The NWM Evo Plus has won every stage in its existence. Don’t mind that prologues don’t count for the overall and the win came due to a time infraction.

The inaugural South African Safari Rally kicked off Monday with a nine-kilometer loop of the Sun City Resort. While the Prologue rarely suggests much about the rest of the race, so much so that the FIA doesn’t award stage points, it gives teams a final chance to hone their vehicles in a competition setting.

Given this was the first time for many that they raced in South Africa, it probably makes sense that nationals would have the upper hand on Monday. Thus, South Africans initially swept the FIA top five with Saood Variawa leading the way.

However, Variawa received a one-minute penalty for jumping the start. This dropped him all the way to 43rd overall and 33rd in Ultimate while promoting runner-up Gareth Woolridge to the Prologue win. Woolridge cleared Variawa’s Toyota Gazoo Racing colleagues Guy Botterill and Henk Lategan by one and four seconds, respectively. Since Woolridge is not signed up for W2RC points, Botterill was technically the series’ Prologue winner.

The 2023 South African Rally-Raid Champion, Woolridge’s family developed the NWM Evo Plus as a successor to the Ford Ranger they had been running since 2023. His teammate Marcos Baumgart, a newcomer to the Ford family, finished the Prologue in eighth.

Even with Variawa’s penalty, half of the FIA top ten on Monday were South Africans. Brian Baragwanath was a fourth second off Woolridge with his Century CR7 while Jayden Els placed seventh. Nani Roma led the internationals with a fifth.

South Africans also fared well in FIM, where Prologue times count for the overall, though Australia won out. Michael Docherty finished third as a Rally2 rider, just eight seconds behind winner and RallyGP points leader Daniel Sanders and half of that back of Tosha Schareina. Edgar Canet was five seconds behind Docherty.

Quad winner Gaëtan Martinez’s teammate Antanas Kanopkinas described the course as “really slippery. I still need to adapt to the surface. I didn’t want to take any risks in the prologue. I’ve lost too much time here in the past, and there’s nothing to gain from trying to win it.”

Much of the slippery surface likely stemmed from race organizers using a tractor to press down the grass. Skyler Howes noted he missed the first corner because he was following the tractor tracks and realized too late that they were going in the wrong direction. The flattened grass made his efforts to course correct harder since his bike slid out.

Howes’ Honda ally and fifth-place bike finisher Ricky Brabec compared it to an International Six Days Enduro course, which definitely wasn’t my style but I had a lot of fun.”

While the Prologue is used to determine the start order for Stage 1, Dania Akeel and Fouché Blignaut will begin Tuesday at the back. Blignaut did not finish the Prologue, while Akeel returned to the bivouac without a rear wheel after it broke and she was unable to fix it after the SS. Akeel was fined €1,000, and she and Blignaut both received flat times of 30 minutes for Monday.

Prologue winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	277	Gareth Woolridge*	Neil Woolridge Motorsport	6:48.1
Challenger	18	320	Pau Navarro	BBR Motorsport	7:06.0
SSV	28	401	Alexandre Pinto	Old Friends Rally Team	7:20.6

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	7:08.1
Rally2	3	22	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	7:16.7
Quad	22	174	Gaëtan Martinez	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	8:33.6

Featured image credit: Neil Woolridge Motorsport