Reigning national off road champion Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan broke a three-race winless streak when they took their Proudly South African 3,5-litre V6 Nissan Hardbody to a comfortable victory in the Ford/Motorite Limpopo 400 in the Polokwane area on Saturday.

Team-mates Alfie Cox and Ralph Pitchford in the second 3,5-litre Hardbody, winners of the last three championship rounds, were second despite experiencing fuel starvation problems from around half distance when they were leading Grobler and Jordaan.

Grobler and Cox thrilled the thousands of spectators gathered along the route with one of the most exciting battles for the lead seen in a long time. Grobler overtook Cox towards the end of lap one when his rival wrong-slotted and lost a 43 second advantage. Before the end of the lap he regained the lead when Grobler wrong-slotted and arrived at the designated service point for a 15-minute compulsory stop 28 seconds ahead of his team-mate.

Cox had led the 50-car field of production and special vehicles at the 8 am start on Saturday after recording the fastest time ahead of Grobler in the 43-km prologue on Friday and looked like he was headed for a fourth consecutive victory.

The gap between the two red and silver Nissans at the finish, after 400-km and seven hours of tough competition in very hot, dry and dusty conditions, was just over 25 minutes after Cox had started 24 seconds ahead of Grobler.

"We haven't seen a contest between two of our drivers as exciting as we saw today," said Nissan Motorsport general manager Glyn Hall. "What we witnessed today was two great drivers performing at their very best. It was a pity one had to settle for runner-up spot."

Duncan Vos and Hennie ter Stege made a welcome return to the championship after an absence of a year to debut Nissan Motorsport's new 4-litre V6 Hardbody in the new class SP, which is to take the place of the existing class for 3,5 litre modified vehicles in 2006.

The new 4-litre Nissan impressed in its first national championship outing and, though less modified, managed to match the more powerful 3,5-litre versions in the early stages before succumbing to fuel starvation problems halfway through the event while lying third overall.

"Duncan and Hennie's performance today was very impressive and we are very happy with the new class SP Nissan," said Hall. "The fuel problem we had was unexpected and something we haven't experienced before. We look forward to the arrival of the other manufacturers' class SP vehicles, because we now have a head start on them and are confident we will be very competitive."

9-10 September, 2005 - Polokwane