New Safari Rally route ‘friendly’

A mood of optimism is hanging in the air ahead of the 2017 Safari Rally after it was reinstated to the African Rally Championship earlier this year.

With that in mind, a team of organizers are compiling a rally route that will be favourable to both the competitors and spectators.

Instead of pinning down the competition on one particular venue with several competitive stages that are usually repeated, this year’s pattern looks more entertaining and favourable from the outset.

STRAIGHT LINE COMPETITION

“We have set up a route that looks more like a straight line of competition, where competitors are not forced to go backwards and forwards along unfriendly competitive sections,” said a reliable source.

Though the rally cars will be touching public roads, the real competition will be done on completely closed circuits. Parts of the sections will touch the old Safari Rally routes.

For the first time after a long time, this year’s ARC series has a bigger number of entries consisting of established drivers from around the African continent.

Kenya and Uganda are have the highest entry of drivers with six each followed by Zambia four, Tanzania three, Burundi two and South Africa one respectively.

This year’s Safari Rally distance will be raced over two days only, unlike in the recent past, where the duration for competition was three days.

The event will start from the Kenya International Conference Centre on 17 March before tackling the first of the competitive stages at the Jamhuri Park spectator section.

A total of 51 entries have been received so far from drivers across the region and in the country.

The Bandama Rally in Cote d’Ivoire last month kicked off the African season last month. It was won by a local driver, who had not registered for the current championship.

That thus keeps the championship wide open with any of the registered contenders in the Safari Rally - the second race in the series - in with an excellent chance of taking an early lead.