As Innocent Bwamiki tells his experience of Rallye Internationale du Burundi, he mentions current ARC leader Yasin Nasser as a redeemer.
Nasser in one way kept Bwamiki in the race.
Bwamiki and co-driver Hamza Lwanga in a Mitsubishi Evo9 were among the five Africa Rally Championship crews that competed in Ngozi, Burundi over the weekend.
The crew is in contention for the ARC2 title; a category for the GroupN cars.
Bwamiki started the event smoothly on Saturday. However, their contention did not go past stage 7 when they rolled their Mitsubishi and retired from the event.
It all seemed over for the crew.
“I was so disappointed after the roll. I wanted to finish the event so bad, that it took me time to accept that we rolled that bad and no more racing,” said Bwamiki.
“I had lost all hopes of restarting given the condition of the car. In fact, when they picked us up from the stage I never bothered going back to service. I went straight to the hotel to plan my trip back to Kampala,” he added.
That was not a trip Bwamiki would take.
“My co-driver called me from my hotel back to service to work on the car. I did not take him seriously until he told me our car was being worked on until it is ready for the next day.
“It was really unbelievable. We worked with Yasin’s team till late in the night. Roshanali Mohammed gave us all the spares we needed,” explained Bwamiki.
Bwamiki was able to restart on Sunday. He secured a fourth position in the ARC class and second place in ARC2.
He secured enough points to elevate him to second place in the ARC2 standings with 45 points.
“The points are so important for us. Now we are close to the ARC2 title. We are certain Mangat will not bring back the Evo in the next events. So that will leave us as the favourites, and we will only need maximum points from one event,” he said.
The next ARC round heads to Rwanda on 22-24 September.
ARC2 Top 3 Drivers’ Standings
- Jas Mangat – 84points
- Innocent Bwamiki – 45
- Rio Smith – 30