Baptism of Fire - Kenya Airways East African Safari

Thursday, 23 June 2011 18:49

Written by senthilkumar

What better way to test your new rally car that to enter a rally ? Last weekend, that is exactly what experienced Kenyan rally driver Aslam Khan did with his new Porsche 911. The car is entered in the Kenya Airways East African Safari Classic Rally in November but, with it newly arrived in Africa, the chance to try it out on the modern Safari Rally Kenya held in Kajiado was not to be missed.

“The car is amazing and has so much more power and handling than the Ford Escort that I drove on the Safari Classic in 2009” said Aslam. The Porsche is prepared by Tuthill Porsche from the UK and it incorporates all the latest specification of components that will be used by the whole Tuthill team of Porsche 911s on the 2011 event in November.

On the Safari Rally at the weekend, Aslam was leading the Supplementary class when he lost control of the car and it gently rolled over. To his consternation, the car then had a small fire, but the crew managed to extinguish it before too much damage was done.

Entries for the Kenya Airways Safari Classic continue to pour in with new ones from Safari regular, Nick Mason in a Datsun 260Z and also from a newcomer, Kurt Engelhorn, from Germany in a Ford Escort Mark 1. Also, there is one more entry from Tanzania as Safari veteran, Jayant Shah, navigated by a former Safari-winning co-driver, Lofty Drews, have also confirmed they entry in a Datsun 260Z.

The entry list now stands at forty-six cars and the organizers are expecting at least seven more entries to come by the closing date of entries, which is October 15^th, 2011.