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Tuthill Porsche has twelve historic 911 rally cars competing on this year’s East African Safari Classic Rally, which starts in Mombasa, Kenya on November 19. The first team members have been in Kenya setting up our base camp since the start of November, with new people arriving daily up to November 17, when the final group of Porsche drivers touches down in Kenya ahead of rally start.
The logistics involved in getting this many cars through 4,000 kilometres of competitive rally stages over nine days of rallying would terrify even the biggest factory rally teams: multiply the average two-car works squad times six – including people, tyres, parts and pitfalls – to get some idea of the scale of this endeavour. Our core team of twenty-five full-time employees expands exponentially to more than eighty people on-event for Safari, with team members flying to Kenya from destinations all over the world. Those left holding the fort back at Wardington in Oxfordshire are still very much part of our effort, helping with last-minute parts and other supplies.
Maintaining the health and sanity of eighty people on an event spanning two countries in a relatively remote part of planet Earth is a daunting undertaking, but we do it for the epic adventure of marathon rallying, the joy of Safari and the love of Africa. Tuthill Porsche is privileged to run the greatest historic rally cars in the world through this glorious wilderness.
Stig Blomqvist and Stéphane Prevot: A New Partnership
Safari was the event most feared by our childhood rally heroes and the years since this rally was last part of the WRC calendar have not softened the challenge that it represents. Stig Blomqvist was one of those heroes, and the 1984 World Rally Champion rejoins the Tuthill Porsche squad for 2015. Following a very close fight for victory in 2013 – lost only by a puncture on the very last stage – Blomqvist has been seeded third on the provisional start list, and is ready for another memorable Safari Rally.
Joining Stig this year is our great friend and Rallye Deutschland WRC R-GT co-driver, Stéphane Prevot. Having just completed another successful season in WRC rallying, Stéphane is at the top of his game and will bring considerable strength to the cockpit of car number three. We are very excited by this partnership for 2015.
Of course, we have eleven other rally cars on the event, all of which have been prepared to rally-winning standards. Most of our drivers have competed on Safari at least once previously, so have a fair idea of what lies ahead. While our team is highly experienced in Kenya, we always expect the unexpected and are rarely disappointed!
The big wildcard on any Safari is the weather. Currently our days are dominated by warm sunshine, but the forecast is for heavy rains through Kenya and Tanzania, brought on by this year’s increased El Nino effect. We are carrying mud tyres for the first time this year, but will that be enough to keep our cars out of trouble? No one knows until the rally gets started.
Social Media Safari Rally 2015
Tuthill Porsche will be running full social media coverage on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, along with a new feature for this year’s event: Richard’s daily video blog on our Youtube channel. The third installment has just been uploaded and is shared below for your enjoyment. We’ll have a new video every day to the end of the rally, so don’t miss it – it should get very entertaining as the rally progresses! Enjoy the video: email media@tuthillporsche.com with any enquiries regarding Tuthill Porsche’s adventure on this year’s Safari Classic Rally.
