THE Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, Nape Nnauye, will grace the Tanzanian round of the African Rally Championship (ARC) on July 8 at Southern Sun Hotel in Dar es Salaam.
The biggest continental level rally comes to Tanzania after completing its rounds in Ivory Coast, South Africa and Zambia.
The President of the Automobile
Association of Tanzania (AAT), Nizar Jivani, confirmed that the sports
minister has agreed to grace the ceremonial start of the rally alongside
the National Sports Council (NSC) Secretary General, Mohamed Kiganja.
Jivani said after the ceremonial start,
all cars will leave in convoy to Bagamoyo where all rounds of the
competition will be staged. “Bagamoyo will be the main venue of the
motor rally. All routes of the rally, the service park (Parc Ferme),
podium finish and prize giving ceremony will be in Bagamoyo,” explained
Jivani.
After Tanzania, the fifth round of
African Rally Championship will be staged in Rwanda on August 12-14
under official name Mountain Gorilla Rally. Uganda’s Pearl of Africa
Rally is the sixth round of the continental level motorsports to be
staged in areas around Kampala on September 16-18.
The seventh and the final round this
year will be held in Madagascar from November 11 to 13 in the capital
Antananarivo. According to Jivani, Kenya, one of the main players in the
continental level rally won’t host any round; a situation he said
leaves the season with only seven rounds instead of eight.
Already the country’s top flight drivers in Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Arusha have begun preparations for the two-day event.
The defending champion, Dharam Pandya,
said he was on form this year to overcome foreign drivers’ challenge. “I
don’t expect any threat from the foreign drivers, but I would like them
to come so as to spice up a challenge,” said Dharam. One of the foreign
crews expected to come are Singh Brothers; Jassy Singh and Muna Singh
who won the Zambian round last month.
The win helped Muna Singh Jr to close
the gap on ARC leader Don Smith after finishing first in the ARC
category despite his overall second place. The 21-year-old scooped a
maximum of 25points to reduce the gap to four points behind Smith.
“It was a good race, managed to collect
enough points with no major problems and it was a good fight with my
brother”, says Muna.
Zubair Essa sealed the podium in third
as Geoffrey Chulu and Leroy Gomes settled in fourth and fifth
respectively. Kenya’s Don Smith finished in ninth overall with 16
minutes, 5 seconds behind rally winner to maintain his ARC lead with 54
points.
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