Copyright © Nissan South Africa

Mpumalanga, (November 3, 2007)
Nissan's Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford won the Toyota Dealer 400 in Mpumalanga on Saturday by just three seconds from Nissan Navara team-mates Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan. It was the closest result in the history of the Absa Off Road Championship and gave Nissan its seventh successive win of the year after more than 400 km of tough racing in the Lydenburg and Sabie areas, with competitors exposed to heavy rain, hail and treacherously muddy conditions.

Vos's win, his fourth in the last five rounds of the national championship for production vehicles (Grobler won the other three), saw the 2002 champion clinch this year's drivers' championship as well as class SP with one round remaining. Nissan has now won every drivers' championship since the company started competing in off road racing in 2001.

Nissan is also assured of a seventh successive co-driver's championship, although the question of who will win will be resolved at the final round, the Carnival City 400 in Gauteng on December 1. Pitchford missed two rounds because of overseas commitments and is seven points behind Jordaan and an unbeatable 34 ahead of the third-placed co-driver.

Nissan won the manufacturers' prize (lowest combined times of the top three finishers from any one make) with Vos/Pitchford, Grobler/Jordaan and privateers Mark Corbett and Rudi Balzer (Century Property Developments Navara), who were fourth overall, 7 min 32 sec behind Harcus and Mohr.

With five cars in the top 10, Nissan further extended its unassailable lead in the manufacturers' championship, which it has now won six times in the last seven years.