Karan Patel edged veteran driver Ian Duncan by 1:33 minutes to win all categories of the Arusha Guru Nanak Rally 2020.
The Kenyan rally driver, Karan Patel, was navigated by Tauseef Khan inside a Ford Fiesta R5.
"I'm very happy to have won the rally for the second time though this time it was a different car and with a different navigator. The Ford Fiesta went very well leading from start to finish. Well done my navigator, Tauseef Khan. I first won the rally in 2018 in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo10 with James Mwangi. We were in the right moods to celebrate the victory."
Kenya had 5 rally drivers present in the exciting event. Karan Patel, Ian Duncan in his Nissan Patrol, Hamza Anwar son of Asad Anwar finished fourth, Evans Kavisi finished fifth and Hussein Malik participated in the rally.
Ugandan rally drivers Yassin Nasser and Ali Katumba had a bitter sweet moment in Arusha. The reigning Uganda rally national champions came from a coronavirus lockdown to try and replicate their glory but it was not the case.
The Moil crew suffered a car failure that cost them a 10 minutes start whereby putting them out of contention of the top positions.
"Everything seemed fine until 4km into the first stage, the car suddenly switched off. It took us time to realise where the problem was since the dashboard was still on.
"Eventually, we found out that the fuel pump was not on. The ground wire had an issue which we tried to modify, but by the time we finished three cars had already passed us," said Nasser.
He added, "Another incident happened in SS2 when our4 bonnet suddenly opened, we still lost a few seconds panicking to have it back in place."
They finished in 13th position overall.
Tanzania's ace driver and navigator Gurjit Dhani and Riyaz of Hari Singh Rally Team had a fire accident while driving in their Skoda Proto. "It was really scary. I spotted the flames at Gurjit's feet when the car was at max speed," said Riyaz.
"He managed to swerve the car before it came to a stop. We both rushed out but by then the fire had spread allover. We used all the fire extinguisher equipment but still it was not easy to put the fire out.
Spectators rushed and spread the car with whatever they were drinking which helped put the fire out. We were very lucky. We were lying second behind Karan Patel in SS2."
Tanzania took third position with Birdi Rally Team with Randeep Birdi Singh and Zubayr Piredina in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX
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