Safari Rallyt; One day, one day.

If adventure is the essence of long-distance, gruelling events like the Kenya Airways East African Safari Classic Rally, then at least a couple of the competitors in this year´s event have already had major African adventures outside motoring.

Steve Troman, driving a Tuthill-prepared Porsche 911 with Martin Rowe, bicycled - alone - from Kinshasha in the Congo right across central Africa through Ruanda, Uganda and Kenya all the way to Mombasa. This was twenty years ago when as he puts it "I was young and reckless". Traversing the Congo was the worst part as he went almost three weeks at one point without encountering any living person. There were days when he was so frightened of what might happen if he should stop for the night and sleep, that he walked and pushed the bicycle until dawn.

Neil McGrigor, a Scottish explorer who was born in Nakuru, Kenya, has entered the Safari Classic with Charles Nicholson in a Ford Escort 1600 Mexico prepared by Iain Freestone who is himself driving an Escort on the event, this one an RS 2000. McGrigor is famous for discovering the true longest source of the Nile. He returned triumphantly last year from co-leading an independent expedition by boat from the Mediterranean against the flow through Egypt, Sudan and Uganda before crossing Lake Victoria and into Tanzania finally ending their search in the jungle-clad mountains of Rwanda where they declared the river to be 105 km longer than previously thought at a total of 6,717 km. Other achievements for McGrigor are two world records for the circumnavigation of Britain in a powerboat.

McGrigor says that "Being born in Kenya, as a child I used to watch the Safari Rally and said to myself ´one day, one day´. Well that day has arrived. Neither of us has any previous rally experience but that certainly hasn´t dampened our enthusiasm to take part in the toughest rally in the world and win through". McGrigor and Nicholson have team-mates Jeremy Bennett and Tim Chesser who are driving another Ford Escort Mexico. Both crews are supporting the African charity "Alive and Kicking" (see http://www.aliveandkicking.org.uk/) and will be giving out footballs along the route.


» Pressrelease från Safarirallyt, www.eastafricansafarirally.com.

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