The 66th edition of the famous Safari Rally revs at KICC today

Jaspreet Chatthe, co-driven by James Morgan in a Mitsubish Evolution 10, will be the first off the ramp at KICC today at 11am as Safari Rally begins its journey to regaining the World Rally Championship status.

It will be a special edition as top guns led by Gilles Simon, the FIA head of technical matters and Olivier Ciesla the WRC promoter managing director, will be all eyes to see Kenya nurse its world status dreams.

Onkar Rai, co-driven by Gareth Dawe in a Skoda Fabia R5, will be the second off the ramp followed by Baldev Chager co-driven by Ravi Soin as cars head to Sopa Lodge in Naivasha for the first service A.

The competitors are supposed to rake up 111km on Day One with 31.69km accounting for the competitive stretch while 98.45km will entail the liaison distance within Kedong Ranch.

Current torrential rains will add to the enthralling battle between man on one hand, the power of the machines and the sheer driving and navigational skills on the other.

The challenging weather conditions has compelled the competitors to consider fitting puncture proof mud compound tyres to achieve the much-needed traction on the demanding circuit.

Among the notable absentees from this 66th edition of the ARC Safari Rally are 1994 winner Ian Duncan and Finland’s Tapio Laukkanen, last year’s winner.

Their absence, however, is not expected to take the gloss off the competition for Carl “Flash” Tundo (Evo10), African Champion Manvir Baryan (Skoda Fabia R5) and Rai (Skoda Fabia R5) and top seed Chatthe (Evo10) -all of them drivers of impeccable pedigree -are in the mix among others.

Tundo, the son of veteran Safari drive Frank Tundo, is seeking to win the Safari this year to equal Shekhar Mehta’s record of five titles, the only difference being that the latter won the event when it was a round of WRC.

While the Safari Rally organisers will be pursuing their World Roll status, there will be other sub-plots within the big story line.

This year’s ARC Safari Rally will be a hotly contested affair too for the Kenya National Rally Championship contenders. And being an international event, crews will score more points than in other KNRC rounds.

The 2018 KNRC season opener that took course in February saw Kabras Rally Team dominate with Onkar Rai co-driven by Gareth Dawe claiming victory while team mate Baldev Chager was second followed by Carl Tundo in third.

Jas Mangat, a dominant force in the Uganda Rally Championship, will seek to test his mettle in this championship. Mangat heads into the Safari off back-to-back victories in this year’s Ugandan championship. Also representing Uganda is Duncan Mubiru with Tanzania fielding Ahmed Huwel and Randeep Singh.

“It’s been a while since we competed in an international event. We would like to get out there and see how things have changed in regards to the pace and much more. And besides, Safari rally suits our work schedule,” Mangat said.