Björn Waldegård has two reasons to be happy.

The first is that he drew the top seeded place on the Kenya Airways Safari Classic which means that he will lead off the field from Mombasa in November with his Escort Mk I bearing number one and thus run free of the dust kicked up by other competitors. As a four-times winner of the old East African Safari Rally and with three victories in the Ivory Coast Rally to his name, no one appreciates better the advantage this gives. “If you are driving in someone else´s dust, it can be worse than fog.” he said “One minute it is almost clear and you run up close to the other car, then he hits the soft stuff and you see nothing.”


The second reason for jubilation is that Björn has just tried his David Sutton prepared Escort in Kenya and finds it “unbelievably good”. And this from the man who won the East African Safari in 1977 with a Mk II Escort in which two years later he won the very first World Rally Championship for Drivers. “The suspension is so good, you hardly notice the rough bits and when you land after flying it is better than some airline pilots manage.”


The seriousness with which so many of the top teams are taking their preparation for this year´s Kenya Airways Safari Classic is very reminiscent of the atmosphere that used to surround the original Safari Rally. Many of the overseas rally cars are already in Kenya while the rest are on the high seas. There was a great deal of activity in Europe last week with cars and parts - and even service vehicles - being packed into containers and lifted onto ships. With just over eight weeks to go before the Kenya Airways Safari Classic gets under way from Mombasa, all the fifty-nine crews are starting to get what used to be called “Safari fever” - for which there is no known cure except to drive over the start ramp in Moi Avenue on Saturday, November 24th.


» Pressrelease från Safarirallyt, www.eastafricansafarirally.com.

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