As the Shell V-power Pearl of Africa rally fever kicks in, it’s now obvious that the weather will be amjor concern for organisers and crews.
Pearl rally comes as the third round of the Africa rally championship at the same time the second round of the national rally. And it revs off this Friday in Jinja, Eastern Uganda
Last year, heavy downpours wrecked havoc forcing the cancellation of stages. It could be a case of deja vu this year.
The event Clerk of the course; Omar Mayanja shared with Kawowo Sports his plan.
“It has been raining every day and we have no control over the weather. At the moment we cannot tell whether it is going to be dry or not, but All indications show what it is likely to be.”
“We are trying to be as flexible as possible in order to have alternatives in case something happens. Ultimately, it’s about having a 100 percent closed road and the weather presents its challenges.”
“But we are not intending on canceling any stage because of the conditions unless it is an unfortunate condition, and when it is the only option like we have a pile-up of cars getting stuck in a stage,” he explained.
Omar Mayanja is in charge of the Pearl rally for the first time. The weight of expectation on getting things right is high.
“I am fresh into the job, and I cannot promise something unique for the crews. People are still blind to what it takes to organize such big events.
“What I am sure of, is the stages are really nice for drivers’ liking. When I first spotted them, they were dry but now they will be wet and because of that, they will give drivers a different challenge. We have over 500 people working on this rally and working under FIA requirements,” he says.
This year’s rally is set to present something unique as it will conclude with a Super special stage on Sunday.
“The consideration is that I don’t want to waste people’s time. Having crews bring out their cars only to do 3-6 kilometers for a whole day. We want to cover the required mileage when everyone is still fresh. So that in case something worse happens we have already covered the mileage needed.”
Mayanja also talks through the safety plan of the event.
“We read the FIA report from last year. The first thing I did was to study and understand where the emphasis was as far as FIA is concerned and try to sort of bridge where we are weak and where FIA was interested.”
“This year we have doubled the safety department. Each stage will be managed by a Deputy CoC and all these people can run a rally. We intend to have spectators in one place on a day since stages will be repeated twice minimizing on the movements,” he emphasised.
The rally will start with a qualifying stage to determine the ARC start order.
Seven stages will be covered on Saturday while five stages including a super special stage will seal a total competitive distance of 205.27 kilometres.