Page 31 - EA Safari Classic Rally 2019

WRC and Classic

Classic Rallying versus Modern Rallying

W ith the World Rally Championship coming back to speed than his Mitsubishi… but its certainly not as quick
on tight stages. The Classic cars are also built pretty
Kenya in 2020 there is plenty of talk of the “good
old days” when the top drivers from across the strong, perfect for rough and muddy terrain. However a
globe raced all night across East Africa, had a short sleep modern car will accelerate and stop much faster and,
and raced back again… memories are great, especially being four wheel drive, the overall handling is more
through rose tinted glasses, but in reality times have predictable.
moved on and the World Rally Championship Safari Rally
will be more of a sprint event next year.
Indeed the 2019 East African Classic Safari has one
stage that is 156 kilometres long… just this one section is
approximately half of the total competitive mileage for
next years World Rally! Before you call Ogier, Tanak and
Neuville sissies remember that the modern event is
dictated by live TV coverage and corporates who are
more interested in lunch and champagne than they are
in the actual action.. (and Neuvilles codriver did
compete on the Classic a few years ago and said it was
the best adventure of his life!)
Stepping away from the corporate constraints, there
are many other differences between the modern Kenyan
rallies and the Classic. Firstly, the cars. This is a classic Next up are the stages. Modern rallies are one day
rally… so no cars newer than 1985. But that doesn't events, with closed road stages of less than 30
mean this is a sightseeing road trip on immaculate kilometres. This allows competitors to go flat out from
tarmac roads (not that we have many immaculate start to finish. A classic rally is run over primarily remote
tarmac roads anyway…) Baldev Chager, who has won public roads still open to the general public. Because of
rallies this year in both his Evo X Mitsubishi and his this the stages can be much longer – up to 160
Porsche 911 reckons that his Porsche has a higher top kilometres in length actually. The competitors are aware

that there could be a bus, or two motorbike taxis racing
in the opposite direction, and as such are generally more
cautious on an open road rally.
Stage notes – in a modern rally the crews are allowed
two passes of “recce” where they can travel the stages
at a slower speed to make very detailed notes before
attacking them again in their rally cars. In the Classic
Safari Rally the crews never see the sections before, but

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