Whyte fails to break Zambian jinx

Whyte (53) has never clinched the first podium place at this big international motor rallying event in Lusaka and the “ghosts of the past” returned to haunt him again at the weekend when he went out on Day Two of competition on Saturday.

According to reports from Lusaka, Whyte, who came third in last year’s event, retired his Subaru Impreza N10 on Saturday in the Service Park at Graham Ray Farm in Chisamba just before refuelling after engine failure.

The car just cut off and could not restart. It was pushed back to crew’s service bay to have it fixed. Efforts to do it in time proved futile.
The car was eventually fixed, restarted and was driven onto the kart and towed by the team bus back to town as the rally was going on.

Whyte was at the time (after SS5 (14.01km) end) placed fifth overall behind Zambia’s Mohammed Essa, Giancarlo Davite of Rwanda, Zambia’s Jassy Singh and Jas Mangat of Uganda in that order.

In short he did not start SS6 (7.88km). Saturday went up to SS11. SS10 was cancelled because it had too much sand.
This year’s Zambia International Rally, which was the third round of the 2013 FIA African Rally Championship series, was won by fast rising Zambian driver Essa who came home first ahead of Davite and Mangat.

Essa, the reigning African motor rally champion, had Zimbabwe’s Greg Stead as his co-driver while another top Zimbabwean motor rallying driver, Jess Watson, the 2012 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally champion, was part of Rwandese Davite’s technical crew.

In fact, Essa bounced back from a poor start to the 2013 ARC season by retaining the Zambia International Rally title with a resounding six minutes 47 seconds second win. Essa, who won all nine stages on Saturday to lead by six minutes 29 seconds, sealed back-to-back home titles by winning three more stages on Sunday with Rwanda’s Davite claiming the other three stages in a Gianca Mitsubishi Evo X to take second place.

The 24-year-old Zambian, who had a broken drive shaft on his Prodrive-built Madison/Puma/iConnect Subaru Impreza N2010 R4 on Saturday and a flat tyre in the first stage on Sunday, prevailed by timing 3:08:35 over three days from 17 stages stretching 228.14km.

Uganda’s Mangat (Mansons Subaru N12) finished 11 minutes 18 seconds off the pace in third place and completing the top four ARC bracket was 20-year-old Zambian champion Jassy Singh who was 35 minutes five seconds slower than his compatriot in fifth place overall.