THE organizers of the 2009 African Rally Championship should be frustrated with the way drivers have delayed to register for this year’s ARC edition. With less than two weeks to the opening round of this year’s Championship, only three drivers have registered to date. The trio includes last year’s ARC runner up James Whyte from Zimbabwe, Zambia’s Mohammed Essa and Anwar Pandya of Tanzania. Like in the past, this year’s edition kicks off with the rally of Tanzania. The past five winners of this rally include; home boy Omar Bakressa in 2004, Uganda’s Riyaz Kurji in 2005, Belgium’s Patrick Emontspool in 2006, Zambia’s Muna Singh in 2007 and Japanese Hideaki Miyoshi in 2008. Rally of Tanzania will cover a total distance of 510KM spread over two days. On day one, the competitive section will cover 161.52KM while day two will cover over 280.29KM of competitive section. This year, five events have been lined up on the ARC charts. After Rally of Tanzania, drivers will proceed to Kenya in April for the KCB Safari rally. In May, drivers will travel to Uganda for the KCB Pearl of Africa Uganda rally before heading to Zambia in July for the Zambia International rally. According to the current calendar, the championship winds up in August with the Zimbabwe Challenge rally. It is still not clear whether Rwanda’s Mountain Gorilla Rally will be finally drafted back into this year’s ARC calendar. Towards the end of last year, there was a possibility that Rwanda’s famous Mountain Gorilla rally, a candidate event for the 2010 ARC would make a return to the ARC provided Rwanda Automobile Club (RAC) garnered enough sponsorship. It is however, still unclear whether RAC has pulled in enough sponsorship because by press time, RAC president Dismas Kayibanda could not be reached for comment. Ends
