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African motor rallying drivers and co-drivers in this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally which gets underway in Harare on Friday.
This year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally will run from this Friday to Sunday and it will, for the first time, open this year’s FIA African Rally Championship series, which will be held over eight rounds.
The other seven rounds of the 2011 FIA ARC series will be held in South Africa (April 15-17), Zambia (May 20-23), Kenya (June 17-19), Uganda (July 15-17), Tanzania (September 2-4), Rwanda (September 30 to October 2) and Madagascar (November 25-27). And this year’s tough FIA ARC series will get underway this Friday with the staging of the three-day Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally which will be held in Harare and its surrounding areas of Ruwa and Norton.
Apart from the local competitors, the 2011 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally has attracted a good number of top drivers and co-drivers from Zimbabwe’s fellow African countries such as South Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia.
The event has also attracted one co-driver from Europe – France’s Nicolas Klinger – who will be navigating for Zimbabwe’s motor rallying hotshot Conrad Rautenbach.
Klinger will be joined in the weekend’s race by one of Tanzania’s top co-drivers Matovu who is set to make his third straight appearance in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
Matovu confirmed from Tanzania at the weekend that he will be coming down here for this coming weekend’s event and will team-up with talented young Zambian driver Mohammed Essa.
“Yup, I’ll be there (in Zimbabwe) with Zambia’s Mohammed Essa for the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally,” Matovu said at the weekend.
Ugandan born Matovu is arguably one of the top co-drivers in Africa and has teamed-up with Essa in a number of continental motor rallying events in the past.
Matovu, who last year stepped down from a World Rally Championship seat with Peter Horsey due to work commitments, will this weekend call the notes for 21-year-old Essa for an event that they both know well.
Essa, a double National Rally Champion in Zambia in his Subaru Impreza N11, is no stranger to motor rallying events in Zimbabwe in which he has been competing regularly for the past couple of years.
Only last month, February 12 to be exact, Essa was in this country, competing in the Norton Rally with Zimbabwean navigator Ray Thornicroft and the duo finished second behind former local champion Craig Green and his co-driver Mike Exton.
Essa will this time around be having Matovu as his “co-pilot” in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally where they will be put to the test by other top motor rallying competitors from Africa and the hosts Zimbabwe, including the reigning ARC Drivers’ and Co-drivers’ champions Jamie Whyte and Phil Archenoul, both of Zimbabwe.
Whyte and his co-driver Archenoul won it last year after years of trying and to add to their success they clinched the continental driver’s and co-driver’s championship titles for the second year in a row.
This was the first time Zimbabweans had achieved a double win of the main titles.
Meanwhile, Don Smith of Kenya, who had initially entered for this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally, has pulled out of the weekend’s event.
Lisa Upton, the secretary of the local motor rallying organising committee, said yesterday that Don Smith, who was supposed to have fellow Kenyan Sonal Smith as his co-driver, has indicated to them that he was unable to travel to Zimbabwe “because one of his service cars was recently carjacked somewhere in the East African region”.
The unavailability of Don Smith has left this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally with four foreign entries from Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia (two).
Upton yesterday released the final entry list for the weekend’s race in which there are four foreign drivers – Rwanda’s Giancarlo Davite, Schalk Burger (Jnr) of South Africa and the Zambian duo of Muna Singh and Essa.
Davite will have his fellow Rwandese Sylvia Vindevogel as his navigator while Schalk Burger (Jnr)’s co-driver is his countryman Armand du Toit.
Singh’s navigator at the weekend is his longtime Zambian co-driver Dave Sihoka and Essa will be teaming-up with Matovu of Tanzania.
These four foreign teams will be joined in the starting line-up on Friday afternoon at the Rainbow Towers by an impressive number of 14 local cars that have entered for this year’s Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally.
The locals will be led by two-time African champion Whyte and his co-driver Archenoul who will be driving a Subaru Impreza.
Whyte is the defending champion and is once again set to battle it out for the top honours with former African and Zimbabwe Challenge Rally champion Rautenbach.
Rautenbach, who won the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally for three consecutive years in 2005, 2006 and 2007, will this time be having a Frenchman – Klinger – as his co-driver.
Klinger was expected to fly into Harare yesterday for the rally in which he will be navigating for Rautenbach for the first time.
Rautenbach and Klinger will also be joined in this race by Jess and Sasha Watson who will be competing in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally for the first time as a husband and wife team.
The Watsons will be competing in a Mitsubishi Lancer.
Craig Batten, chairman of the Sables Motor Club – which organises the Challenge Rally under the auspices of the Zimbabwe Motor Sports Federation and the world governing body of motorsport, the FIA – said he hoped for a strong entry of Zimbabwean drivers, as well as foreign entries, given that anyone wanting to make a mark on this year’s ARC competition must do so at this early stage in the series.
The rally will begin at 2pm on Friday with a ceremonial start at the Rainbow Towers in central Harare.
The field then moves off to Donnybrook motorsport complex in eastern Harare for a Super Special stage, in which three cars race against each other around the tar and dirt circuit at a time.
On day two on Saturday, the event moves to Ruwa, with rallying around the Ruwa Country Club, ending with another Super Special stage, this time in the open ground just south of the Rainbow Towers.
Sunday sees the action head west of Harare to Norton, with the focus on farm and forest roads around the Norton Country Club. A final super special stage outside the Rainbow Towers will finalise the rally, climaxing with a ceremonial finish and prize-giving on the ramp at the Rainbow Towers.
“The Super Special stages are especially geared to spectator enjoyment so we encourage people to come along and enjoy the whole rally, but these events in particular,” said Batten.
Toyota Zimbabwe is signed up as title sponsor for a third year in succession and is backed by a number of other co-sponsors, including the Rainbow Tourism Group.
“The scene is set for a great rally and we plan to pull out all the stops to make this the best yet, with a good entry and, we hope, excellent, spectator support,” said Batten.
2011 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally Entry List (Seeded order)
1. Jamie Whyte/Phil Archenoul (Zimbabwe) Subaru Impreza.
2. Conrad Rautenbach/Nicolas Klinger (Zimbabwe/France) Ford Fiesta.
3. Craig Green/Mike Exton (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Evo 8.
4. Giancarlo Davite/Sylvia Vindevogel (Rwanda) Subaru Impreza.
5. Chase Attwell/Miles Skinner (Zimbabwe) Subaru Impreza.
6. Muna Singh/Dave Sihoka (Zambia) Subaru Impreza.
7. Mohammed Essa/Moses Matovu (Zambia/Tanzania) Subaru Impreza.
8. Jess Watson/Sasha Watson (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Lancer.
9. Shalk Burger (Jnr)/Armand du Toit (South Africa) Mitsubishi Evo 10.
10. Richard Robinson/Colin Schreiber (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Evo 8.
11. Stuart Haddon/David Milner (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Evo 4.
12. Big Chitima/Amos Chamunokara (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Lancer.
13. Sherwin Evans/Malcolm Thornicroft (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Evo 6.
14. Ian Howden/Gary Kirk (Zimbabwe) Mitsubishi Evo 6.
15. Rowan Whyte/Craig Archenoul (Zimbabwe) Subaru WRX.
16. Laureen Marufu/Clint Ashdown (Zimbabwe) Toyota Corolla.
17. Ronald Parsell/George Chitepo (Zimbabwe) Subaru WRX.
18. Michelle Yorke/Steve Murton (Zimbabwe) Toyota Corolla.