KNRC 6 - Rift Valley Motor Club - position - DNF
The event could hardly have gotten off to a worse start - 500m into the
first stage on very slippery grass we went off, staight on through a gate
and dropped 15ft onto a road below ! The car was stuck standing on its nose
and whilst spectators helped to pull it out, I despatched greg to go back up
and warn the next car . No sooner had we pulled the car down the bank and
moved it a short way down the road than Glen Edmunds did exactly the same
thing but at higher speed and crashed into the bank on the opposite side.
Fortunately we had moved as Glen would otherwise have carshed into us plus
all those spectators who were helping and it could have resulted in a very
nasty accident indeed. The 4th car through the satge also did exactly the
same thing ! We managed to win the 2nd stage having recovered composure
somewhat and were looking forward to the challenge of clawing back the time
that we had lost in the crash when on stage 3 in the middle of the Kerio
valley 2 driveshafts failed and we were forced into retirement.
The organizers of this event deserve a huge round of applause for organizing
such a fantastic rally , through the most beautiful scenery and over some of
the most challenging roads available.
Boulevard Rally Sat 20th June 2004 Round 4 KNRC
A great event organized by a new club and going in the direction that
rallying needs to take in Kenya ie shorter, smoother 'special stage' type
sections on mainly closed roads. Unfortunatel, having not started very well
(lying 4th after 2 stages) we picked up a puncture - the only downside of
such events being that it is very difficult to catch the time up again ! We
broke a driveshaft halfway through the day leaving us in 2 wd for 3 stages
which meant that we really had to back off in order to preserve the gearbox.
Then our intercoms failed , so we'd had a pretty miserable event by the
penultimate service halt. Finally, things went our way and we had a clean
run resulting in a couple of fastest stage times and enabling us to claw
back juts enough time to secure 4th place.
"NYANZA KISUMU RALLY KNRC 3 - 1ST overall
At last, my run of 4 years bad luck is over ! (well at least temporarily !!)
Navigated by my brother Adrian, who had to be dragged away from a romantic
weekend with his girlfriend in Zanzibar to step in for Greg Forster, we
managed a clean sweep on the Kajulu Holdings Kisumu rally. After the first 2
stages we held an 11 sec margin over team mate Flash Tundo who in turn was
some 36sec ahead of Lee Rose and it looked as if we were going to have a
close duel all day. However, unfortunately a broken drive shaft forced his
retirement on the 3rd stage and then we really only had Lee to offer any
serous threat. The car ran perfectly and we managed to win every stage of
the event ending up with an overall winning margin of over 4 mins ! This was
the second time in 40 years that a pair of brothers had won a rally in Kenya
and the first ever rally that Adrian had won! Fingers crossed that our new
found luck holds..........."
SAFARI RALLY FIA ARC ROUND 1 KNRC ROUND 2 13/14TH MAY
Given my previous disastrous luck on this event, my plan was simply to set a
pace throughout leg 1 that would give me a sufficient lead not to have to
push too much on the second leg. Friday nights sea front special stage was a
bit of a confusion as we were given the wrong time card and set off from the
control late not having received a countdown ! Anyway the restart of Leg one
on Saturday morning commenced with one of my favorite stages in the whole
country - Mwasembweni - Mosque and we managed to set fastest time by over a
minute ! Kinango to Mariakani then saw us set another fastest time and by
the first service /regroup we held a comfortable lead of almost 2 mins. I
backed off throught the rough parts of the next section Samburu to mbongo
and we dropped a bit of time to Lee but still held a comfortable margin
going into the final stage of the day Mazeras to Kinango. Everyone seemed to
wake up a bit on this stage which was great fun to drive and we just pipped
Ian Duncan to fastest time again by 9 secs. At the end of Leg 1 all was
looking good with the car undamaged and a 2min 31 secs lead. Perhaps at
last............................! However, it was not to be my incredulously
bad luck at the Coast struck again and on the run out to the first stage on
Sunday morning at Kinango a small bearing in the timing belt tensioner
pulley collapsed and we were forced into retirement. Yet again the Demons of
the Coast seem determined for me never to win my home event !!
We are now going to require outright wins in the next couple of KNRC events
to have any chance whatsoever of fighting for the Championship this year.
ROUND 1 KNRC - 1/FEB/2004
Bloody awful start to the championship - stage 2 came round an easy corner
pretty much flat out only to be confronted by a Masaai herdsman and his
finest collection of livestock in the middle of the road!Locked up and
desperately looked for somewhere to go but nothing on !147km impact speed
according to the computer ! Resultant damage - car fairly well buggered and
3 cows + one donkey dead! Also one rather irate herdsman..............will
probably now have to fly out the mitsubishi group'n' car from uk for the
safari rally as unlikely that the impreza will be repaired in time !! |
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2003
KNRC 1 - we entered this event under rather dubious circumstances
with the 'old' clubmans group'a' impreza. Dubious because we were
uncertain as to wether or not the new crash gearbox would hold out and
furthermore because my right arm was in plaster due to my having broken my
wrist in a motorbike accident. Nevertheless, after a fairly uneventful run
(with exception of a 180 degree mid air spin caused by over exuberance !!)
we came home in a credible 2nd place and scored some much needed points.
KNRC 2 - Eldoret 6th April
We wheeled out the proper group 'a' car for this event. Unfortunately, the
engine statred overheating before we got to the start of the first stage
and we knew we were in for a troublesome time. Managed to set fastest time
on the 1st stage by 30 odd secs then the clutch packed in on the way up
Flur Spar on the 2nd stage forcing our retirement.
KNRC 3 - Nairobi 10th May
A very rough route which we decided to take gently to preserve the car and
ensure that the gremlins from the previous event had been shaken out
resulted in another 2nd place moving us up into 3rd overall in the
championship.
KNRC 4 - Nakurur 19th July
The organizers had put together a fantastic route and it was a big
disappointment to retire on the Delamare stage having just set a fastest
time.It would have been good to continue the battle with Lee Rose u8ntil
the finish! The championship is slowly slipping away from us and we need
mechanical reliability and a couple of wins to stand any real chance over
the remaing 4 events.
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RALLY OF THAILAND APRC 29 Nov - 1 Dec - DNF
Yet another DNF !!!! An extremely depressing result given that we were
running in the top # for the entire event until a broken drive shaft
forced our retirement. I was navigated by Saleem Haji this time and the
pairing worked very well - we had just set fastest stage time and were 61
secs behind current APRC group 'n' champion Nico Caldarola when on a stage
that started with 100m of tarmac before leading into gravel, the prop
shaft broke on the star line forcing our retirement.
All in all a disastrous year with only one finish in New Caledonia - I can
only hope that 2003 will be a lot kinder to us ! It was , however,
extremely encouraging to be on the pace in Thailand and to have regularly
beaten fellow APRC competitors from NZ and Australia who had earlier in
the season been setting faster times than me. |
COAST EQUATOR RALLY - RESULT
DNF
The Coast Gremlins strike once again !!! For an unbelievable 4th time in a
row, I am forced into retirement in the spectator stage in the Kenya
Calcium Quarry at WAA ! More bizarrely each retirement has occurred within
150 meters of the very same spot !! This time the centre bearing on the
prop shaft seized causing loss of transmission . The car had not been
behaving properly and we were running with the active differential turned
off which made handling fairly awkward. This was reflected by our time on
the first run at the spectator stage. I decided that the only way to make
the car do what i wanted was to drive a lot more aggressively and really
throw it around in order to get it to 'turn in' to the corners. This we
did on the second stage and managed to set a time of 5min 28secs which was
not to be beaten for the entire remainder of the event. So some small
consolation for such a disappointing result. On a brighter note, however,
the event as a whole was a tremendous! success and hopefully can be built
upon for next year in an effort to regain the Safari Rally for Kenya.
RALLY OF NEW CALEDONIA (APRC 2) 31/5-2/6/02 - 4TH OVERALL 2ND GROUP 'N'
Finally my run of bad luck and destroyed gearboxes comes to an end ! Using
a standard gearbox, we managed to finish the rally in 4th place overall
and thereby pick up some useful points in the championship. The rally was
held over 3 days on the beautiful French colony of New Caledonia - after
an exhausting flight (26hours) we went straight into the recce the
following day ! Recce went fine except that we managed to notch up 11
punctures in the process (only standard road tyres are permitted). The
rally itself was a fantastic combination of every possible driving
condition ! Day one and the skies opened absolutely bucketing down - the
result was a real quagmire on a very slippery "black cotton ' like surface
which was similar to driving on ice! Fortunately, we had mud tyres with us
which proved a great advantage and we finished day 1 in 4th position. The
super special stage in the middle of Noumea attracted a huge crowd and was
again extremely slippery as it was held on grass inside the horse racing
arena. Day 2 and 3 were drier and again saw different surfaces and terrain
and we were able experiment with a wide variety of tyre choices. By the
third day, it was apparent that we were not going to be able to catch 3rd
placed Nico Cardarola and nor were we in danger of being caught by anyone
behind us , so we backed off in order to consolidate our position and pick
up championship points. |
| RALLY OF CANBERRA (aprc 1)
MAY 3/4/5
Due to unforeseen shipping logistics the
car only arrived in Canberra on the Thursday before the event was due to
start!! This meant that despite their valiant efforts, the team had very
little time to check and prepare the car for the event. The result of this
was that on the very first stage of the event, after only 3 km we lost all
brakes and spun the car into a bank ! Fortunately, the damage was only
superficial but we then had to complete the rest of the leg approx 50km of
stage distance with only the handbrake to stop the vehicle ! This resulted
in an huge loss of time from which it was always going to be impossible to
recover. Furthermore, to add insult to injury, the crash gearbox broke on
day two resulting in our retirement. Fortunately, under the Asian Pacific
Championship rules any vehicle that has retired on a previous day of the
event may restart the following day - the point of this being that the top
3 finishers in the championship standing for each day score bonus points
for the day 3,2,1.
On day three, with a standard gearbox
fitted, we managed to come second in th3e APC standings and 9th overall
for the day which was a pleasing result given the earlier disasters and at
least we walked away from the event with a couple of points. The next
event is New Caledonia on 1/2 June and Saleem Haji will then be able to
join me as my regular co driver for the rest of the championship.
A huge thanks to Emirates airlines for sponsoring us with upgraded tickets
for not only this event , but the entire championship which made the very
long journey extremely pleasant and tolerable.
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