After flawless Equator Rally, focus shifts to much-awaited Safari

 

Kenyan rally ace Carl “Flash” Tundo won the African Rally Championship (ARC) Equator Rally at the weekend with a huge margin of 12 minutes. He beat tough opponents from fellow countrymen to visiting South African, Rwandan, and Ugandan competitors.

‘This is rallying … pretty tough, pretty wet. I enjoy wet rallies.  I am enjoying it, I like the new car, it’s going well, and I am getting a hang of it,” said Tundo.

A first loop scare almost caused South Africa’s Guy Botterill’s early retirement. 

The Equator Rally was a dress rehearsal for the eagerly awaited World Rally Championship (WRC) Safari Rally that will be held between June 24-27 this year.

On the  second and final day of the Equator Rally in Naivasha,  Tundo praised his co-driver, Tim Jessop, and new sponsor, Minti Motorsport, of the United Kingdom.

He had bad words for the “Sleeping Warrior” rocky stage, but was happy with the weather conditions in Naivasha that ranged from wet to dry. Indeed, foreign drivers will be in for a shock come the Safari Rally.

The Safari will be run in the same region as the Equator Rally in Naivasha, Nakuru County on the floor of Africa’s Rift Valley , which has global fame. 

The  “Happy Valley” of old; is factually and romantically captured by some of Kenya’s best published literature – Karen Blixen (“Out of Africa’), Beryl Markham (“West with the Night”), James Fox (“White Mischief”), Elspeth Huxley (‘Flame Trees of Thika’) and Errol Tzerbinski (“The life and death of Lord Errol”).

 Hugh George Cholmondeley, the 5th Baron Delamere,  87, still lives here and it is his extensive Soysambu and Elementaita estates (wildlife sanctuaries, ranching, and extensive farming) that he availed to  the motorsport fraternity as a “Happy field of play”.

And in fact,  agribusiness man “Flash” Tundo, 47,  is a bosom friend of the Delameres. He was racing on very familiar grounds.

The Equator rally was held here,  and Safari Rally will  run here too, as well as on other expansive properties privately-owned farms including  Kedong’, Loldia, Chui Lodge, and Malewa.

But Hell’s Gate is a national government property managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service. The Equator Rally has never experienced such attention before. It has been  a top highlight in all Kenyan media platforms for the last 10 days.

TV productions were done by all the major media houses and start-up stations of young Kenyans who also white-washed all social media platforms.

On Saturday,  President Uhuru Kenyatta, on his return from a national event in Gilgil, further up the road, flew to Soysambu to happily watch the Equator Rally.

For the past two-and-a-half years, President Kenyatta has personally been at the forefront of engaging the International Automobile Federation (FIA) to grant back the Safari the WRC status it lost in 2002.

That now is done dusted, and the competition everyone in Kenya is looking forward to is “our boys and girls versus theirs (foreign) in June.”Kenyan and other African drivers will start at a huge disadvantage in the quest for Safari’s top places. The WRC teams – Toyota, Hyundai, and Ford – have incredibly superior cars.

How they will fair on in the punishing Safari , we will wait to see.

Rain and dust varied in different areas on the Equator Rally route.  Aother Kenya driver  Eric Bengi said: “It challenges everybody. It may get better for the back-markers, but as of now it is quite different, the wet conditions are quite challenging for the front runners …”

Local drivers focused on their plans and approach of the Equator Rally which, they will no doubt, adopt in Safari. Foreigners would be advised not to ignore what the locals are saying.   BY DAILY NATION