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2008 Season:

Kenya National Rally Championship (KNRC) - 2008

KCB Visa Card Rally Rd 7 of 8 - Mombasa - Kenya

We are ready to part in the 7th Rd of the KCB Kenya National Rally Championship (KNRC) events held in Mombasa. Its going to be the KCB Visa Card Rally organised by Mombasa Motor Club (MMC), a will be driving the new Subaru N14, so that gives me more time in the new car, still trying to adopt to it properly. The rally is to feature 22 drivers and is expected to be tougher since the Kenyan drivers will be fighting for theirl number one natonal spot.

Sat 01-11-2008: Its day 1 of the rally, in the town of Kilifi, were staging with quite a number of skilled drivers. The day is characterised by heavy rains, which result in some sections being impassable thus forcing the rally stewards to omit tehm like Sokoke - Shariani (47.7Km) and Shariani - Munarani (15.6Km) which is the longest section of all. With the Super Special Stage (SSS) getting underway we manage to clock 55 seconds after the 1.4Km section, just 2 seconds behind the leader aboard thus taking the 4th position.

Sun 02-11-2008: Its day 2 and the final day of the rally, were ready to tackle a total of 181.7Km spread over 7 sections with other 30 overall drivers. No rains like in the previous day, too dry to say, so l got enough room to drop the accelerator to the floor. Am set to maintain the pace on the other drivers seconds ahead of me, so am not counting on anything besides that.

After a long day's drive, we've got to settle for a 3rd overall podium position finally, too quick to catch and too steady fast while on track, am glad we never experienced many mechanical problems, we have once again graced the event with the kind of spirit and love we have always shown for the sport ever since, being the only Ugandan driver....you tell me. Having been flagged off the ramp in Position 8, surely finishing 3rd overall aint bad at all, it wasn't that easy though since we were competing with Kenya's native drivers mostly who were relly all eyes on there National number one spot.

KCB Easy Pay Loan Rally Rd 5 of 8 - Nanyuki - Kenya

Located in Northern Kenya, the small town of Nanyuki lies on the Equator. The KCB Easy Pay Loan Rally Rd 5 moves its foot print on the huge 99,000 Acres of the farm lands on the Ol Pejeta Conservacy but well away from the Game Conservacy and its reknowned Rhinos. With some stages having to be slowed down by incorprating some really "mickey mouse" roads to test the steering, torque and most of all our patience as drivers.

The former series of the same rally have been won by Baldev Charger, hes also the defending champion. This time round Lee Rose is upping his fight with his newly acquired Mitsubishi Evo 9. Were to stage with 26 skilled Kenyan drivers with powerful machines, am talking about guys who know there roads just like the back of there palms. l have choosen to do the rest of the Kenyan events of the Kenyan Championship because l just don't get enough time in the car. Its going to be the 3rd outing of the new Subaru N14.

Having 2 days of competitive rallying on 161 Km of gravel to be covered during the day to 13 stages with 4 sections to be repeated 3 times with service breaks in between each loop. With length range from the shortest stage of 1.8Km St. George's spectator stage at the begining of each loop and the longest being stage 4 of 25.40 Km.

As the equatorial sun reached its Zenith so did it to us too. The gravel terrain reverberated to our angry and impatient engines from hurtling, growling man-monsters, crews made unwanted 'excursions' into acacias and it was such excursions that made us lose 3 mins on stage 3 alone, the car radiator got blocked by the thick dust so the car over-heated and went into safe mode, once its in safe mode you can only make 100 Km/h. Although the various stages always looked good for the car, it never was any simpler to be realistic.

PEARL OF AFRICA UGANDA RALLY

PRE EVENT

Latest spec rally car built by an outfit owned by the only consecutive four time world champ. New service truck. New technicians. Huge investment. What a mouthful. What a car!

RECCE
For the 1st time ever, we have managed to get two passes of recce. The route is interesting, 50% fast, 20% med speed corners, 15% bumpy and 15% very rough. Car setup is going to be a nightmare but it's the same for everybody.

TESTING
One of Tommi Makinen's engineers Tapio Laukkanen is showing me the best way to drive the car. Yeap, he knows his stuff.

All the spectators who have attended the testing session are excited. They have purchased racing fuel for us. They have also offered to pay for our tyres just so that they can continue watching the action. Crazy!

However none of them wants to sit in the car. In their words, "We must be on drugs to drive like that……"

Unfortunately we have failed to find very rough and bumpy roads that duplicate the rally terrain. We shall have to compromise alot with the car's setup.

The new car handles like a dream. It goes around corners like its on rails and it is much better compared to previous models. It sticks to the road like glue with lots of grip. The steering is much more responsive and the power curve is much more usable than the old car.

I am now adapting my normally aggressive driving style to suit the car's handling especially when I brake for slow corners. My style is no longer spectacular but the stop watch shows that I am much quicker.

SCRUTINEERING

Friday morning.
We face a tough but fair examination by the Scrutineers. These days nothing is left to chance, not even our underwear. Everything must conform to FIA standards.

Eventually the scrutineers are satisfied and we are allowed to start the rally.

But that is not why I am mentioning this event. More notable is one of my biggest fans Al Hajji Haruna. He has been to every rally that I have ever driven. He amuses the engineers from Finland by performing his Friday prayers with the new car.

SS1 - 2km

Friday afternoon.
Before leaving for the rally, my wife Naomi prays extra hard for our success. We have never won Uganda's premier event. We pray not because we believe in luck or jinxes but because we believe that someday, God will make it our time.

The super-special stage is attended by more than 30,000 people.

It seems like the multitude of spectators have given Jon Williams a heavy foot. He is in a league of his own. Everytime his VW Polo screams out of a corner, the crowd goes wild. He beats me by two seconds in two kilometers. Amazing!

I keep missing gears especially when I shift from 2nd to 3rd gear or from 4th to 5th gear. The Modena shift system feels alot different from the Hewland and X-trac boxes that I am used to, but I will adapt.

SS2 - 2km (repeat of SS1)
Again Jon Williams and Pierre Arries thrill the Ugandans with their VW Polo S2000.

We mess it up. I brake too late for a corner and the car's engine stalls. According to the engine's computer, we lose nine seconds. We only manage 8th fastest time and drop to 3rd overall. Despite all that, Jon Williams would still have beaten us.

Despite our problems, it is also exciting to watch Don Smith rally with his wife Sonia. His is always smiling and joking. His pace has improved with his newly acquired Subaru Impreza N12.

We are 3rd overall, 5 seconds behind the leader.

CS3 – 19km

Saturday morning.
My co-driver Moses is almost late for the start. Usually I am guilty of being late! I guess it's because he is a geek. He has too many gadgets and racing overalls to choose from….

Everything goes according to plan. Our tyre gamble has paid off but the car's setup is not perfect. The stage is mostly 5th gear. Whenever I shift down to 4th or 3rd gear, I change back up and rev too early. I am not using the power band. I can tell from Moses' voice that if I make one more mistake, he will punch me for not driving like Tapio has shown us.

Despite the efforts of the rally organizers, we meet some cycle traffic on the road. I feel sorry for Muna Singh who got first on the road. We cut a corner and go off the road.

CS4 – 16km
We only have a couple of minutes from the end of SS3 to the start of SS4. I get out of the car to assess the damage.

The car's front bumper is in pieces and the front tyre on Moses' side is flat. He orders me to get back into the car. He cuts off pieces of the front bumper. I ask him about the flat tyre. I get a brief, "No time". It's his call but I'll kick his back side if anything happens. So we start the stage with a flat tyre.

Turns out that we are the fastest in both sections in the Africa championship. We are now leading the rally by 42seconds.

CS5 – 16km
We now know that the current pace is adequate to maintain our lead. Moses does not like CS5, he previously damaged his back at a railway crossing in the same stage. Despite all this, we still manage to be 19 seconds quicker than the rest of the championship field.

CS6 – 14km
I like this stage because it is lots of high speed corners flowing into each other. We are equal fastest with Japanese "Mad Dog" Hideyaki Miyoshi. We both set a time of 6min 30sec.

We also learn that the fastest man in the whole rally is Riyaz Kurji. His pace is 0.5seconds per kilometer quicker than mine. Fortunately for me, he is not registered for the Africa championship otherwise I would be in trouble.

Most importantly, we are now 1min 43sec ahead of Lola Verlaque. By Moses' calculations we have covered only 20 percent of the rally. The following two stages have the roughest bits so we can chill out.

CS7 – 8km
Even at a sedate pace, we still set the fastest time. We are quickest by 23seconds.

We know this based on information from Africa's FIA representative Surinder Thatti.

CS8 – 38.5km
Part of this section is the roughest in the whole rally. Since our lead is growing, we decide to reduce our pace.

Rumour has it that some drivers ganged up on the organizers in order to make them cancel this section. The rest of us simply don't appreciate such Mafioso tactics. We should have been consulted as well so that we all speak with one voice.

The stewards made a compromise. They shortened the section before a major town through which the section passes.

I must admit that the FIA are no longer attending rallies as holidays. This is the first event where I have seen Stewards and Observers getting their hands dirty like they should. Now they survey the route and this helps them to make informed decisions. Most importantly, they are all now involved in timing.

The FIAs presence at all time controls is quite helpful because we are quickest again. Normally our competition would immediately claim that we are cheating because they doubted the times. Thanks to the FIA, we finally gain our competitions respect.

CS9 – 16km (repeat of CS5)
We lose yet another front bumper in a water splash. When we were testing, our Ugandan technicians Andy and Ismail discovered that the front bumper is a weak point on the car. They made some hurried modifications but we have ruined their hardwork. They won't be happy with us.

Everyone else has increased their pace alot. Surprisingly, we are still the quickest.

CS10 – 14km (repeat of CS6)
Again our pace is quickest amongst the Africa championship contenders. On the other hand, Riyaz is still quicker. But he is no threat and we now have a lead of 4min 13sec ahead of "Mad Dog". We decide to crawl for the rest of the rally.

CS11 – 8km (repeat of CS7)
Again we are quicker by 23seconds. Now our lead is un-attainable.

CS12 - 38.5km (repeat of CS8)
Last stage of the day. Moses simply says one word "SLOW". When Moses gets mono-syllabic, the whole team has learnt to listen.

If the truth be told, it was probably a mistake to listen to him. As all Rally drivers will know, when you slow down in a rally car, you actually lose concentration and end up hitting things even harder than you normally would. In this case, the last stage was the roughest of all, and the first time around it we had flown over all the really rough bits without any damage. By going slower, we actually ended up landing into a large mud hole. This resulted in one of the rear suspension arms breaking. Thank God it wasn't on Moses' side because he never let me forget about our incident in Tanzania and this morning.

The car spun on its nose and we broke the steering. We tried to limp out of the stage but unfortunately it was not to be!

Interestingly enough, Riyaz also dropped out when his engine cried enough. I wonder why he kept pushing so hard even when he had a lead of over 7min.

Our Finnish Engineers actually discovered after the event that the offending suspension arm had actually been identified as a weak link in the new suspension in an incident similar to Toshi Arai's in Argentina. The spare suspension arms that were sent after the car arrived had actually been improved to cater for this problem. Unfortunately for us, the strengthened ones had not been fitted to the Car!!!

We and our multitude of fans were disappointed not to have finished the Rally, but the knowledge we gained was invaluable.

LEG 2:
I went home to my family. Moses, Tapio, Tommi, Pekka, Andy and Ismail were so disappointed that they partied all night. Apparently they met with some of Riyaz's crew including Heiko. Rumour has it that both teams are guilty of visiting all the amusement spots in Kampala………

Muna Singh increased his pace on the second leg and passed "Mad Dog" but then got engine problems. "Mad Dog" returned into the lead only to suffer a puncture. Jamie Whyte and Phil Archenoul attacked in the last three sections. They won the rally.

Jas Mangat had completed all the sections and was fourth overall. Unfortunately he was disqualified for receiving outside assistance on his way back to the finish podium.

If Jon Williams finishes the rest of the championship events, he stands a good chance to be Africa's 2009 Pirelli representative. This is because Randeep Birdi was unfortunate not to participate in Uganda.

POST EVENT
Most of the local drivers, spectators and organizers were not happy with the excessive "attention" that we got from all the FIA officials because silly things like our constantly missing front bumper(s) were mentioned. It made them ask why other drivers including Riyaz were not getting the same treatment.

In the past, despite Uganda's efforts to solve our notorious problems, we have not been treated favorably by the FIA. Some of the local rally people seem to think that it involves racial bias.

I don't think that the FIAs scrutiny has to do with race. Uganda has unique problems that require unique solutions. I rally because I come from a country with the biggest and most passionate crowd in Africa. We need to look after our crowds. Our motorcyclists are notorious for their disregard for traffic laws. Let us find a way to control them.

If we are the only spectators in Africa that ever bought a rally car for a talented driver, surely we can find a solution to our problems.

See you soon in Kenya. Now that Rwanda's Rally is cancelled, maybe we shall go to South Africa for the Total International Rally.

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ALLIANCE INSURANCE KOBIL RALLY OF TANZANIA 2008
8 - 10th February 2008

PRE-EVENT:

We had problems getting the car to Dar-es-Salaam due to the circus in Kenya.
Hotel rooms are now a problem in Dar. There are a lot of immigrants from Kenya. Many foreign business people are waiting for their goods due to a traffic jam of ships being re-routed from Mombasa. And to make matters worse, some cowboy called Goerge W. Bush shall be in town this week so all rooms within the city have been taken over by Marines. Cellphone networks are another story etc

FRIDAY:
Due to our busy schedule, we managed only one pass of recce on Friday afternoon.
The FIA organisers this time were tough... all in the name of safety. They checked for everything including underwears.
The Tanzanians were ordered by CACMS/ FIA not to allow Group S cars in the rally. As a result, not many locals were able to enter the rally. Surprisingly, a Kenyan Group S car was allowed to start... because they had made the effort to come all the way from Kenya. I guess Kenya shall always be above the law...
We were seeded 5th and we werent happy about it. So some smart ass dropped us to 9th. We didn't say a word.
Hideyaki Miyoshi barely passed scrutineering in a poorly prepared Mitsubishi Evo7. His Evo9 is still stuck in Mombasa port because of all the circus in Kenya.

SAFETY IN RALLIES:
I think that the competitive section is a dinosaur still keeping alive. The FIA keeps yapping about safety but I still can't understand why FIA officials adamantly refuse to recognize our pace. In Kenya we were seeded 16th and made it up to 4th. In Uganda we led the rally, dropped out and returned to lead again. In Tanzania we were seeded 9th and were forced to pass many cars in the stages till we made it to 3rd before we dropped out. Miyoshi was unfortunate to have a junk car but he was still seeded high up. I bet that if we were Riyaz Kurji, despite not finishing, we would have been seeded in top three positions.

SATURDAY: CS1.
The 1st section was 32km. Within 10km of the stage, we were in the dust of the car ahead of us. Those of you who have ever been in such a situation know how dangerous it is. We we could hardly see anything but Emmanuel was on the hunt. We broke a shock, bent a suspension arm but still kept going flat out. 20km into the stage, we had our prey.

Then a few meters down the road we were all signalled to stop by Imran Khan, co-driver of Azar Anwar because Asad & Azar Anwar were blocking the road. Asad's newly accquired Subaru N11 had engine trouble and Azar was stuck in the sand while trying to pass Asad. Asad's engine had ingested too much dust from trying to overtake Jamie Whyte who was driving the ex-Rautenbach Subaru N10. Asad knocked Whyte couple of times but Whyte says he refused to let Asad pass because Asad had failed to start after 20seconds. Technically Asad shouldnt have started the stage however if the car behind me knocks me in a stage, the right thing to do is to let it pass...
There was heated verbal exchange between Asad and Lola Verlaque. After we pushed Asad's car to the side, we waited for Azar's co-driver who was located further back the road then we all drove in convoy to the end of the stage.

At the end of the stage, the marshal made a mistake in Azar's time card. Again we had to wait for the mistake to be corrected because technically, we could not overtake Azar in the time control. By this time, Lola was fuming red.
We lost 40seconds in service due to the change of the broken suspension. Because many of us had checked into service within the same minute, we dropped from 9th to 14th.
We were all given the same time as Muna Singh who was fastest. Asad has now been banned from participating in the next rally because of ramming Jamie Whyte and telling Lola Verlaque exactly what he thinks of her (but apparently Lola didnt keep quiet either... who knows).

CS2.
The second stage was 52km long. Before we enter a stage, Emmanuel always asks me what our strategy should be. This time when he asked me, he got a dirty look. The message was clear.
Within the stage, Emmanuel only went down to third third gear ONCE because I called a medium corner abit late. I was too busy keeping him on a tight leash... still my mistake. As a result, we over took one car in the stage, narrowly missed crashing into Azar Anwar who had broken down in the stage and almost knocked another car at the end of the stage. Also you have never seen soooo much traffic in a stage. Still we managed to set the 3rd/4th fastest time.

CS3 & 4.
CS3 14km. CS4 30km. The car's suspension setup was all wrong. We had new tyres for every stage of the rally but the start of CS3 was just 300m from the service park and we forgot to warm the tyres and brakes. We still averaged 3rd fastest time and made a couple of places up the leader board. Needless to say, we always caught or passed other guys in the stage.

CS5.
This was a repeat of CS2. We enlisted the help of Heiko to improve the car's setup. Also we found out that we had the wrong fuel mapping which was immediately changed by Heiko. As a result, we were 2nd fastest in the stage and 3rd overall, 16seconds behind Jas Mangat who was 2nd overall.
Again there was traffic in the stage despite the organizers efforts to close the stage.

END LEG 1.
Muna Singh had blown away the whole field with a lead of 2min57sec. He was flying. But he wasnt happy about the times of stage one and I think if I was in his shoes, I would be happy either.
Unfortunately, he was not "convinced" by our stage times and his co-driver Dave Sihoka claimed that we were paying marshals in order to get good times.

CS6.
The stage was a repeat of CS1. At the start of the stage, we warned Jas to keep a look out for our lights. Jas proved us wrong. He blew the whole field away by setting the fastest time of 21m51sec. We were 2nd fastest at 22:03, 1second ahead of Muna. Fortunately this time, the rally top honcos were at all time controls so Dave Sihoka probably had no excuse because his time was 1sec quicker than the previous day.

CS7.
Repeat of CS2/5. We gave up on catching Jas and concentrated on maintainig 3rd place. We found alot of traffic again. We hit a big rock planted right in the middle of the road, damaged the front right shock plus we got a puncture. We changed the tyre in 3m30sec with no power tools. Plus we lost a couple of wheel nuts in the sand. BUT WHY DO DRIVERS ALWAYS HIT THINGS ON THE NAVIGATOR'S SIDE?

CS8.
Repeat of CS4, 30km. We were now 6th. Randeep Singh 5th, 2sec ahead of us. Lola Verlaque was 4th. 1m28sec ahead of us. We gunned for Lola. We time splits mid-stage. At the 2nd split 20km in the stage, we had caught and passed Lola. We were now 3rd with a 17sec lead.

1km before the end of the stage, the transmission of the car cried enough (same gearbox that failed in Uganda). It broke and the oil spillage caused a fire in the engine bay. If you have never seen grown men almost cry, you missed it. Still, we had alot of fun. But we could have used those points.

Jas Mangat and Kashif Sheikh were most impressive. This year Muna Singh is on a new strategy of max attack. Miyoshi's navigator Hakaru Ichino was decent enough to joke about their misfortune of driving an old car when their new car was stuck in Kenya.

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