adminShingi Mugabe Sports Reporter
TWO-TIME African motor rally champion Jamie Whyte has since retired from motor racing and is now focusing on grooming his son Rowan who is racing the main circuit at Donnybrook Raceway. Jamie Whyte won the African motor rally titles for two years on the trot in 2009 and 2010 where he had Phil “Archie” Archenoul as his co-driver and these were the highlights of his illustrious motor racing career which also saw him winning various other competitions on the road.
A likeable character, Jamie Whyte last raced in May 2012 at the Zambia International Rally where Gareth Dawe was his co-driver in a Subaru Impreza WRX and they finished third.
Although he is no longer racing, Jamie Whyte recently told The Herald that he was still actively involved in motorsport and was now grooming his son Rowan who has now taken his mantle on the track at Donnybrook Raceway in Harare
“What I’m doing now is that I’m running the affairs of my son Rowan is now racing at the man circuit at Donnybrook. There is no time me now to do motorsport, I am getting old now and I better leave it to the youngsters to race.
“I took my son under my wing; I am trying to get him to be good and we will just see what happens but he is following in my footsteps and I hope he does better than I did in my career.
“I won the African motor rally championship twice in 2009 and 2010 I achieved my life goals and I am happy with the progress I made personally in motor rally, and I have now left it to my son to make a name for himself,” Jamie Whyte said.
Sadly, motor rally is now off the Zimbabwean motorsport calendar and Whyte attributed this to financial constraints although some of the local riders are now being involved in the motorcycling sport of motocross.
“The problem is Donnybrook main track has taken off and to do both disciplines it costs a lot of money, so we can’t have rallying and motocross at the same time… all the guys that do road racing on the main circuit also used to do rallying but they have all stopped.
“There is a lot of money involved here and for most guys out there they can’t do both so some opted for riding bikes in motocross than rallying.”
The 55-year-old veteran driver has also encouraged more blacks to join motorsport and help it move forward.
“The future is good for motorsport in Zimbabwe; there are a lot of black kids now riding at the top in motocross which is brilliant. Twenty years ago when I was riding motocross there were no black people in the sport and now they’re at the top which is also brilliant and they can only get better.
“Twenty years ago it was a whiteman’s sport but now we are having more and more black people involved in motorsport which is good but we still need some more to make more progress in this sport,” Jamie Whyte said.
Currently a number of young black riders are making waves in motocross at Donnybrook and they include the likes of the talented Emmanuel Bako, Kuda Mhene (Jnr), Daiyaan Manuel, Lee and Mudiwa Chigumba, Big “BJ” Chitima (Jnr), Justin, Nyasha and Majaji Musariri, Ryan Masimo and female sensation Tanya Muzinda.
Online Reporter