Rautenbach fore-warned

weekend’s KCB Safari Rally of Kenya in Nairobi.
The KCB Safari Rally of Kenya is the fourth round of the eight-round 2011 FIA African Rally Championship in which Rautenbach is currently leading in the title chase after the opening three rounds in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia.
And Kenya’s Ben Muchemi has cautioned Rautenbach that it will be hard for him to win this weekend’s KCB Safari Rally of Kenya against the experienced Kenyan drivers.
There is also the element of the rains, which are always there to stay, adding a new spec to the challenges that come with competing in the Safari Rally.
“These rains are going to make it harder,” said Muchemi from Nairobi yesterday.
“With these new cars many of these drivers have acquired, they will be forced to change or head back to the garage to make new settings.
“It will be slippery and skidding will be routine.”
With more than 80 drivers confirming participation, this weekend’s Safari Rally promises to provide the spills and thrills reminiscent of the gone memories of the “toughest rally on earth” and the 10 foreigners who have thrown their hat in the ring will not pick the gongs on a silver platter.
“It will be war. Winning the Safari Rally has never been an easy target,” Muchemi told the Daily Nation of Kenya yesterday.
The three-day KCB Safari Rally of Kenya will run from tomorrow to Sunday.
Meanwhile, Rautenbach and his French co-driver Nicolas Klinger recorded their first non-finish of the year on the Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally in South Africa at the weekend.
The Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally was round four of the 2011 South African Rally Championship.
Rautenbach’s Green Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000 snapped an alternator belt in stage 11 of 14, the result of a seized pulley.
Provisional results left Rautenbach and Klinger leading the title race by a margin of two points at the season’s halfway mark.
Unseasonal winter rain two days ahead of the rally turned the stages into a slippery lottery and running first on the road as the championship leader, Conrad knew he had his work cut out.
“It was incredibly slippery and difficult to judge braking distance on those roads, which were more grass than gravel. I lost a lot of motivation when I saw the stages that are more suited to off-road racing than rallying”, Rautenbach said.
“Many of the stages were just tracks through a grassy field, so I had to find the correct road as well. There was ample opportunity to take big cuts but that’s not how I rally and it cost us a lot of time. If I wanted to drive through mealie fields, I would have become a farmer”.
Controversy dogged the Green Fuel Team from the first stage, which was not included in the route DVD.
Rautenbach explains: “We were supposed to get notes of the stage before the start but that didn’t happen so when I got there I asked the marshal if we could walk the stage which he agreed to.
“This was done in the interests of both the public’s safety as well as ours.
It turns out he didn’t have the authority and a competitor put in a protest which nearly saw us excluded. The stewards eventually overturned the protest”.
Rautenbach and Klinger put the hammer down on day two, setting a string of top five times that saw the pair move into eight place before retirement halted their charge.
Before sunset, the Green Fuel Ford team had their Fiesta back at the workshop and checked over for possible engine damage.
After a thorough check, the team prepared the Fiesta to fly to Kenya for the fourth round of the FIA African Rally Championship – the KCB Safari Rally of Kenya – which takes place this weekend in Nairobi.