Baldev Chager and his partner Ravi Soni raise the dust on the opening day of the 2019 East African Safari Classic Rally. PHOTO/Simon Mulumba
TANGA, Tanzania, Dec 3 – The Kabras Racing Team was on top form on the sixth day of the East African Classic Safari Rally with Onkar Rai navigated by Drew Sturrock winning two stages while BaldevChager and his navigator Ravi Soni winning one.
Onkar won the opening 53.60Km Old Korogwe in 29.37 and the third 55.7Km Nzimwa stage in a time of 32:55.2.
“Yeah everything went well we pushed very hard. It’s a rally and it’s not over till it’s over so let’s see what happens. The pace is sometimes abit frightening but we are committing to everything. Today we also got good rhythm and we have tried not to take any silly risks,” said Onkar
Baldev who early towed team mate Tejveer Rai in the first stage, won the 35.45km Mkanyageni second stage in 20.24 out pacing team mate Onkar by 38 seconds.
“Today has been the first day we had a clean run, we had to back up Tej and tow him out after he lost a wheel. For us, the car is holding up well after six hours from the rest day service. However it was a tough day mentally. Before this day I had done five stages so it was had getting the rhythm going,” the Flying Singh said.
It wasn’t a good start however for Kabras’s Tejveer Rai after he lost the front right wheel of his Porsche, and had to be towed out with team mate Baldev coming to their rescue in the second stage of the day.
“We were coming down the first stage then we hit a brow at a blind ditch and the wheel smacked it and lost it. I had to drive on 3 wheels out of the stage as Baldy towed us out in the last 10km. We got to the flying finish we lost the steering wheel,” said Tejveer.
Ian Duncan navigated by Anthony Nielsen who have had a good run for the last two race days had to contend with an oil pressure problem in their Rover Vitesse. This affected their 2nd stage run, limping back to service and missing the 3rd stage of the day.
At the top of the leaderboard overall after Tuesday’s stages, Austrian Kris Rosenberger widened the gap between him and Swede Stig Blomqvist by 11 seconds to take the overnight lead once again posting 8:21:15.
In third place is Philip Kadoorie/Ryan Champion with a time of 8:43:02.
Day seven will see the competitors tackle three stages as they cross over back to Kenya, starting off from Tanga Beach Resort onto the 54Km Magozoni/Old Korogwe to be followed by the 91Km Mkomazi/Same stage and the 74 Km Buto/Kifaru with an overnight stay at the Voi Wildlife Lodge.
