Back to News
It’s exactly one year since Day 2 of the Safari Classic Rally 2015. This was an exceptionally difficult day for our eighty-strong team, with a 4am start from Mombasa and a very muddy day of rallying ahead. Our destination was the baking hot Amboseli Nature Reserve, at the end of a 550-kilometre drive on very rough roads. Some of us had no sleep the previous night (!) so this day stands out one year later for all the wrong reasons, but Kenya has a way of soothing its adventurers. It is a wonderful place.
Day 2: Into the Wilderness
Rally day two was all about stamina. A total of 518 kilometres would be covered, with more than 200 kilometres of rough rally stages. Joakim Roman, likened the first two days to five or six days in previous years. The going was tough for us all.
To avoid the notorious Mombasa morning traffic, our service trucks departed Whitesands at 4.30am, reaching the first service point just before dawn. There followed a two-hour wait before the first cars reached service. Some of the crews snatched a little more sleep in the cool morning air, free from the Mombasa humidity.
Working to tight inter-stage service times requires careful event planning between team members, so the mechanics soon become adept at working together. Event regulations state that only three mechanics may work on a car at any one time. Three reflective vests were issued per car to help the organisers to police this rule.
Years of experience at the top level of motorsport has taught our number one mechanics to quickly understand what is required on a car during short services. This first service of day two was a good example, with some cars coming in after another trip through the mud, but the most important thing was to prepare the drivers for a long drive to Amboseli.
Roadwork tailbacks of more than ten kilometres had been seen on the road section, so rally cars and service trucks were diverted for several kilometres through a motorway construction zone to bypass the holdups. We passed scenes of African road construction, with women moving baskets of stone and hundreds of people working huge rocks by hand, creating a modern African road network.
The long thrash to Taita meant that not all service crews saw their cars before the start of stage two, but what came out the other end was almost unbelievable. The pink 911 of Von Schinkel/Bjorkman had rolled heavily but still managed to find its way out of the stage, while the black 911 of Johansson/Adielsson had hit a ditch, lost the front suspension on one corner and driven more than 70kms out of the stage on three wheels.
Our superstar mechanics worked hard to repair the damage and make the cars roadworthy enough to complete the next stage and reach end-of day service, where we had the normal two hours to make further repairs before sending both cars to parc fermé. The service trucks then had a tricky drive on difficult roads to the overnight halt in the Amboseli Nature Reserve. Reaching our destination was a blessed relief.
By the end of day two, we were all feeling the strain, with some team members needing the help of medic John Jones. Stig Blomqvist and Stéphane Prévot had moved into the lead, with Richard Goransson and Emil Axelsson not far behind. In the busy service park, the crews erected their easy-ups and worked in the shade for a change. The searing heat of Amboseli proved things were hotting up. Watch Richard’s video diary below.
Tomorrow: Rally Day 3
[cincopa AIKAJVNjRpud]
