Motorsport: Gritty Patel beats Verjee to ‘King of the Hill’ title

Kunal Patel won the last edition of Chloride Exide Hill Climb competition this year with a deserved victory beating Zameer Verjee at the scenic Malewa Bay at Lake Naivasha, yesterday.

Driving a buggy Attacker, Patel scored quickest stage times in all the seven heats to win the two-day event that started Saturday.

The event attracted 20 competitors with a majority of rally drivers unable to participate as their cars were not ready having just finished the Kenya National Rally Championship series the weekend before. Onkar Rai, the winner of the first event, was among those who failed to take part. The last round attracted 9 buggies, 8 cars, 2 bikes and a Quad.

Kunal was in imperious form in winning the ‘King of the Hill’ title, shaving seconds off his time on every consecutive run to hold off the hard charging Mikey Hughes and Zameer Verjee.

Verjee, the son of the former Nakuru Rally winner, Nazir Verjee, gave a good account of himself this being his first-ever Hillclimb participation. Verjee Senior also did well to finish in ninth place on his first competitive event since returning to action after a long layoff. 

Sixth-placed Lynda Hughes was the best placed female competitor also driving a Buggy Attacker.

16-year-old Rio Smith in a modified Toyota Vitz was the darling of the crowd with his gung ho approach to the race.

Abid Ganatra got a racing line wrong and upended his buggy. Within minutes the safety car and  medical response was on site and Abid was declared hale and hearty. [Standard Sports]

Round three and final Chloride Exide Hillclimb race was organised by Nakuru-based Rift Valley Motor Sports.