Kenya’s Manvir Baryan and his Scottish co-driver Drew Sturrock have won the 2017 Pearl of Africa Uganda rally.
The multiple rally team comfortably dominated the two day event from the first stage in Busiika to the final finish in Kayunga district on Saturday.
Baryan and Sturrock hit a two-fold victory; winning the Pearl rally and topping the ARC category.
Baryan cruised his Skoda Fabia through the 203.30kilometre competitive distance with the fastest time of 2hrs, 9minutes, 13seconds. He won eight of the ten stages.
“I have really had a good time throughout the event. The stages, fans were all incredible. It really feels good to win in Uganda,” said Baryan.
“The competition was a bit easy for us the moment Chatthe dropped out. We didn’t have to push harder any more,” he added.
The Pearl rally victory is Baryan’s third career win. He has earlier this year won the Mombasa and Fly540 rallies.
Manvir now takes the ARC lead with 40 points with three events to end the series.
Christakis Fitidis and Eric Nzamwita settled in an impressive second position to become the best placed local crew.
“I am happy for the position and I believe our good preparations paid off.
“The event has really been exciting for us as we kept a clean and steady pace throughout the event,” said Fitidis.
The position put Fitidis in the lead of the national rally championship with 315 points as well as registering his first ARC points.
In third position was Belgium’s Giancarlo Davite and Sylvia Vindevogel who also took third place in the ARC.
Zambia’s couple of Leroy Gomes and Urshlla Gomes finished in fourth followed by Kuku Ranjit and Kleevan Gomes in fifth and sixth respectively.
The event registered 32 casualties of the 52 crews that started the event.
Kenya’s Jaspreet Chatthe, Dilraj Chatthe, Ronald Sebuguzi, Valery Bukera, Omar Mayanja among others made up the Pearl rally retirement list.
Pearl rally top five.
Manvir Baryan/Drew Sturrock 2: 09:13
Christakis Fitidis/Eric Nzamwita 2:19:10
Giancarlo Davite/Slyvia VIndevogel 2:19:51
Leroy Gomes/Urshlla Gomes 2:21:17
Kuku Ranjit/Musa Nsubuga 2:24:55
Kleevan Gomes/Riyaz Latife 2:28:57