Zim challenge rally roars into life

yesterday where 16 cars were flagged off on the first day of the grueling three-day motor racing event.
This year’s event has attracted 14 local entries and four foreign competitors from Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia.
The Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally will, for the first time, act as the opening round of the eight-legged 2011 FIA African Rally Championship series.
The Challenge Rally, which ends tomorrow afternoon at the Rainbow Towers, features four previous champions – Jamie Whyte, Conrad Rautenbach, Chase Attwell (all from Zimbabwe) and Zambia’s Muna Singh – and the level of competition is expected to be high with the four drivers eyeing the title.
Rautenbach won the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally on three consecutive times from 2005 to 2007 while Whyte is the defending champion after winning the event last year and will be out to win it for the second year in a row.
Attwell clinched the title in 2009 and Zambia’s motor rallying champion Singh won it back in 2004.
This year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally is also featuring two local female drivers – Michelle Yorke and the country’s only black female motor racing driver Laureen Marufu.
Yesterday, the cars headed off to the home of local motorsport – Donnybrook – for the Super Special Stage before returning to the Rainbow Towers.
Today, racing will be concentrated around the farming areas of Ruwa, in the east of Harare, and tomorrow’s action will be in Norton at the Norton Country Club and its surrounding farming areas.
And after racing in Norton in the morning, the cars will make their way back to Harare for the last Super Special Stage which will be held at around 2:30pm at the Harare Exhibition Centre (Harare Showgrounds) parking area opposite the Rainbow Towers.
This will be followed by a ramp prize-giving ceremony at the Rainbow Towers.
The Zimbabwe Motor Sports Federation public relations officer, Stan Higgins, yesterday expressed disappointment on the low turnout of foreign drivers in this year’s edition.
“We are disappointed in having only 16 cars in the competition. Normally we have 18 to 22 cars. We were hoping for a few more entries.
“We can’t really tell the cause but possibly it is very early in the year and some of the drivers are not ready to participate.
“We were also expecting Kenyan driver Don Smith to compete but he had some problems. His crew was driving down here from Kenya and had some problems in Tanzania,” said Higgins.
However, Higgins said next year they will be focusing on getting more foreign entries for the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
“We would have wanted to have more internationals and next year we are going to focus more on getting more internationals,” said Higgins.
Higgins said in this weekend’s event, they are looking forward to a competitive race considering that there are four previous champions racing in it.
“The competition is going to be very high as we have four previous Challenge Rally champions and all of them will be pushing for another win.
“We also have two female drivers, Laureen and Michelle, and we would like to see how they feature in this competition. Everyone would be excited to see one of them in the top three,” said Higgins.
Yesterday’s 2011 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally Starting List:
1.James Whyte/Philip Archenoul (Zimbabwe) Subaru Impreza.
2.Conrad Rautenbach/Nicolas Klinger (Zimbabwe/France) Ford Fiesta S2000.
3.Craig Green/Mike Exton (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi EVO 8.
4.Giancarlo Davite/Sylvia Vindesogel (Rwanda) Subaru Impreza.
5.Chase Attwell/Miles Skinner (Zimbabwe) Subaru Impreza.
6.Muna Singh/ David Sihoka (Zambia) Subaru Impreza.
7.Mohammed Essa/Moses Matovu (Zambia/Tanzania) Subaru Impreza.
8.Jess Watson/Sasha Watson (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Lancer.
9.Schalk Burger/Armand Du Toit (Zambia) Mitsubishi EVO 10.
10.Richard Robinson/Colin Schreiber (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi EVO 8.
11.Stuart Haddon/Dave Milner (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi EVO 4.
12.Big Chitima/Amos Chamunokora (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Lancer.
13.Ian Howden/Gary Kirk (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi EVO 6.
14.Rowan Whyte/Craig Archenoul (Zimbabwe) Subaru WRX.
15.Laureen Marufu/Clint Ashdown (Zimbabwe) Toyota Corolla.
16.Michel Yorke/Steve Murton (Zimbabwe) Toyota Corolla.