Don Smith and Bob Kaugi are the 2016 Africa Rally Champions.
The Kenyan crew sealed the ARC title over the weekend’s Pearl of Africa Rally in Mubende despite finishing second in the ARC category and 7th overall.
Although the crew only needed a finish, their victory came early after rival Muna Singh Jr dropped out of the rally with two stages to the end.
“We are so grateful that our mission is accomplished. It really feels great that we are now champions.”
“It has not been an easy thing but we had it all planned and we all worked as a team to achieve this,” said Smith.
Whereas the fraternity take ARC championship to be a very fast competition that calls for fast speeds, to Smith it’s like a game of chess than speeds.
“ARC is not about speed but rather a game of chess, those who go for speeds will never win the title. One should have a strategy of collecting maximum points than how fast they could go in an event.”
The Flysax team took on all the six ARC rounds this year, coming first in only race; the Tanzania Rally.
“We would as well push and hit fast speeds but that wasn’t our strategy. We looked at collecting points in the best way possible,” he asserted.
Don Smith becomes the third Kenyan driver to win ARC title after David Horsey (1984) and Jaspreet Chatthe (2015) while Bob Kaugi is the fourth Kenyan co-driver champion after Surinder Thathi, Dave Williamson and Mike Doughty.
Final ARC Points
1. Don Smith/Bob Kaugi 115points
2. Muna Sing/Jasmeen Singh 75pts
3. Ismail Shermohamed/Jordan Pierra 55pts
4. Gary Chaynes/David Israel 25points
5. Abdu Sepembwa/Ahmed Minjo 12pts