Cresta to host Challenge rally

Lodge in Harare.
Potentially Zimbabwe’s greatest sport, the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally has been using the Rainbow Towers as its headquarters for the past three years.
But this year will see the headquarters being moved to the Cresta Lodge where the action in the three-day event, which is set to run from March 16 to 18, will be centred on. Speaking during the official launch of the 2012 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally at Sables Motorsport Club in Harare on Thursday night, the chairman of the event’s organising committee, Craig Batten, said the Cresta Hospitality Group have come in as one of their main sponsors for this year’s event.
This will see the group hosting all the foreign competitors at the Cresta Lodge in the eastern part of Harare. Batten also said the rally headquarters, start/finish podium, parc femme and service park will all be based at the Cresta Lodge.
In fact, this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally has very few changes from 2011, but a few more improvements. The rally will run on almost the same route as last year in and outside Harare with opening the spectator-friendly tarmac stage being staged at the home of local motorsport — Donnybrook — on March 16 in the afternoon. Day two of the event will see the rally moving to the farming areas of Ruwa before the competitors move to Norton for the final stages in the morning of March 18.
They will then return to the Cresta Lodge for the final Super Special Stage and the prize-giving ceremony in the afternoon. The course will cover approximately 600km in total distance of which +/-240km will be competitive sections. The Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally is the country’s premier motorsport event and is organised each year by Sables Motor Club under the jurisdiction of the Zimbabwe Motor Sport Federation. Principal sponsorship is provided by Toyota Zimbabwe who will be sponsoring this event for the fourth-year running.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally and Toyota Zimbabwe’s managing director, Ian Howden, said they were very excited to be part of such a momentous occasion.
“It is testimony to the organisers of this event throughout the last 50 years that, despite incredible odds, the rally has been a success each time it is held. I have no doubt that this year will be no exception and I look forward to another great event,” Howden told invited guests during Thursday night’s function.
Howden said Zimbabwe has a proud tradition of producing African motor rally champions and he hoped that the country could do it again this year.
The Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge is the season-opener and will, for the second-year running, act as the first leg of the tough eight-event FIA African Rally Championship series. The last three years have seen the overall ARC Drivers’ crown being won by Zimbabwean drivers with veteran Jamie Whyte winning it for two years in a row in 2009 and 2010 while local motor rallying hotshot Conrad Rautenbach grabbed the top honours last year.
Rautenbach was first crowned as the African motor rally champion in 2007 before he returned to win it for the second time in his illustrious motor rallying career last year. And Howden wished the local competitors “all the best of luck and let’s keep the Zimbabwe flag flying high again” during this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
“It has been a pleasure working with the organisers and officials of the rally during the past four years and I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of you,” Howden said.