EASR; A classic struggle?

As entries continued to arrive over the Christmas holiday, it is evident that the 2007 East African Safari Classic may see an important piece of rally history replayed.
It was thirty-five years ago that Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm finally broke the stranglehold of the local drivers and became the first crew from outside East Africa to win the Safari. Ever since the event’s inception in 1953, the winners had always been drivers living in one of the three countries – Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – that made up East Africa. Many times during the 1960s, European drivers had led the rally but none had come home in a position to claim the winner’s laurels. But in 1972, the dam finally burst. Mikkola and Palm stormed home in first place with their Ford Escort RS 1600 ahead of Sobieslaw Zasada and Marian Bien in a Porsche 911S. The best local crew were Vic Preston Junior and Bev Smith who were third in another Ford Escort. In the ensuing thirty years, the score was eight victories to the locals and twenty-three to the visitors, a performance that brought the visitors to within four outright victories of the locals.
When the World Championship Safari stopped with its last event in 2002, the Safari Classic was born and the first event run under that name was held in 2003. The winners on that occasion were Rob Collinge and Anton Levitan driving a Datsun 240Z. This was a local crew – from Kenya – driving a locally prepared car and going up against some serious overseas opposition with a list of experienced names in Porsches and Escorts headed by none other than Michele Mouton, the only lady to have won WRC events – four of them in fact.
With a two year gap between Safari Classics, the event was next run in 2005. Collinge was back this time with a Datsun 260Z initially prepared in Australia but given the final touches by Collinge’s own specialist suspension firm, Rob’s Magic. Lined up against the local entries was an even more formidable list of opponents that included no fewer than three ex-World Rally Champions – Björn Waldegård, Stig Blomqvist and Juha Kankkunen. Waldegård had won the old Safari four times and Kankkunen three times. Another previous Safari winner, Ian Duncan was there to also uphold local honour but it was Collinge who came home for his second Safari Classic victory ahead of Stig Blomqvist and Ana Goni in an Escort with French entrant, Frederic Dor, paired with Paul Howarth in a Porsche 911, in third place.
Thus the situation is that as far as the Safari Classic is concerned, the score is two victories to the locals and zero to the visitors. Will the local domination of the Safari Classic be changed on the thirty-fifth anniversary of Mikkola and Palm’s victory in 1972 ? Can we see a little bit of history being replayed ? And will the visitors catch up one place in the overall number of wins ?
The signs are good for the visitors. Firstly, Rob Collinge has – so he proclaims – retired from rallying and has a new hobby, flying his gyrocopter. Secondly, amongst the early entries are two Escort RSs entered by Historic Motorsport Ltd. to be crewed by Stig Blomqvist and Ana Goni, and Björn and Mathias Waldegård. With experienced overseas entrants such as Frederic Dor and Gerard Marcy in Porsche 911s, Steve Perez in a Datsun 260Z and Iain Freestone in an Escort RS 2000 also in the list, the chances of making the score 2-1 look impressive.
But it is early days yet and already there are two local entries, Larry Horn and Rob Barbour from Tanzania and Stefano Rocca from Kenya, ominously both in Datsun 260Zs.
Perhaps the most intriguing question of all, however, is whether the 2007 event might see, for the first time, a winner from somewhere other than East Africa, Japan or Europe. Already Australia has three entries from Graham Alexander, Ian Swan and Paul Darrouzet in cars ranging from Datsun 260z to Ford Capri Perana. With interest from entrants in other parts of Africa and in America, there could be another first come December 3rd.



» Pressrelease från Safarirallyt, www.eastafricansafarirally.com.

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