adminAirways East African Safari Classic Rally later this month.
The Kenya Airways East Africa Safari Classic starts on November 19 and the rally runs for nine days over a total competitive distance of 4 000 kilometres in the East African country.
And according to a top South African motorsport website, Rally Star, Attwell, the father of Zimbabwe’s promising young motor rally driver Chase, has entered this event with South Africa’s Eddie Verlaque, who will be his co-driver.
Steve Attwell and Eddie Verlaque will be behind a VW Golf Mark 1 in this tough event where they will be joined by the latter’s two daughters – South Africa’s “Rally Chicks”, Lola and Megan Verlaque.
These two teams will be part of 51 entries that have been confirmed for the 2011 Kenya Airways East African Safari Classic Rally.
Lola and Megan Verlaque have entered this endurance event in a VW Golf Mk1.
Their father Eddie Verlaque will navigate for Steve Atwell also in a VW Golf Mk1, while another South African Geoff Bell will be in a Ford Escort Mk2 with Tim Callen, according to Rally Star.
Steve Attwell confirmed yesterday that he will be competing in this year’s Kenya Airways East African Safari Classic Rally with Eddie Verlaque.
“Yes, we will be leaving for Kenya latest on Thursday this week by road and it will take us six days to get there.
“I’ll be competing in the Kenya Airways East African Safari Classic Rally with Eddie Verlaque who will be my navigator.
“His (Eddie Verlaque’s) two daughters will also be racing together at this event and that will be exciting for us,” said Steve Attwell, who last took part in a competitive motor rallying event about six years ago.
Steve Attwell and the Verlaques will be joined by other top international motor rally teams at the Kenyan event.
In fact, with less than two weeks to spare, both international and Kenyan rally teams are going through the final preparation phase for this month’s Kenya Airways East African Classic Safari Rally with all the cars from Europe now shipped and on the high seas to Mombasa, Kenya, where this epic motor rally will start on November 19.
Weather conditions are threatening to recreate the wet race of 1977, according to the event’s director Surinder Thatthi.
During final route survey which is being done now, almost all the sections have been reported to be very wet and muddy.
“Hopefully the rains will finish by the start of the event and if not this could go down as the wettest Classic Safari ever.
With the cars on either front or rear wheel traction, the Safari could be a real test for man and machine if the current rains persist,” said Thatthi.
The Kenya Airways East African Safari Rally is awash with legendary names, 1979 World Rally champion and four-time winner of the Safari Rally Bjorn Waldegard topping the entry list in a Porsche 911.
The other is 1984 FIA world champion Stig Blomqvist in a Ford Escort with Venezuelan Ana Goni in the navigator’s seat.
In a repeat of history, Waldegard, a former world champion and a true legend among peers, is looking forward towards the Safari with the same temperament like in 1977 when it was thoroughly wet.
But he went on to conquer the marathon, consolidating his lead through the thoroughly wet Kerio/Cherangani Hills sections when he gradually ran away from his distant cousin Rauno Aaltonen, one of the original Flying Finns who was driving a Datsun 160J.
The highly rated four times American rally champion, Travis Pastrana will share a Porsche 911 with a former Kenyan National Rally Champion, Patrick Njiru and WRC and Dakar navigator, Fabricia Pons.
Pons is a regular on marathon events.
Njiru visited South Africa in 1995 as Kenyan Champion and competed in a Nisssan Skyline in the Total International Rally that was held in Limpopo.
The full entry list
1. Ian Duncan EAK/Amaar Slatch EAK Ford Capri V8 2. Gerard Marcy B/Stéphane Prevot B Porsche 911 3. Gregoire de Mevius B/Alain Guehennec F Porsche 911 4. Bjorn Waldegård S/Mathias Waldegård S Porsche 911 5. Stig Blomqvist S/Ana Goni YV Ford Escort RS 1800 6. Steve Perez GB/Staffan Parmander S Datsun 260Z 7. Geoff Bell ZA/Tim Challen EAK Datsun 260Z 8. Alastair Cavenagh EAK/Carl Tundo EAK Ford Escort Mark 2 9. Andrew Siddall GB/Mike Borissow EAK Datsun 260 Z 10. John Lloyd GB/Adrian Cavenagh GB Ford Escort RS 1800 11. Aziz Tejpar GB/Andy Nagi EAK Ford Escort Mark 1 12. Simon Tysoe GB/Imran Khan EAK Ford Escort Mark 1 13. Steven Funk CDN/Andrew Doig EAK Porsche 911 14. Jürgen Bertl D/Bernhard Ettel A Porsche 911 15. Thomas Flohr CH/Didier Breton F Porsche 911
16. Steve Troman GB/Calvin Cooledge GB Porsche 911 17. Aslam Khan EAK/Arshad Khan EAK Porsche 911 18. Jean-Pierre Mondron B/Nicolas Gilsoul B Porsche 911 19. Louis Antonini COR/Pierre Antonini COR Porsche 911 20. Jayant Shah EAT/Lofty Drews AUS Datsun 260 Z 21. Richard Jackson GB/Preston Ayres GB Porsche 911 22. Thierry de Latre de Bosqueau B/Eric Werner F Porsche 911 23. Travis Pastrana USA/Patrick Njiru EAK Fabrizia Pons I Porsche 911
24. Mark Bentley GB/Edward Bentley GB Ford Escort Mark 1 25. Marzio Kravos EAK/Renzo Bernardi EAK Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 26. Rommy Bamrah EAK/Harvey Jutley EAK Datsun 260Z 27. Nick Mason GB/Alex Horsey EAK Datsun 260Z 28. Albert Michiels B/Patrick de Coninck B Porsche 911 29. Lola Verlaque ZA/Megan Verlaque ZA VW Golf Mark 1 30. Jacques Walens B/Thierry Lacroix B Porsche 911 31. Kulwinder Sandhu EAK/Harpal Singh Sudle EAK Datsun P710 32. Richard Arrowsmith GB/Norris Midwood GB/Ford Escort Mark 1
33. Jac Nellemann DK/Joseph Huber CH Porsche 911 34. Minesh Rathod EAK/Sachin Sumaria EAK Colt Lancer GSR 35. Gunther Kronseder D/Gerd Petzold D Mercedes 450SLC 36. Plillipe Vandromme F/Frederic Vivier F Porsche 911 37. Jonathan Somen EAK/Richard Hechle EAK Ford Escort Mark 2
38. Ramesh Vishram EAK/Atul Kochhar EAK Ford Escort Mark 2
39. Arron Banks GB/Tim Chesser GB Ford Escort Mark 1
40. Steve Attwell ZIM/Eddie Verlaque ZA VW Golf Mark 1 41. Josef Jobst D/Hans Greifenstein D Porsche 911 42. Peter Stoehr D/Crispin Sassoon EAK Datsun 1600SSS 43. Kurt A Engelhorn D/Johan Nel ZA Ford Escort Mark 1 44. Franz Wunderlich D/Klaus-Peter Kristek D Porsche 911 45. Jean-Michel Martin B/Ronain Martin B Ford Escort Mark 2 46. Bernhard Kessel D/Ronny Kessel D Porsche 911 47. Paolo Faldini I/Nicolas Beech GB Porsche 911
48. Grant Stephenson EAK/Andrew Mang’ula EAK Mercedes 230SL 49. Asad Anwar EAK/Elodie Sampere EAK Datsun 260Z 50. Samira Khan EAK/Anita Irwin EAK Ford Escort Mark 1 51.
Quentin Savage EAK/Russell Savage EAK Datsun 180B The cars will start in this order with the current National rally champion of Kenya, Ian Duncan, starting first.
Online Reporter