event season was scheduled for March in Vryheid but was postponed due to flooding.
Leading the blue oval charge, in Castrol and BP Ultimate colours, are 2023 champions Gareth Woolridge with Boyd Dreyer as navigator in the Castrol NWM Ford Ranger Ultimate.
Multiple Brazilian and South American rally-raid champions Marcos Baumgart and Kleber Cincea will compete in a second Castrol NWM Ford Ranger Ultimate. The teams will compete in the top-tier FIA Ultimate/T1+ class to international FIA-specification performance control rules.
Wors Prinsloo and Andre Vermeulen will campaign a third Castrol NWM Ford this year in an SA-specification Ultimate/T1+ class that is more affordable for teams compared to the full FIA category.
The three purpose-made Rangers, which each cost about R8m to R9m to build, are powered by a Ford EcoBoost 3.5l twin-turbocharged V6 engine. They are built by Neil Woolridge Motorsport in Pietermaritzburg, which has nearly three decades of local and international rally-raid experience, including the Dakar Rally.
“The team has done a lot of work during the off season to refine and enhance the cars, making them more robust and more capable,” said Neil Woolridge.
“We are confident the team will be in a position to fight for race wins and the championship again this year.”
Long-time friends Gareth Woolridge and Boyd Dreyer have raced together since 2014 in the side-by-side category where they finished runners-up in the SA championship before moving up to the Production Car T1 class in 2015 in the V8-powered NWM Ranger.
They clinched the SARRC Production Vehicle championship title in 2023 and showed their prowess on the global stage with a seventh place finish on the final stage of the 2024 Dakar Rally in the locally built NWM Ranger Ultimate.
Baumgart and Cincea, in the second Castrol NWM Ranger, are a Brazilian crew that have raced in SA many times and claimed their first local victory at the 2019 Parys 400 in a Class T NWM Ranger V8.
The Brazilian pair have competed in two Dakar Rallies, starting in 2019 where they finished sixth overall in the side-by-side vehicle category, and they took on the Dakar again in 2024 in the Ultimate class. They also contested the full World Rally-Raid Championship last year.
Prinsloo and Vermeulen started racing the V8-powered NWM Ranger in Class T in 2020, finishing third in their debut season and moving up to second place the next year. They moved up to the premier T1+ category in 2023, finishing 10th overall. After a shortened campaign in 2024 due to business commitments, the team will return this year in the latest specification NWM Ranger Ultimate competing in the new SA Ultimate class.
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