Stig extends lead in Classic Rally: The 1984 World Rally Champion started the morning with a 4.19minutes advantage

Ramesh Vishram's Ford Escort Mark2 being serviced by the crew at Ol Tukai

The Swede is showing his might over homeboy Carl Tundo as the race enters third day.

Defending champion Team Tido’s Stig Blomqvist from Sweden extended his Kenya Airways East Africa Safari Classic Rally lead over homeboy Carl ‘Flash’ Tundo as the rally entered its third day yesterday.

Stig said he enjoyed two stages in Tanzania as he led by seven minutes against second-placed Tundo.

On a gloomy day, occasioned  by the death of East Africa Safari Rally Director Jaideep Vohra, who was killed in a road accident while driving from Amboseli to Namanga on Friday, the top six positions remained unchanged. Multiple Kenya champion, Tundo, clinging to third ahead of British driver Richard Jackson. Kenya’s Raaji Bharij came in fifth ahead of former Kenyan classic car champion Jonathan Somen.

The late Vohra, who flagged off the rally in Mombasa together with Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho will be cremated today in Nairobi.

Stig, the 1984 World Rally Champion started the morning with a 4.19minutes advantage over Tundo heading into the 100km Oldonyo Longido-Oldonyo Sambu section.

“I had small problems that I believe also affected everybody but we are all doing well,” said Stig.

Tundo on his part said: “We had a puncture on the opening stage which forced us to drive like a granny yhus losing a bit of time.”

Stig topped the opening stage of the day, but Tundo’s spirited fightback to close the gap came a cropper when the third stage was cancelled after the accident.

With the puncture on the opening stage, Tundo finished eighth fastest but bounced back in awesome fashion to clinch the second stage at the end of day two on Friday.

Kenya’s Bharji said they encountered a break failure and it was quite scary because it was a fast stage with ditches and washaways but managed to get through it.

“I thought I had a bad day but when you see other drivers having engine failures, gear box failures, then you console yourself and move on. My car is here and we are still running. So there are seven more days to go, anything can happen. We will just keep motoring,” said Bharji.

Great Britain driver Ian Freestone said they were moving on well. “No major problems and we are pleased with that, and we hope to carry on that way. You have to take each day at a time. You have good days and bad days but we should be able to finish,” said Freestone.

Another Kenyan driver Nish Lakhani said: “With the safari you never know what will be thrown at you and that’s why we always come back for the Classic Safari. We have been having a good run, fantastic stages unfortunately I could not open up the throttle completely as I had planned but anyway we got here and that makes us happy. We are at the back with the small cars and we just go out there to have fun and if we can come home every day, hopefully we can climb up the ladder.