Motorsport events postponed over heavy rains
What you need to know:
- The last KNRC round held this season was the Safari Rally on March 17 and 18.
- Carl Tundo and Tim Jessop won the race in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo10.
The current heavy rains in the country have wrecked havoc on the motorsport calendar.
The Kenya Motor Sports Club’s round of the 2018 Kenya National Rally Championship, which was to be held on May 12 and 13 May, has now been pushed back to October 13-14.
Three rounds of the Autocross events have now been moved to later dates in the year. Rallye Sports Club with two Autocross events will now run them in September and October instead of March and November respectively.
The Kenya Motor Sports Club will run its Autocross event in November instead of April. The Club has also changed the date for their Karting event from April to October.
While rallying and rains have played a major entertaining role in the eyes of the rally drivers and spectators in the past, the recent heavy rains have rendered roads impassable and even hazardous to your health, what with swollen rivers and flooded plains.
‘’We just need to find alternative routes for all weather conditions. I don’t blame the organisers for postponing the KMSC Rally considering the route was to be centred around the Kajiado area, where the surface is almost all-black cotton and not suitable for the rains,’’ said Eric Bengi, who finished fifth overall in the 2018 Safari Rally with Tuta Mionki in a Subaru Impreza N12.
This next major round of the KNRC will be held on June 9-10 by the Rallye Sports Club of Nairobi.
The last KNRC round held this season was the Safari Rally on March 17 and 18. Carl Tundo and Tim Jessop won the race in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo10.
The Rift Valley Motor Sports Club organised its round of the Classic Rally at the end of March. It was won by Baldev Chager and Ravi Soni in a Porsche 911.
The fourth round of the 2018 African Rally Championship will be held in Zambia on 23/24 June.
Kenya’s Manvir Baryan and Drew Sturrock won the latest ARC round in South Africa last month in a Skoda rally car.
The York Rally victory put Baryan level on points with Ivory Coast’s Gary Chaynes and Carl Tundo on the ARC leader board with 25 points each.
Only two of the eight-round series of the KNRC have so far been held before bad weather moved in.
Driving a Skoda, Onkar Rai won the opening round of the series in Nakuru in January before Tundo secured victory in the major round of the Safari Rally.
