Kenya’s Karan Patel Wins the ARC Equator Rally 2022

The Equator rally came to a close on Sunday 3 April 3, 2022 and Kenya’s Karan Patel navigated by Tauseef Khan emerged winners in their Ford Fiesta R5 doing a total time of 2:26:55.6. On the last day of competition, crews took on the Loldia and Kedong stages (SS7&SS8) which amounted to 27% of the rally with 50.42km in total competitive distance for the day. The crew suffered a broken drive shaft on day one but that didn’t hold them back. Patel came in third place in Loldia with 17:48.3 and second in Kedong at 22:11.5; this gave him an advantage being that he was already in first place after the first day. The crew won a total of four stages in the event, the most by a crew. This Patel’s first win of the African Rally Championship round in his career and the crew hopes to keep up the fight for the other upcoming rounds. These are the first points Patel has scored in the ARC, now standing in second place with 30 points. Since this event also served as the third event on the KNRC calendar, it makes it Patel’s third consecutive win on their national level.

Zambia’s Gomes Racing team Leroy Gomes and co-driver wife Urshilla Gomes put up a spectacular fight and scooped up a podium finish, coming in second place at a time of 2:30:08.7. This is the first time Gomes has completed a rally on Kenyan soil and better that he came out overall second. Gomes won a total of three stages including the very last of the day in Kedong (SS5, SS6&SS8). This puts the team still in first place on ARC current standings with 54 points after adding on to the points from rally Bandama in Ivory Coast.

CRS racing team’s Jasmeet Chana and brother Ravi Chana in navigator seat closed the podium, finishing third at 2:30:51.2. The Chana’s won the ARC2 class as well. The brothers put up a really good competitive show and proved to be contenders alongside the foreign crews. The young and upcoming stars and siblings, Jeremy Wahome and Maxine Wahome finished fourth and sixth respectively representing the WRC/FIA Rally stars programs. Jeremy did a total time of 2:29:56.1, showing steady progress and Maxine did 2:53:38.4. Jeremy also won the ARC3 and Junior classes. These young drivers are proving to be the next best generation of Kenyan drivers.

Rwanda’s Giancarlo Davite and navigator Sylvia Vindevogel finished overall fifth in their Mitsubishi Evolution 10 at 2:42:19.4. This was also a good performance from the team, completing the rally and coming out in the top five. There were a total of twelve crews that completed the rally, among those were young drivers Hamza Anwar navigated by Adnan Din who won the first stage of day two in 17:40.1, they finished overall seventh in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X R4 and McRae Kimathi navigated by Kioni Mwangi in their Ford Fiesta Rally3 finished eighth.

Stephen Mwangi navigated by Dennis Mwenda in a Subaru Impreza STi N10 were ninth, Rio Smith co-driven by Ismail Riyaz in a Ford Fiesta R2 came in tenth but won the ARC4 class, Pandya Paras co-driven Bhojak Falgun in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X R4 came in eleventh, and Varese Leonardo co-driven by Kareithi Kigondu in a Toyota Auris were twelveth. The ARC moves on to Uganda for the anticipated Pearl of Africa rally in May as the third round on the calendar.

The current ARC standings after the Equator rally are as follows;