While other crews had clear sentiments of Pearl rally, for Arthur Blick Jr. and George Semakula it was mixed feelings between celebrating a podium finish and disappointment after missing out on victory.
Blick managed to get back into pace after a challenging start in the opening stage on Saturday.
With the drop-out rate increasing every passing stage, Blick got within reach of the Pearl Rally lead among the local drivers.
And it was a neck and neck battle with Yasin Nasser later on.
The battle became even stiffer in the penultimate stage with only 18seconds separating the two.
However, lady luck was not on his side when he suffered a puncture in the final stage that dashed all hopes of the victory.
Yasin Nasser would clinch the victory by three seconds.
“Honestly I feel so bad and frustrated knowing that we got so closer to the win with all that we went throughout in the early stages.
“We decided to give it our best in the last two stages, unfortunately, we got unlucky and lost the win in a hurting way. It would be so great if we registered our first win in a long time,” said Blick.
However, the Shell Helix crew did not lose it all. They landed a third finish overall as well as points for the NRC.
“Obviously we are happy about the finish. It was a very tough event and many drivers didn’t make it through.
“The finish has also brought us back into the title chase. We can now fight again in the remaining events. So we have something to be grateful about this event,” added
Blick and Semankula moved to fourth position on the NRC leaderboard with 185 points.
Top five NRC drivers standings
- Yasin Nasser 285pts
- Ronald Sebuguzi 240
- Christakis Fitidis 223
- Arthur Blick 185
- Hassan Alwi 180