Safari Rally - King of the Rallies

Before I even start this post properly check out this out:

Now that right there is a piece of history ladies and gentlemen. (If you do not know who Joginder Singh and David Doig are and do not know the significance of this Mitsubishi Colt Lancer 1600 GSR and dare call yourself a fan of the Safari Rally, run to wikipedia and get yourself an education before you embarrass yourself here.)

Ok let’s beginning:

Let me be honest here, the main reason we love the Safari Rally is that it gives the opportunity to mess about like kids again.

You get to put stickers on your car without looking like muppet, comme ca:

You get to wear a shirt with many badges without looking like you mugged a scout, comme ca:

The spectator stage at Athi River was brilliant but dustier than Michuki’s copy of MauMau Heroes

That’s a rally car, honest.

Oh look, there’s another one.

I hear last year they sent trucks around to sprinkle water to hold down the dust, this year we got the proper full rally experience.

Sanity, however, finally checked in and we headed to the more majestic surroundings of KICC for the finish.

As usual Mzee Jomo was area, nothing moves that man, he just sits there challenging you to impress him.

First up to try and impress Mzee Kenyatta were Conrad Rautenbach and Pete Marsh, winners of the Safari Rally 2007.

Conrad is the youngest winner ever at only 22 years old. So while Mugabe spent his weekend beating up his own people a couple of Zimbabweans (who happen to be white) were busy beating other rally drivers and flying their country’s flag proudly.

Here is the winning car. Did you know that it (insert your own car statistics that you managed to download from Google a minute before to impress the people around you.)

Here are the top three cars of Safari Rally 2007.

And here are the men who drove and navigated them. Conrad Rautenbach/Peter Mash (Zimbabwe, Subaru Impreza - on the ramp) 2:3043; Carl Tundo/Tim Jessop, (Kenya, Subaru Impreza - the blue car) 2;32.54; Andrea Navarra/Guido d’Amore (Italy, Fiat Punto - the one not on the ramp and not the blue one) 2:34.04. Enjoy the champagne guys!

I will upload the full sized pictures and a couple of more pictures on to flickr sometime this century. If anyone has a picture of Steve Gacheru’s car bursting into flames in Elmentaita which almost started a bush fire please share!