NAKURU, Kenya, Mar 6 – Karan Patel secured his second straight of the season after zooming to victory at the Nakuru leg of the Kenya National Rally Championship (KNRC) over the weekend.
Navigated by Tauseef Khan in a Ford Fiesta rally 2, Karan beat Mitsubishi Evo10’s Jasmeet Chana to second by a 5.49.5minutes.
Karan’s second successive win saw him cling on to the summit of the KNRC log after his first on the season-opening KMSC Rally.
He now tops the log with a score of 66 while Jasmeet is on 52 after two events followed by Karan’s sibling Kush Patel who is placed third on 34.
“It was good. We had a good run again trying to fight Karan’s R5 so we broke the suspension arm on CS1, drove on it till the end of CS2. On CS3 I did my quickest time but the gap from Karan and myself was a lot,” said Jasmeet.
Malik who was navigated by Deep Patel savoured a career best result and said this will spur him for the rest of the season.
“I am elated to finish in a podium position. It was quite tough and rough but we managed to pull through. A great job by Deep Patel for making sure this was a navigators’ rally and he did a tremendous job. I’m over the moon and looking forward to the Equator Rally,” he said.
Division Two honors went to Hussein Malik while Zameer Verjee collected maximum points in Division 3 followed by Varese.
Varese celebrated back to back wins in the Two Wheel Drive Class.
“I am over the moon. I mean, seventh overall in a very hot, dusty and rocky Nakuru event is a good achievement. We brought our 1600 Toyota Auris 2WD to the finish. During the last 15km of the closing stage, we lost the clutch, and had to crash on second and third gears,” he saud.
Ghalib Haji from Eldoret came fourth.
The rally started and finished at the Mogotio Cultural Centre which is located in the Equator zone.
Equator Rally, on the first weekend of April will be the next event. It will double up as a KNRC and FIA African Rally Championship (ARC) round. For the second year running the Equator Rally will serves as a dry run of the 2022 WRC Safari Rally.
PROVISIONAL RESULTS-NAKURU RALLY 2022
- Karan Patel/Tauseef Khan (Ford Fiesta) 02:01:27.0
- Jasmeet Chana/Ravi Chana (Mitsubishi Evo10) 02:07:16.5
- Hussein Malik/Deep Patel (Mitsubishi Evo10) 02:13:23.8
- Ghalib Haji 02:18.56.7
- Kush Patel (Subaru) 02:26.06.0
KNRC POINTS AFTER ROUND TWO-NAKURU
- Karan Patel 66
- Jasmeet Chana 52
- Kush Patel 34
- Leonardo Varese 28
- Steve Mwangi 22
5=Hussein Malik 22
