Baryan drives to victory: Motorsport Youngster savours victory as Laukkanen struggles

KCB ELDORET RALLY Tapio Laukkanen and co-driver Pasi Torma navigate through Chemweno farm in Moi Ben, Uasin Gishu during the KCB Rally on October 8, 2016. Tapio Laukkanen won the competition. [PHOTO:STAFFORD ONDEGO/WWW.SPORTPICHA.COM]

Chager settles for second ner Drew Sposition in Mitsubishi Evo 10.
Manvir Baryan and his British partturrock secured their second career Kenya National Rally (KNRC) Championship victory at this weekend’s Fly540 Rally powering to the top step of the podium behind the wheel of their MRT Skoda Fabia R5.

Baryan who is one the fastest rising KNRC youngsters savoured his performance after winning two half of the eight stages at stake in the Rallye Sports Club organised round yesterday.

But Baryan had his campaign effectively sewn up when Tapio Laukkanen suffered multiple punctures and retired on CS6.

This was Baryan’s second career win after the season-opening Mombasa Rally held in North Coast.

After the win, he promised better displays in the season going into the second half in Nanyuki next month.

“It's quite a good feeling winning my second career event when many front runners caught out by blind ditches and the rockery. The rally was rough so we weren’t pushing as hard.

“Even when we saw Tapio by the roadside, it didn’t change our strategy as I knew I had to drive with my head,” he said.

Baldev Chager settled for second position in a Mitsubishi Evolution 10 but not without any gremlins and dramas.

Third was youngster Karan Patel followed by Ian Duncan who drove into last service on three wheels.

Chager was all smiles though: “Its been a nice rally but extremely rough going by the punctures and breakages. We had fuel pump failure in the first loop when it cracked in one of the jumps, but luckily our boys manageed to sort it out. We also damaged two tyres which we stopped to change,” Chager said.

Laukkanen had established a safe 2.07 minutes lead after the first loop but not until puncture gremlins set in.

“It was a smooth sailing until we got our first puncture in the first stage second time round, but we had to drive on that.

“Then we decided to back off quite a bit because we didn’t want any more problems but we just got puncture after puncture. So coming into the sixth stage we stopped to change another tyre which was a disaster,” Laukkanen’s navigator Gavin Laurence said.

It was a bad day in the office for some of the KNRC bigwigs with Carl Tundo exiting with oil pump problems, Jassi Chatthe with mechanical problems and Onkar Rai who got caught out on a blind ditch after going off road.

Other casualties in the event co-sponsored by KCB, Red Bull and Galleria Shopping Mall were Osman Abdullahi with brakes failure and Charles Hinga with a broken suspension.