Kenya’s Samman Vohra picked up from where he left in last year’s Pearl rally by setting the pace on the opening day of this year’s edition.
The Pearl rally is the second round of the Africa rally championship, and got off to a perfect start in Uganda’s western part of the country. crews contested Friday’s opening stages before embarking on the super special stage at Mwesigwa Resort.
15 crews started the event in the ARC category.
But it was Samman Vohra in the Skoda Fabia that laid down the gauntlet by winning the opening Charles Muhangi stage. That set the tone for the rest of the morning as he scooped two more stage wins in the morning loop.
Samman continued the charge in the super special stage where he thrilled the fans; posting an opening leg time of 37mins and 38seconds to take the rally lead.
In second is another Kenyan Aakif Virani who is four mins,45seconds behind the leader.
Home hero Yasin Nasser completed the day’s top three with Karan Patel and Naveen Puligilla finished in fourth and fifth respectively.
Day two will have eight stages with a competitive distance of 136.83kilometres.