Tried, tested KMSF deliver successful Equator Rally

The African Rally Championship Equator Rally, coming only two months before the biggest motorsport event in Africa, the World Rally Championship Safari Rally, was organised to perfection by a time-tested Kenya Motor Sport Federation team.

The rally, won by fast-improving Karan Patel in a Ford Fiesta R2, has brought an unprecedented freshness in the continental championship, offering a new world dimension that Africa has all it takes, and is the new frontier of global competition.

Patel, a UK-educated helicopter mechanic, is eyeing the Africa Rally Championship (ARC) title for a back-to-back Kenyan win following the successes of compatriots Manvir Baryan and Carl Tundo who have dominated the last five years.

Patel deserves corporate support to the level that Safaricom and Kenya Airways have backed youngsters McRae Kimathi, Jeremy Wahome, Hamza Anwar and Maxine Wahome.

Patel remains the only Kenyan, after Kimathi, to compete in a World Rally Championship (WRC) event in the last decade.

The Equator Rally elicited international attention globally including from the International Motorsport Federation (FIA) that requested action clips to be run on its media handles under the “Racing in Motion” programme, a first in the ARC where Kenyan drivers are excelling in terms of machines progression.

For example, we already have six modern R2 and R3 cars in the top 10, tail-gated by 19-year-old Rio Smith in a two-wheel drive Ford Fiesta “Dudu.”

Smith, son of former Africa champion Don Smith, he of budget airline Fly540, is a youth on a mission to rule at the highest level in two years.

“My team is planning for several WRC events in Europe,” said Rio, a student at Brunel University, an alma mater he shares with Mburu Njoba, the former national motocross champion who earned his mechanical engineering degree by helping develop the drivetrain of his class’s “Formula Student” racing car.

This is an annual competition held in the United Kingdom that invites top-notch technical universities from around the world to build, test, and compete in cars scaled to F1 technical details. Nigeria and Egypt are the only nations that enter universities in this competition from Africa.

Smith Junior is up to the challenge, but as Smith Senior said, “It has to be pole pole (slowly). Let him grow with the sport as his age demands.”

The old man has also cautioned Kenyans against putting too much pressure on the emerging youthful brigade.

“Please let the boys grow. Look at McRae. He doesn’t deserve to be forced to carry the hope of a nation, scrutinised like an object.

 “Wahome has got what makes a great global driver is made of. Look at Maxine and Rio. They are all totos.”

Wahome, an F3 global sensation who wanted to become an F1 pilot is causing ripples.

He was destined to a second position before checking into a Time Control one minute early at the Equator Rally.

Jeremy is cool, like Kimathi who finished fourth in WRC Sweden in February, navigated by Mwangi Kioni, to join Vic Preston Junior, Shekhar Mehta, Mike Kirkland, Ian Duncan, Patrick Njiru, the Rose boys, and Patel to race at the citadel of WRC arena in history.

The KMSF is motoring onto perfection, a well organised federation developing the sport at all levels including policing street racing.

It’s a shame the KMSF have never been recognised by myriads of organized sports awards ceremonies.

Nonetheless, the Equator Rally has set the platform for a successful WRC Safari Rally, masterminded, and executed at the Presidential Kenya Wildlife and Research Training Centre pavilion, another legacy infrastructure windfall from the return of the Safari Rally to the WRC circuit.