Swedish racing ace Richard Goransson in car no 6, a Porsche 911 achieved the fastest time in CS7, the opening stage for Day 3, clocking 43.23 against Stig Blomqvist’s 45:20 in the first section of the day. “We caught Stig in the dust and managed to take back about two minutes in the first section, even though sometimes we found the navigation more tricky. There were moments where we had to decide from several tracks, but it was still a result,” said his navigator Emil Axelsson.
But the venerable Stig remains ahead, at the end of Day 3 with provisional times for CS7 and CS9, of just 76:11. “A sweet day,” said the enigmatic rally champ. The top ten cars are again Porsche 911’s with Gregoire de Mevius, Alistair Cavanagh, Onkar S Rai, and Joakim Roman taking 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively.
Forty-three cars started the third day of the East African Classic Safari Rally, leaving Amboseli for two of the most delightful sections of the Safari (CS8 was cancelled last night owing to excessive water and difficult conditions). As the drivers returned to the service park, the overwhelming impression given was of two thrilling stages. “This is what rally is about,” said car no 36’s Aslam Khan, “the car’s are working, the notes are great, you just feel the whole process.”
Car 33, Jonathan Somen/Richard Hechle agreed. “Today was twisty, flowing, backsliding. Real Ford Escort territory. We had no problems.”
But not everyone found it so smooth. Car 23, a Ford Escort 1800 was forced to stop when their radiator blew up at the start of the first stage and they had to be towed. Others had minor issues. “We lost 15 minutes due to dirty fuel which we had to remove, and then we couldn’t start the car at the beginning of CS9 so we lost another 15 minutes there,” said Michael Kahlfuss, as he steered his very popular Trabant back to the service park.
Samit Gehlot in car 38 had a bad start today when their distributor didn’t work and missed the full first stage and took maximum penalty. “You really realise how good rally is when you are forced to miss a stage,” he said.
Raaji Bharij’s Ford Escort suffered a comedy of errors. “Within 30km I caught the car in front of me, overtook and caught the next car. Then I got to the mud hole and forgot that I was in a two-wheel drive went into the river crossing too slowly and was stuck. The towrope kept breaking and so we lost about 10 minutes in that stage.”
The river and mud hole provided most of the entertainment of the day with most cars splashing through without much incident, watched by spectators including local Maasai. At one point the tow truck, who pulled out a couple of Porsche’s, Datsun’s and the Escort got stuck itself and had to be towed.
In other news, Car 19, BMA’s Francois Kicq’s Porsche 911 is out of the rally following an injury to his neck, when he hit a ditch during the 5th section on Day 2, while Bernard Kessel is attempting to restart his Porsche 911 after his engine failed yesterday and Tuthill’s continue to attempt to rebuild Roger Samuelsson’s Porsche after their accident on the first stage on Day 1.