Youngest ever team for Kenya Airways Safari Classic?

With their eyes firmly fixed on a finish rather than outright victory, Quentin Mitchell and Russell Savage have entered the Kenya Airways Safari Classic with the double aim of raising money for needy children in Kenya and showing that two young men can make a serious attempt on a major international rally in a car that is more than eighteen years older than they are.

The car that they have chosen is a British sports car from the 1960s, a Triumph GT6. Nicknamed ´the poor man´s Jaguar E-type´ when it was launched in 1966, the GT6 was based on the 4-cyl 1,200cc Triumph Spitfire fitted with a 6-cyl 2-litre engine from the Triumph Vitesse. The model that Quentin and Russell will use is Mk2 GT6 which is the form in which the Triumph factory prepared a prototype known as the GT6R to race at Le Mans. It never competed in the 24 hour race ,but the development work done led to racing success for the GT6 Mk 3 in the USA.

The Kenya Airways Safari is going to be a tough test for this classic sports car but Quentin has the advantage of having competed in Kenyan motor sport since he was fourteen, a third of his lifetime. He has gained a lot of experience building his own buggies for Rallycross and is using that to prepare the GT6 for the Safari at his home in Limuru. That detailed knowledge and mechanical experience will stand him in good stead if the GT6 gives the team any trouble during the rally. Co-driver Russell is a dedicated sportsman involved in polo, racquet sports and hockey. He recently represented Kenya in their national under-21 polo team on a tour of Britain. He plans to sign up with the RAF as a pilot later this year and already has thirty hours of flying experience. To add to his sporting achievements, he has also taken up rally co-driving in Kenya and currently lies second in the navigators´ league of the Kenyan Championship.

The charitable aims of this venture stem from Quentin´s profession as a singer and actor which has led him to perform many times around Kenya in the name of charitable causes. He now wants to raise money by participating in the Safari Classic. His idea is to use those funds directly to supply artificial limbs to the disabled, buy animals and farm supplies to help the starving children, and give support to the Gender Violence Recovery Unit.

If they do well, they are almost certainly guaranteed a place in the record books as, at the time of the rally, Quentin will be twenty-one and Russell one year older at twenty-two. With a total of 43 years, their combined age is one year less than Hannu Mikkola´s age when he won the Safari Rally in 1987 for Audi. And they are both years younger than the youngest driver to ever win a World Championship Rally, Henri Toivonen, who won the RAC Rally at the age of twenty-four.


» Pressrelease från Safarirallyt, www.eastafricansafarirally.com.

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