Devite for Zimbabwe Challenge

championship this year. I am ready and the vehicle (Subaru Impreza) is also in good condition.
“It is not always an easy go through. They are a lot of hurdles in this championship but I will give it a try and am optimistic for the challenge ahead,” added Davite.
Davite’s team and vehicle started the tough journey by road to Zimbabwe last Thursday and he will leave today with his female navigator Sylvia Vindevogel for the race which starts this Friday at the Cresta Lodge in the eastern part of Harare.
The Italy-born rally ace will also compete in other competitions like the national championship and the East African rally challenge respectively.
South Africa’s Schalk Burger (Jnr), Davite and the Zambian duo of Muna Singh and Mohammed Essa were the only foreign drivers who took part in last year Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally which was won by Zimbabwe’s motor rallying hotshot Conrad Rautenbach.
Davite came third in the 2011 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally behind Zimbabwean James Whyte who finished in second spot.
Rautenbach will not be back to defend his Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally title this year as he has taken a one-year sabbatical from motor rallying.
This is likely to pave the way for former Zimbabwean champion Jamie Whyte to regain the title he lost to Rautenbach during last year’s event.
The Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally, Zimbabwe’s premier motorsport event, is this year’s the opening round of the eight-legged 2012 FIA African Rally Championship series.
Apart from Davite, Jas Mangat of Uganda, Kenya’s Don Smith, Mohammed Essa from Zambia and the South African duo of Robson Maganezi and Pieter Pilusa are the other foreigners registered for the rally.
Mangat, Smith and Pilusa will be competing in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally for the first time while Zimbabwe-born Maganezi, who is based in South Africa, will be back competing in this event after a two-year absence.
Maganezi, who is based at Kempton Park just outside Johannesburg, has just bought a “new” Subaru Impreza, which he will be bringing to Harare for the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
The soft-spoken Bindura-born driver will be having South African Dannie Stassen as his navigator and is confident of doing well in this weekend’s event.
Maganezi will be joined in this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally by Pilusa, one of the few blacks who are into motor rallying in South Africa.
Pilusa has enlisted the services of one of Zimbabwe’s top navigators George Chitepo to do his notes during the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
And Chitepo is looking forward to his new partnership with Pilusa and was at the weekend confident that they will hold their own during the three-day of high octane racing in Harare and the surrounding areas of Ruwa and Norton.
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 Harare, Ruwa and Norton.
The course will cover approximately 600km in total distance of which +/- 240km will be competitive sections.
The rally headquarters, start/finish podium, parc femme and service park will all be based at the Cresta Lodge. — Times Sport-Sports Reporter.