After retiring in Voi last month, Eric Bengi regained the championship lead after winning the Two-Wheel Drive Class in KCB Eldoret Rally 2015.
Farhaaz Khan won KNRC Division One class in 13th while Jansher Sandhu won KNRC Division Three in 11th overall position with Dennis Mwenda winning Division Two for the second event running.
Navigated by Tony Gikuhi in a Toyota RunX, Bengi finished the Western Kenya Motor Cub (WKMC) round in 19th overall position. Second overall in 2WD was Sammy Nyorri also in a Run X while Gurmit Thethy came third.
“After retiring in Voi, we have assessed our risks and evaluated the capability of the car. It was really important for us to score some points in this rally after the mishap in Voi and I’m happy we have our lead back,” said Nyorri. “CS1 our Proflex shocks did 15km only. After that we drove without rear shocks.
The problem was fixed in service so we were limping through prior to the second loop. Gurmit Thethy romped home third in 2WD to make up for his no-show in Voi.
“We had a good run in Eldoret, although we lost time in the first stage when we caught the car ahead of us and were sitting in its dust for about 15kms. With poor visibility I hit a couple of stones and damaged the exhaust. On the last loop in the Flouspar section we had to do the last 4kms with jamming brakes which slowed us down further.
It was a great event and we are happy to have finished third and also breaking the Eldoret Jinx in style!” Gurmit said. Finnish driver Tapio Laukkanen took a convincing outright victory in Eldoret after leading from start to finish in a Subaru Impreza GVB13.
The former British and Finland Rally champion beat Kenyan youngster Rajbir Rai by a 2:55 minute margin to make up for months of gremlins while former Ugandan champion Jas Mangat sealed the podium dash 3:52 minute behind the winner.
Tapio, who is tackling the full season of the 2015 Kenya National Rally Championship won the opening Kisumu Rally in February but has had to contend with gremlins thereon.
“I mean the whole day we had some issues with our engine which was not running with full power. So at the beginning I was a bit worried-but getting to the finish with a good result after some scares is always a good feeling.”
Courtesy of mediamaxnetwork.co.ke