My WRC Safari Rally 2023

[J4MIE]

So I thought I would start a separate thread for this as seemingly some people just do not care at all, but I'd like to share my experience of the event as some people have said to me they are interested in how things go and seeing a bit more of what goes on behind the scenes when you're not a big team, and my posts are usually drowned in amongst the full rally thread.

So after the shambles that was last year, I've been asked back to co-drive again and the aim is to give it a proper go this time, and hopefully without the issues that spoiled 2022. After missing out on WRC Croatia, I did a tarmac rally the weekend before last (my first since August) and finished 9th overall in very wet conditions, so feel like I should be up to speed.

My travel is all arranged and I’m stopping in Cairo for a day on the way to Nairobbery this time. I enjoy going different routes / different airlines so should be a day to relax there before it all kicks off (might be a bit warm there in mid June I guess) :hot: And unlike last year when I had to leave straight away, I've got a few days to spend in the Mara afterwards.

Tyres have been ordered from Pirelli (before the deadline) and today I submitted our entry form on the (fairly poor) FIA website. Just waiting on Minesh getting his competition licence renewal through for this year and then I can send the vast amount of documentation to the event, and our entry should be accepted without any issues :andrea:

Our recce last year was massively disrupted, but after going over the in-car we should have a decent set of notes ready to go this time, so apart from Kedong and Malewa (new stages) they should just need a few tweaks here and there depending on where new bumps & ditches have appeared after the wet season. And talking of the wet season, apparently this is turning into an El Niño year which could see it raining well into June.... interesting!! :bounce:
Notes should be finished off next weekend, then next on the to-do list is to finish the movement/event plan for the team.

If anyone wants to know anything then just ask...

2435

[Paul Hudson]

Keep us updated on your progress Jamie, it makes an interesting read and something different behind the scenes .

[dimviii]

J4MIE car rented from Kenya i guess?

[J4MIE]

J4MIE car rented from Kenya i guess?

Sorry I should have clarified..... I am but a lowly co-driver and it will be with Minesh Rathod, a local Kenyan driver in his Evo X, same as 2022 we are non-priority ;)
It is a Raymond Baumschlager built car from Austria so a decent bit of kit, obviously not homologated anymore so we are in the National class but having as much fun as everyone else :D

[J4MIE]

The regulations say that to order Avgas we need to fill in the order form on the Safari website.
I’ve had to email asking if they’ve forgotten to upload that form…. :rolleyes:

[Duvel]

Sorry I should have clarified..... I am but a lowly co-driver and it will be with Minesh Rathod, a local Kenyan driver in his Evo X, same as 2022 we are non-priority ;)
It is a Raymond Baumschlager built car from Austria so a decent bit of kit, obviously not homologated anymore so we are in the National class but having as much fun as everyone else :D

Nice seems like a fun adventure! Enjoy, and keep us updated!

[J4MIE]

So, entries close at 23:59 (CET) Monday. Still waiting on some documents from Minesh and then should be all good… :erm:
Entry list to be published Monday 29th.
Still no response to my Avgas query.

[J4MIE]

Everything submitted in time so should be all good.
Rally Guide 2 and road books were meant to have been published today but nothing has appeared. Maybe the Kenyans will remember about it in the next few days.

[J4MIE]

Had it confirmed that we are on the entry list. Phew! :D

Still waiting for info about ordering fuel and not getting any response from organisers…..
Still waiting for RG2 & road books :dozey:

[Sardalense]

Had it confirmed that we are on the entry list. Phew! :D

Still waiting for info about ordering fuel and not getting any response from organisers…..
Still waiting for RG2 & road books :dozey:

P1 closed the orders for fuel for Kenya on April 13th. Don't know if it helps, but through the normal way it seems that it's closed.

[J4MIE]

P1 closed the orders for fuel for Kenya on April 13th. Don't know if it helps, but through the normal way it seems that it's closed.

We are non priority so running on Avgas - much cheaper than the WRC rocket fuel ;)
Regulations say to fill in the form on the Safari website and return by 5th June, but there isn’t a form there, and not getting any response from the organisers.

[J4MIE]

Been told that the road books aren’t available yet. Annoying, as I was hoping to go over everything this bank holiday weekend.

[J4MIE]

Entry list published and we are car no 44.

https://app-cdn.sportity.com/28c8f772-5954-4c4f-886e-c44b25ca5a3c/6874c581-2173-4fb6-9fd1-d9c5324b3500_Entry%20List.pdf

I’ve still not had any acknowledgement from the organisers since submitting our entry form.

[J4MIE]

Road books suddenly appeared on the website but not had any password yet. Starting to get frustrated with it all again :dozey:

[Sergiow]

Sorry I should have clarified..... I am but a lowly co-driver and it will be with Minesh Rathod, a local Kenyan driver in his Evo X, same as 2022 we are non-priority ;)
It is a Raymond Baumschlager built car from Austria so a decent bit of kit, obviously not homologated anymore so we are in the National class but having as much fun as everyone else :D

Wishing you patience with your Kenian adventure :cool:
If you don't mind, wondering what a "a lowly co-driver" driver is ....

[J4MIE]

Wishing you patience with your Kenian adventure :cool:
If you don't mind, wondering what a "a lowly co-driver" driver is ....

Thanks…. just means that as no 44 we are low down and not that important ;)

[J4MIE]

So the fun and games have started. They had forgotten about Armin Kremer so have amended the entry list now. We are car 45.

:stareup:

[Andre Oliveira]

Always good add more crews :D

[J4MIE]

Always good add more crews :D

But not good for a crew to be forgotten about ;)

[J4MIE]

Checked this morning and despite the road book files being uploaded on Sunday night, they don’t have a password to issue us yet.

WRC regulations say a digital road book must be available at least 4 weeks before the rally starts :rolleyes:

Also possible issues with our tyres, thought last year would have put an end to this nonsense…

[J4MIE]

So after a scare yesterday from Pirelli (no doubt wanting to sell more new tyres), our tyres have been confirmed as ok.
Still no fuel order form available - Monday is the deadline :rolleyes:

[J4MIE]

So the fuel order form will be on the website on Monday, just in time for the Monday deadline :dozey:

And it has taken 3 weeks to get that info from organisers.

[Sergiow]

So the fuel order form will be on the website on Monday, just in time for the Monday deadline :dozey:

And it has taken 3 weeks to get that info from organisers.

I had a faint sense that the co-driver is some kind of (administrative) jack of all trades, but I am still amazed how much preparations it takes for the co-driver before even starting properly racing ...

[J4MIE]

Service park and recce forms submitted.

Still no fuel order form and the submission deadline was an hour ago :crazy:

My FIA eLearning account doesn’t have the 2023 tracker module in it so have email them requesting that.

Going well apart from that….

[Paul Hudson]

Service park and recce forms submitted.

Still no fuel order form and the submission deadline was an hour ago :crazy:

My FIA eLearning account doesn’t have the 2023 tracker module in it so have email them requesting that.

Going well apart from that….

It's a Tough Job at that level , all the big teams have paid Co-Ordinators doing all these jobs, if you enter as a privateer your workload is massive chasing everything.

[J4MIE]

It's a Tough Job at that level , all the big teams have paid Co-Ordinators doing all these jobs, if you enter as a privateer your workload is massive chasing everything.

Yep, this was one of the reasons for starting this thread to show a lot of the stuff involved. We’re not all in WRC teams (sadly).

[J4MIE]

Finally received an email with the document details, plus a fuel order form!
Also did the FIA assessment for the tracker and got 100% first try :cool:

And paid €40 to be able to use the tracking app on my mobile during recce….. rallying isn’t cheap :blackeye:

[J4MIE]

In-car camera form submitted to agree to the WRC Promotor’s conditions :(

[Sergiow]

Yep, this was one of the reasons for starting this thread to show a lot of the stuff involved. We’re not all in WRC teams (sadly).

Apart from the administrative tasks involving the (privateer) co-driver, what is the involvment of the co-driver on the mechanical side. Without a doubt the co-driver is helping out with the on track wheel changes, but what does the co-driver when there are mechanical issues during the stages with the car? I guess there is little difference between the factory and privateer co-driver regarding the mechanical side?

[J4MIE]

Apart from the administrative tasks involving the (privateer) co-driver, what is the involvment of the co-driver on the mechanical side. Without a doubt the co-driver is helping out with the on track wheel changes, but what does the co-driver when there are mechanical issues during the stages with the car? I guess there is little difference between the factory and privateer co-driver regarding the mechanical side?

Yes it’s just a case of doing what we can while out on the road - no outside assistance allowed and team has to be 1km away. Luckily Minesh runs a garage in Nairobi and knows the car inside out, so I will do the usual tyre changes / pressures and hopefully as little as possible apart from that :D
His brother is an excellent mechanic too so big part of the service crew.

One thing we need to bear in mind this year is no morning service apart from Friday (due to no service Thursday evening).

[J4MIE]

Bulletin 1 issued with a few amendments.

Mapping finished and most pace notes ready to go, just need to go over the Sunday stages (Malewa being a new one to me).

Think the plan after documentation will be to go and watch the WRC2/3 test, then spend a few hours to go over the notes before the compulsory wildlife briefing.

[J4MIE]

So. Arrived in Nairobberi this morning and discovered that Minesh picked up a replacement car last weekend, it is an R4 spec Evo X built by MML. It was previously owned by Jassi Chatte and has won rallies in Kenya previously.

There is still quite a lot of work to do after basically being rebuilt over the last week.

[dimviii]

So. Arrived in Nairobberi this morning and discovered that Minesh picked up a replacement car last weekend, it is an R4 spec Evo X built by MML. It was previously owned by Jassi Chatte and has won rallies in Kenya previously.

There is still quite a lot of work to do after basically being rebuilt over the last week.

any photos from the evo x r4?

[J4MIE]

any photos from the evo x r4?

2453

So after a very hectic day, all documentation complete and managed to get Minesh to do the tracker test 10 minutes before the deadline :mad: then luckily managed to find somewhere still open for food at 11pm on a Sunday night…

So we are all ok to start recce of Loldia at 9am.

[becher]

2453

So after a very hectic day, all documentation complete and managed to get Minesh to do the tracker test 10 minutes before the deadline :mad: then luckily managed to find somewhere still open for food at 11pm on a Sunday night…

So we are all ok to start recce of Loldia at 9am.
Cool, so the original plan was to run a standard Group N EVO X?

[J4MIE]

Cool, so the original plan was to run a standard Group N EVO X?

As far as I’ve found out the previous was an R4 too so just a different car. This new one won the Safari in 2015 & 2016.

[J4MIE]

So things haven’t got off to a good start, first recce stage was going well and the notes were good until the fan belt snapped after 3km :rolleyes:

Have been towed out the stage by the Stage Commander, and awaiting service crew who have no sense of urgency…. :rolleyes:

[J4MIE]

Service crew arrived. We are 1h away from next stage which closes in 1h 10min….. not looking good.

[becher]

Ah thanks, what sort of recce car are privateers using on the Safari? Land cruiser?

[kiwigazza]

Cheers for insight and updates!!

Sent from my CPH2069 using Tapatalk

[J4MIE]

All sorts of recce cars are being used, Land cruisers, Octavias, Evos, Imprezas.

We have an Evo 10.

[seb_sh]

cool that you are taking us along on your adventure, best of luck!

[J4MIE]

Well an adventurous day. Fan belt shredded itself 3km into first run of Loldia at about 10am. Urgent call made to service crew who had been told to be at service between 10am-12pm to collect the tracker. Unfortunately as seems to be the way with this team, they are an hour late for everything and there’s no such thing as a rush. They got to us at 1.45pm and took half an hour to change the belt.

So we set off not for the next stage which we would be too late to get into, but had to reroute around the other side of the lake to get in from the other side. Thanks to me being brilliantly organised we got there with what I thought was just enough time to do two runs. We got to J28 (square left), about 800m from the end and the new fan belt went too!! :eek: :mad:

It turned out that some of the bits of the old belt were still in there and so the replacement had just fallen off. Without tools we would’ve been stuck but luckily one of the few competitors who stopped to offer help (car 31 Piero Cannobio) gave us a few spanners and we were able to get into the bottom pulleys and with a lot of effort and squashing one of my fingers, we got it done in an hour or so.

So too late to do another run, but managed to get across to Sleeping Warrior. I really hate this stage, the roughest one especially the lava field on the last 5km. It was trying to rain as it was getting dark towards the ebd, but we made it through ok and no car issues! :bounce:

So another frustrating day (I had to walk away on Elementeita to find somewhere to have a good scream, and accidentally disturbed a herd of zebra :( ) but hopefully we have a bit more luck on tomorrow’s stages.

[becher]

Well an adventurous day. Fan belt shredded itself 3km into first run of Loldia at about 10am. Urgent call made to service crew who had been told to be at service between 10am-12pm to collect the tracker. Unfortunately as seems to be the way with this team, they are an hour late for everything and there’s no such thing as a rush. They got to us at 1.45pm and took half an hour to change the belt.

So we set off not for the next stage which we would be too late to get into, but had to reroute around the other side of the lake to get in from the other side. Thanks to me being brilliantly organised we got there with what I thought was just enough time to do two runs. We got to J28 (square left), about 800m from the end and the new fan belt went too!! :eek: :mad:

It turned out that some of the bits of the old belt were still in there and so the replacement had just fallen off. Without tools we would’ve been stuck but luckily one of the few competitors who stopped to offer help (car 31 Piero Cannobio) gave us a few spanners and we were able to get into the bottom pulleys and with a lot of effort and squashing one of my fingers, we got it done in an hour or so.

So too late to do another run, but managed to get across to Sleeping Warrior. I really hate this stage, the roughest one especially the lava field on the last 5km. It was trying to rain as it was getting dark towards the ebd, but we made it through ok and no car issues! :bounce:

So another frustrating day (I had to walk away on Elementeita to find somewhere to have a good scream, and accidentally disturbed a herd of zebra :( ) but hopefully we have a bit more luck on tomorrow’s stages.

Sounds like a dream to many around here still.

[J4MIE]

Here are a few photos I got today

https://iili.io/HPdPxDb.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPdPi79.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPdiKhJ.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPdiaEl.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPdssob.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPdLxbn.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPdQmwF.md.jpg

[seb_sh]

Can anyone recommend me a website I can upload and share photos on to here? I used to use imgbb but seems to have stopped working :(

https://imgur.com/ should work

[Paul Hudson]

Keep the reports coming about your adventures, it makes interesting reading.

[J4MIE]

Recce Day 2:

Slightly less manic. Again warm and sunny so was quite hot at times in the car, and lots of dust around so no opening windows. Some folk doing recce should be ashamed, if we catch someone’s dust and have to slow to a crawl, don’t drive around us and cause more dust issues. Idiots. Overtaking us 100m into Hell’s Gate, wtf is that about.

Anyway, recce was good and our previous notes worked really well, so much so we only did a single pass and it was great to finish early afternoon giving us some time to relax. We had one puncture in Kedong after hitting a rock hiding in some grass, but otherwise no issues apart from a HUGE scare is Oserian when a Water Buck jumped out of the trees right in front of us on a 700m long straight :eek: I screamed - how we missed it I’ve no idea. Malewa very rocky and rough, I’d say the worst of the rally.

With scrutineering we had a few small issues with the car, including of course the roll cage padding :rolleyes: and my flag… And also to my surprise my race suit validity expired end of 2022 - I like to pride myself on knowing the rules inside out - it is the right standard, is on technical list no 27, however as it was made before they started adding a hologram label, it’s not good enough. So my mistake not to notice this change and should’ve sorted out before I left. Very thankfully a friend of a friend drove over an hour in this evening’s rain to bring his across to lend to me, so I owe him many many beers…

So getting those last things checked at 9am to finally pass scrutineering.

Then pretty much straight back to Nairobi. We aren’t doing shakedown after everyone else destroys the road. As we are non-priority, we have the choice of doing the recce of Kasarani tomorrow afternoon or Thursday morning. Normally I would say Thursday morning is better to then drive competitively a short while after, but as the car was rebuilt over the last week we think its better to go tomorrow and hopefully make sure everything is working properly, plus means a later start on Thursday.

Then tomorrow evening to be spent going over the notes and checking some bits of video.

Will be glad when the rally starts.

Some pics to follow.

[J4MIE]

https://iili.io/HPnuNoJ.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPnupR9.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPnAfUB.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPnApgp.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPnA6dB.md.jpg

https://iili.io/HPnRAhu.md.jpg

[J4MIE]

Passed scrutineering after another few issues and “discussions”.
We were meant to already be back in Nairobi to recce the super special in the rally car, but we’ve been messed around by the transportation company. So trying to make yet more last minute arrangements, and recce will have to be in the morning.

https://iili.io/HPTTBHl.md.jpg

[Sal yet again]

Best of luck for the rally. Africa is certainly an "interesting" country to rally in and looks like you have more adventures so far than most crews do on an entire event!

[becher]

Best of luck for the rally. Africa is certainly an "interesting" country to rally in and looks like you have more adventures so far than most crews do on an entire event!
+1

[J4MIE]

Still damp after overnight rain here. Just heading off to do recce at 10:38. Usual last minute panic making sure we have everything in the car as we head straight to pre-start parc ferme.

[J4MIE]

Recce done. Very damp, only one bit which is a nice watersplash into a hairpin right. Hopefully the top guys clear it for us ;)

No dust.

[Corcaíoch]

Best of luck for the rally. Have really enjoyed the insight your posts give to the rally!

[Mk2 RS2000]

Go gettum. Jamie

[J4MIE]

At the ceremonial start, there’s a few spectators but not many. No buzz about it at all.
Meant to say earlier that they have swapped the lane letters this year. Last year it was A & B (started B), I’ve got two sets of notes (one for each starting position, but now I am using Lane B notes to start in Lane A.
There was a couple of small changes in the stage so the distance is not exactly the same.

[Paul Hudson]

Well done on SS1, You got full coverage on WRC+

[J4MIE]

Not sure about well done - far too slow. Words will be had this evening.

They changed our start time and gave me 30s notice to get kitted up and get to the start line. Not pleased, wasn’t organised at all, was halfway through a samosa from the catering:)

[satnav]

Thanks for your updates , very interesting to us all when i'm sure you have a lot more to be at

All the best now you have the Super Special over

[J4MIE]

Unfortunately our diff has broken at end of SS3, we have stopped for the day :(

[J4MIE]

Unfortunately on SS2 we had an impact on the front left which punctured the tyre and we lost a fair amount of time driving out. Changed on the road section we headed into SS3 Geothermal and were going well, but the front diff decided an early day was on the cards (possibly related to the SS2 impact)☹️ Met a couple of friendly police officers and drew the crowds for loads of photos, then trundled slowly back to service. Scrutineers still checking tyres and various things, you can never escape their gaze at this level.
Hopefully we will be able to restart tomorrow.

https://iili.io/HPMxF1f.jpg
https://iili.io/HPMxdss.jpg
https://iili.io/HPMxKg4.jpg
https://iili.io/HPMx3qG.jpg
https://iili.io/HPMxqdl.jpg
https://iili.io/HPMxB72.jpg

[becher]

Unfortunately our diff has broken at end of SS3, we have stopped for the day :(

Shame

[J4MIE]

Restarted this morning. Last on the road but car is all good again. Surely due for a bit of luck today…..

[J4MIE]

Was having a brilliant day, much improved pace and slowly climbing the leaderboard. Unfortunately we clipped a rock in SS13 which has broken some things on the front right. We tried to limp on but was losing too much time, so pulled over and stopped for the day.
Currently getting a transporter back to service and hopefully the service crew can fix it for us to restart. Deadline is 2:15am.

[J4MIE]

PS all 4 of our brand new 2023 Pirelli tyres punctured today. The two year old ones have been fine.

[J4MIE]

Utter gridlock on the road here heading back to Naivasha. We’ve done approx 1km in the last 3 hours.
2:15am deadline fast approaching and I can see us being here overnight.

Frustrating :(

[J4MIE]

Arrived service 04:20 :mad:

[becher]

Arrived service 04:20 :mad:
Did you catch any sleep?

[PLuto]

Early check-in penalty?

[J4MIE]

Early check-in penalty?

Shhhhhhhhhhh! :o

[PLuto]

Shhhhhhhhhhh! :o

My personal tip - time for liaison in timecard was corrected manually (bulletin 2) and you read it 04 instead of 09?

[J4MIE]

My personal tip - time for liaison in timecard was corrected manually (bulletin 2) and you read it 04 instead of 09?

No it was a genuine mistake I made, I have had very little sleep and a little dehydrated and not been feeling great in general.
That section passed some bad traffic and we were told no lateness penalties would apply, there was a group of 4-5 cars in a convoy, eventually got to service and assumed everyone was late as well, so went straight in to the control.

Unfortunately I had misread the time card and was using completely wrong minute. Completely my mistake, bad call. But doesn’t affect position or anything.

[meh]

Thank you Jamie for sharing your adventure! :)

[macebig]

It's always interesting to read unfiltered views from people inside the rally. Thank you very much for taking the time to share your experiences with us, J4mie. See you in 2024?

[Steve Boyd]

No it was a genuine mistake I made, I have had very little sleep and a little dehydrated and not been feeling great in general.
That section passed some bad traffic and we were told no Kate was pebskties would apply, there was a group of 4-5 cars in a convoy, eventually got to service and assumed everyone was late as well, so went straight in to the control.

Unfortunately I had misread the time card and was using completely wrong minute. Completely my mistake, bad call. But doesn’t affect position or anything.
Been there, done that.

There are only two sorts of co-drivers - those who have booked in on the wrong minute and those who will book in on the wrong minute one day!

[J4MIE]

Been there, done that.

There are only two sorts of co-drivers - those who have booked in on the wrong minute and those who will book in on the wrong minute one day!

Yep, it’s annoying when it’s such an easy thing to check. There was another section which they had reduced by 5 mins and written the new time on the time card - for every other change they clearly scored out the original time, but not on this one. So we turned up 5 mins late. Its difficult enough reading the notes in big writing on the bumpy roads, never mind the writing on the time cards.

I’m not forgetting about the final day but I’m away on “actual” safari for a few days, so will update when I can.

[satnav]

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us all, a final though " the person who never made a mistake made nothing"

Cheers

[J4MIE]

So. Sunday dawned early (I’m not a morning person!) and the service crew did a good job of repairing the car and got it into parc ferme at 7:02. After about 30 mins sleep we raced the recce car back to service and jumped out right on our start time of 7:27. Unfortunately it took Minesh just over the minute to drive the car to the control, so we’re 1 min late out (10s penalty).

With everything that had gone on we hadn’t had a chance to go over the notes or tidy them up, but as we were last overall by a fairly long way, it was just a case of another steady day and aiming to get to the finish. Malewa was very rocky in places (especially first 2km) and opens up and becomes technical towards the end with straights and 90 degree bends. Very very steady run through (too steady really) and then onto Oserian. It was cancelled last year but this year went smoothly, but still deep sandy parts. We were lucky to avoid a troop of baboons which moved off the road just in time. It varied between deep ruts and smoother grassy sections but a relatively clean drive through. Onto Hell’s gate and I’m not too sure what happened in there as the notes were suddenly wrong after J3 and didn’t make sense, was very surprising as they seemed fine on the recce and were the best notes for a stage we did the previous year, so will have to look over the coverage to work out what happened. Picked them up at the next junction and was ok from there. Got to the end in front of the packed spectator area.
Onto the road section afterwards and it was a mess, this was caused by spectators arriving for the power stage.
Now for you lot that haven’t been to Kenya before, when traffic in your lane forms a queue, you go past, and keep going until that lane stops, then use the hard shoulder on the opposite side of the road, and so on, until of course that stops and traffic doing the same from the other direction, so nothing can move. Then a few cars shuffle around to get past each other and it takes hours to clear.
There was a few police there who seemed to be helping (unusually) and we managed to get a group of 5-6 rally cars to form a small convoy, which makes it much easier to move through jams - we were well up the verge on the left and most other cars were able to leave just enough space for us to get through. As this was happening an official shouted through the window that the organisers were aware and lateness penalties wouldn’t apply. This is where the above mistake happened and I read the minutes of our due time from the previous TC :( and as this was about a minute away, I assumed that is and the rest of the cars in the convoy were all late. We dropped back from the car ahead due to the dust on the road into service, then skipped the car wash (as nobody else was using it) then into the TC thinking we were due at 11:13, but we weren’t late at all and were due at 11:25 - we went in at 11:20 so were 5 minutes early - the other cars ahead had gone into the media zone whereas I thought they were already into service. In my sleep deprived state it was an easy mistake to make, but still no excuse for it at WRC level. Luckily it didn’t affect our position at all. This mistake was realised when we jumped ahead in the queue at service out.
Off we went for the final loop and again just wanted to keep it steady. Were a bit quicker through Malewa and were going ok in Oserian 2 until we went round an off camber sandy left hander to find that Nikhil running ahead of us was stuck fast in the deep fesh fesh. There was nothing we could do but to hit the bank and stop behind him (the sand dragging us downhill into the bank). We backed up and tried again but ended up in the same position. Then we were able to back up a bit more and slowly climb the bank on the left and squeeze past. For those that don’t know, Nikhil is paralysed from the waist down and his Evo X has hand controls, so is a lot more awkward to get moving after being stuck. We finished the stage having lost a good 2 minutes or so, and were very glad to see Nikhil managed to reach the regroup without being too late, however had lost nearly an hour in the stage.
The power stage wasn’t as rutted as last year, but still pretty bad. Same issue with notes but got to the end and very happy to finish. The road section was completely ridiculous this time and we first were going along the verge on the wrong side of the road before finding it completely jammed. After Minesh going for a wander and discussing with the vehicles around us, they were able to shuffle around a bit and make enough space for us to get around and head up the verge on the left, still slower than before but were sure that delays would be allowed for and I was making damn sure of calculating the correct time!!
Got to the service area and straight into parc ferme.
We watched the podium celebrations of the top three then wrc2, wrc3, then a few others, then suddenly they said that was it for the WRC event, then asked every single competitor in the national event to go over the podium. Then that was it, everything over. I ran over to ask if they’d forgotten about us and the rest, and were told no that was it and the wrc promotors didn’t want anyone else going over the podium. So that was it, no chance to celebrate, no chance for a photo on the podium, just a nondescript finish by parking in parc ferme. After going over the podium in 2022 and getting a half decent trophy, I just felt totally deflated and really felt like they didn’t want us there and couldn’t care less about us. I went over and discussed the situation with the event secretary, who said there wasn’t an overall trophy for our position, and she couldn’t find the non-priority trophies (great). We did get a trophy for 11th in the KNRC event which is utterly ridiculous as reading all the details they should have been separate events, and I am nothing to do with the KNRC other than having a Kenyan driver. I’ve thrown it away. Of course the KNRC competitors are quite happy to say they did the “WRC Safari Rally” which is utter bullshit.

Frustrating end to a frustrating event for me, sadly. Won’t be in a rush to go back.

Have had a few days away in the Maasai Mara which I found much more enjoyable than the rally. If anyone gets the chance to go on Safari, please do it as its such an amazing experience.

Pics to follow when I can get some sorted.