Recce for Guru Nanak Rally gets underway

The official reconnaissance for the 2020 KCB Guru Nanak Rally will take place on Saturday from 6am to 6pm.

Twenty-seven cars are expected to take part in the first round of the Kenya National Rally Championship that will begin at KCB Kitengela branch at 8am.

The Ford Fiesta R5 of Karan Patel and James Mwangi will be flagged off first. The event will have four competitive stages that will be done twice around Kajiado area.

“I’m looking forward to the Guru Nanak Rally, hopefully the weather will be wet. This will be my first rally in the Fiesta after a while. The car did the last two events last season. We broke a drive shaft in Meru and in Eldoret we had to withdraw due to unforeseen circumstances," Patel told Nation Sport.

“With the help of our main sponsors, Filmico Agencies, we have won two competitions, one was the Arusha Rally and another one in Mombasa in an Evo10. Our other good result was the third place overall in the FLY540 RSC Rally."

Aakif Virani (Skoda Fabia) and Minesh Rathod (Subaru Impreza) submitted their names after normal entries closed on Tuesday.

Sunday’s race will start with a Spectator Stage at the SGR/Simba section where the first car will be expected at 8.40am. The next stage will be the Stony Athi/Kifaru at 9.29am, SGR/Simba Cement 12.03pm, Stoney Athi/Kifaru 1.22pm. The first car will report back at the finish from 2pm onwards.

The longest stage will be the Kifaru Section with 30.06kms while the shortest will be the Simba Cement Spectator Section with 2.68kms.

Guru Nanak Rally will also play host to the opening round of the newly created East African Rally Championship which has attracted two foreign crews.

They are reigning Uganda champion Yasin Nasser (Subaru Impreza) and Christakis Fitidis (Mitsubishi Lancer EvoX).

Baldev Chager and Ravi Soni, the reigning national and Safari Rally champions are seeded number seven in their Mitsubishi Lancer EvoX.