No idling: Safari Rally plans still in top gear

An aerial shot of the World Rally Championship (WRC) Safari Rally Service Park under construction in Naivasha on July 5, 2020. PHOTO | WRC SAFARI RALLY


What you need to know:

  • The Olympic Games were rescheduled to same time next year with official new dates for the Safari’s return to the WRC next year, and the under-20s still awaited
  • That notwithstanding, organisers of the WRC Safari Rally have maintained the erstwhile strict timelines, acting like the rally is still on next week
  • Kimathi said the government has played a key role in securing the Safari Rally a date on the global calendar, and for making sure preparations for the return to the WRC were in top gear


Ceteris paribus, or holding all factors constant, Kenyans would have been celebrating the Safari Rally’s return to the World Rally Championship next week.

Nairobi would have been teeming with sports tourists this week already, as the World Under-20 Athletics Championships were initially scheduled to start on Tuesday and run until Sunday at Kasarani.

Kenya’s sevens rugby players, track and field athletes, boxers, martial artists and volleyballers would have been in Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture, in a pre-Olympic Games training camp ahead of the July 24 opening of the Tokyo Olympic Games.

But the coronavirus pandemic threw the spanner in the works, and all these events were postponed.

The Olympic Games were rescheduled to same time next year with official new dates for the Safari’s return to the WRC next year, and the under-20s still awaited.

That notwithstanding, organisers of the WRC Safari Rally have maintained the erstwhile strict timelines, acting like the rally is still on next week.

Last weekend, WRC Safari Rally chief executive officer Phineas Kimathi led a high-powered team to inspect the progress of construction work at the rally’s Naivasha Service Park.

They also looked in at the Kenya Ports Authority’s Inland Container Depot which will be the rally’s logistics nerve centre.

“We are following the initial schedule that we had set out for this year’s Safari Rally, assuming everything needed to be ready for July 15,” Kimathi said on Tuesday.

“We had targeted to finish the Service Park by last week, but because of the Covid-19 situation, work slowed down a bit but even then, the contractor has done 75 percent of the work already.”

The Naivasha inland depot was put up to reduce container congestion at the Mombasa port. It is linked to Mombasa by standard gauge railway, thus making it a crucial link to arrivals of rally hardware from the port.

“We also visited the Inland Container Depot where containers for the rally will be received, and we witnessed the actual operations.

“We actually witnessed several containers being cleared, and we are happy with the state of affairs there,” Kimathi, a veteran rally driver himself, added.

World Rally Championship Safari Rally CEO Phineas Kimathi (right) with Rose Wachuka, Chief of Staff and Policy Advisor in the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Heritage and member of the rally's organising committee, and Julius Kabiru, WRC Safari Rally Head of Security during a visit to the Inland Container Depot in Naivasha on July 5, 2020. PHOTO | WRC SAFARI RALLY

He was accompanied to Naivasha by Safari Rally Event Director Jim Kahumbura and Rose Wachuka, Chief of Staff and Policy Advisor in the Ministry of Sport who is also in the rally’s organising committee.

Also in the party were WRC Safari Rally officials Julius Kabiru (Head of Security), Kimathi Maingi (Member of the Organising Committee and also a Director at Kenya Railways) and Anthony Gatei (Service Park Manager).

Kimathi said the government has played a key role in securing the Safari Rally a date on the global calendar, and for making sure preparations for the return to the WRC were in top gear.

“I would like to thank the government for demonstrating their commitment, and I’d like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for Sports Hon. Amina Mohamed for her leadership and guidance to make sure we have all the necessary support,” Kimathi said Tuesday.

“It’s a demonstration that the government was committed to having the WRC Safari Rally’s preparations on schedule.”

The WRC Safari Rally headquarters at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, is full manned and at full throttle.