Cagy ex-champ Chatthe gears up for Safari Rally

Jassi Chatthe, the 2015 African Rally Champion is looking forward to taking part in selected rounds of the current series depending on his performance in the Safari Rally next week.

Chatthe, who is also the former Safari Rally and Kenya National champion, failed to defend the ARC title last year due to business commitments.

“Let me first see what happens in the Safari Rally, where my aim will be to score maximum points in the ARC category apart from, or course, looking for the victory in the Kenyan premier event,” Chatthe told Nation Sport in Kibos.

Chatthe is one of the six local drivers to have registered for the 2017 ARC contest.

The rest are Carl Tundo, Manvir Baryan, Tash Tundo, Jonathan Somen and Don Smith, who is the current ARC Champion.

This year’s Safari Rally has attracted 51 entries that include several foreign drivers all with an interest of scoring ARC points.

The two-day event will cross through five different Counties starting from Nairobi before touching Nakuru. The total competitive distance will be 200 kilometres.

Zambia’s Muna Singh, who is the Member of FIA Rally Commission and Co-ordinator for Africa, said the registered drivers don’t have to tackle all the remaining rounds of the series to qualify for the overall title.

“It will not be mandatory, but I hope it will be the beginning of something big and good. For one to be declared  an ARC Champion, a competitor needs to participate in a minimum of two events either in the North - Rwanda, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, or two events in the South - South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania,” said Muna Singh in Zambia.

He added: “For those Kenyan drivers, who are concerned about not being able to tackle Tanzania and Rwanda because of the General Elections during that period, should not worry as they will still be able to tackle the series by virtue of tackling South Africa, Zambia or Uganda.”

The event will start from the Kenyatta International Conference Centre on 17 March.