As cars raced towards Amboseli on the second day of the East African Safari Classic, the leader at each Section’s time-control changed througout the day, on this, the longest stage of the nine-day rally.In the lead time-wise during the first section of the day were Siddall/Williamson in their Datsun 260Z, a personal best for the British driver who clocked a time of 60:42.
He slipped to 12th place overall by the end, as the Porsche 911’s of no 3 Blomqvist/Prevot and fellow Swede Goransson/Axelsson in car no 6 fought through the second and third sections, with Blomqvist capturing the time record in Section five and Goransson first through the door at the end of the day’s Section six.But results for the day show that Blomqvist’s overall time over the two days places him at the top of the leader board, followed by Goransson in second and Gregoire de Mevius in third. In fact Porsche 911’s dominate the first seven places with eighth going to Carl Tundo’s Triumph TR7.
The driving on the second day encompasses some 518kms with 212kms of competitive section and 306kms sections of road, and by all accounts was some of the roughest driving experienced so far. Bumpy rocky terrain and difficult truck-filled transports made the day exceptionally taxing for some. Car 17, Joakim Roman, likened these first two days to the equivalent of five or six days rallying in other years, but his performance was still enough to place him fifth.
The day saw plenty of other action that continued to extract a toll on the drivers and cars. Alistair Cavanagh who led on day one ended up in a mud hole through driver error and lost valuable time. Gilberto Sandretto in car 32 with Fabrizia Pons suffered a similar time loss when they went into a ditch at 30kms an hour and spent 25 minutes getting out, as did Aslam Khan’s Porsche 911 when he hit a rough patch of black cotton soil and took 15 minutes to extract himself. Nish Lakhani in Car 52 also hit a mud hole, but their main problem was banging the sump, which meant a slow limp to the end of Section 6.
Other drivers had wilder accidents. The dashing Swedish pairing of Johansson and Adeilsson in car no 16 also hit a ditch, smashed the navigator side of the car, lost a wheel and drove for 70kms on three wheels and the plates of the car on one side. “The mechanics did a great job of repairing it,” said the duo, who was placed in 36th position after their daring drive.
David von Schinkel’s Porsche 911 rolled onto its back after its high-speed encounter with a ditch. And car no 23, The Ford Escort of Jorge Perez Companc landed upside down in a ditch after catching a stone, and was helped back upright onto the road, where they changed two tyres and carried on.
Less lucky were Car 53 Sagoo/Sagoo’s Datsun 260Z, and Car 42 Bamrah/Jutley240Z who broke down in Section four. Bernard Kessel, the rally’s oldest driver at 77 years old in car 45, Porsche 911 blew his engine and went out for the day.
Final kudos goes to cars no 52 or Lakhani/Patel and the Ferrari of Kravos/Sassoon for supplying car no 38, Gehlot’s Ford Escort with enough fuel to complete the stage when their service car got caught in Mombasa Road traffic.