Toyota Zim Challenge Rally gets underway on Friday

Challenge Rally — the country’s premier motorsport event — is once again coming in as the opening round of the tough eight-event 2012 FIA African Rally Championship series.
After the staging of this weekend’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally, the ARC series will move on to South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Madagascar for its other seven races which will be held during the course of the year. And according to the final entry list of the 50th running of the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally, which was released yesterday by the rally’s secretary Lisa Upton, 12 Zimbabwean and five foreign drivers will be battling it out for the top honours in the three-day event which runs until Friday.
Former champions Jamie Whyte and young Chase Attwell, Craig Green, Richard “Mahobho” Robinson, Jess Watson, Big “Bigs” Chitima, Robson Maganezi, Rowan Whyte, Ronald Parsell, Michelle Yorke, Laureen Marufu and Tyronne Carr are the 12 Zimbabwean drivers whose country’s hopes will be lying on in this big international motor rallying event.
They will be joined at the starting line on Friday afternoon by five foreign drivers who will be led by crack Ugandan motor rally driver Jas Mangat.
Rwandese champion Giancarlo Davite, exciting young Zambian driver Mohammed Essa, Kenya’s Don Smith and Pieter Pilusa of South Africa are the other foreign drivers who will be out to claim a stake in this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
Last year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally attracted a field of 16 drivers which included four foreigners — the Zambian duo of Muna Singh and Essa, Rwanda’s Davite and Schalk Burger (Junior) of South Africa.
Singh and Schalk Burger (Jnr) will be missing in this year’s starting line-up but Essa and Davite are back and will be among the favourites for the first podium place, come the end of the race on Sunday afternoon.
Both Essa and Davite will be back driving their favourite Subaru Imprezas and one of them will be aiming to become the sixth non-Zimbabwean driver to win the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally since the turn of the new millennium. South Africans Schalk Burger (Senior) (2001), Johnny Gemmel (2002) and Fernando Rueda (2003), Zambia’s Singh (2004) and Hideaki Miyoshi of Japan (2008) are the only five foreigners who have won the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally title since 2000.
In fact, Miyoshi was the last foreigner to win this title when he swept to victory in 2008 ahead of two Zimbabweans Craig Green and Robinson. In 2008, Miyoshi and fellow Japanese co-driver Hakaru Ichino steered their Mitsubishi Evo9 to victory after a fast-paced and grueling rally that saw only 10 of the original 17 starters finish the three-day event. Zimbabweans took the other two podium places — Green and his navigator Mike Exton came second in their Mitsubishi Evo4 and veterans Robinson and Colin Schreiber settled for third place in their Mitsubishi Evo8. After Miyoshi’s victory in 2008, it was the turn of the Zimbabwean drivers to take over the show in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally with three different local drivers — Attwell, Jamie Whyte and Conrad Rautenbach — winning the overall title in the past three years. Young Attwell first surprised all and sundry when he won this event in 2009 in a Subaru Impreza ahead of Rwanda’s Olivier Costa and fellow Zimbabwean Jamie Whyte. Jamie Whyte then returned with a vengeance the following year, winning the 2010 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally title by outclassing a good field of 20 cars.
Second place went to Zambia’s Singh while Quentin Mitchell of Kenya settled for third place.
And last year, it was the turn of another top Zimbabwean driver, the talented and exciting Conrad Rautenbach, to claim the first podium place in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
Driving an ethanol-powered Ford Fiesta S2000, Rautenbach recorded his fourth victory in this event, coming home first ahead of fellow top Zimbabwean driver Jamie Whyte and Rwanda’s Davite.
This equaled the record set by his father, the legendary Zimbabwean motor rallying driver Billy Rautenbach, who won the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally title four times in 1989, 1991, 1993 and 1995. Before winning last year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally, Conrad Rautenbach had earlier scored a hat-trick of victories in this event, coming home first in 2005, 2006 and 2007. And it will be interesting to see if the likes of Green, Maganezi, Chitima, Marufu, Rowan Whyte, Parsell and Robinson will emulate Conrad Rautenbach and walk away with this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally title, come the end of three days of high octane racing at the Cresta Lodge on Sunday afternoon.
2012 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally Final Entry List in Seeded Order
1 Jamie Whyte/Gareth Dawe (Zimbabwe)    (N4 Subaru Impreza)
2 Chase Attwell/Miles Skinner (Zimbabwe) (S2000 Toyota Auris)
3 Mohammed Essa/Greg Stead (Zambia) (N4 Subaru Impreza)
4 Craig Green/Mike Exton (Zimbabwe) (N4 Mitsubishi Evo8)
5 Giancarlo Davite/Sylvia Vindevogel (Rwanda) (N4 Subaru Impreza)
6 Richard Robinson/Colin Schreiber (Zimbabwe) (N4 Mitsubishi Evo8)
7 Jas Mangat/Gihan de Silva (Uganda) (N4 Subaru Impreza)
8 Jess Watson/Sasha Watson (Zimbabwe) (N4 Mitsubishi Lancer)
9 Big Chitima/Amos Chamunokara (Zimbabwe) (N4 Subaru Impreza)
10 Don Smith/Sony Smith (Kenya) (N4 Subaru Impreza)
11 Robson Maganezi/Dannie Stassen (Zimbabwe/South Africa) (N4 Subaru Impreza)
12 Rowan Whyte/Craig Archenoul (Zimbabwe) (S Subaru WRX)
13 Ronald Parsell/Bronwyn Ebrahim (Zimbabwe) (S Mitsubishi Evo6)
14 Michelle Yorke/Stephen Murton (Zimbabwe) (S Mitsubishi Evo4)
15 Laureen Marufu/Malcolm Thornicroft (Zimbabwe) (N3 Totota RunX)
16 Pieter Pilusa/ George Chitepo (South Africa/Zimbabwe) (S Nissan 140GX)
17 Tyronne Carr/Clint Ashdown (Zimbabwe) (N2 Toyota Corolla)