By Frank Kaheesi- Head FMU Media
KENYAN National Rally champion Karan Patel maintains the Equator rally leader with the best posted time from eight stages run in leg1 of the event.
The event’s defending champion has extended his time lead to two minutes 47 seconds, ahead of fellow countryman Jeremiah Wahome in Ford Fiesta Rally3, who managed second place finish on Saturday.
Kenyan Hamza Anwar’s great performance, fearlessly chasing the R5 of Patel, came to a sudden halt when he lost control of his car in SS 6, clipping a bank on the side of the road and damaging an engine pully with dire consequences.
Uganda’s Yasin Nasser pushed his Ford Fiesta R5 known as ‘Nemo’ to third place, five minutes 24 seconds off the leader.
The moil-sponsored crew plans to keep their pace for a podium finish.
Uganda’s other representatives, the crew of Jas Mangat and Joseph Kamya in their Mitsubishi EvoX, are targeting a better position finish, after surviving a number of mechanical breakdowns, ending leg1 in sixth place.
“We hoping for a better position tomorrow (Sunday),” said Mangat after a long day on Saturday.
The surviving crews are only running two special stages totalling 45.59km, and the first car set to leave the Parc Ferme at 7:30 am, allowing the crews 15 minutes of service, before heading back to Teita estates for the finals leg of the second African championship round.
