East African Rally crew to camp in Arusha for a night

by Valentine Marc Nkwame

Crew of the newly revived, East African Safari Rally (EASR) will be camping in Arusha for a night, during its two final legs.

Organizers of the now dubbed, "The World’s Greatest Classic Rally" have revealed that the over 50 rally drivers hailing from 16 different countries will be staying at Novotel Mount Meru hotel on Wednesday, the 17^th of December.

"Novotel is the only hotel in Arusha with ample parking space for the whole fleet of rally machines", they explained.

The said machines happen to be post 1971 vintages ranging from VW Beetles to Mercedes Benz 6.3 with assorted Porsches, Escorts, Datsuns, Peugeots, Alfa Romeos, Austin Healey and BMWs.

Sponsored by Kenya Airways, the rally which resumes tracks after many years of being dormant, has so far been christened Kenya Airways East African Safari Rally (KA-EASR).

The Novotel stop over, on day 8 of the 10 day event will be followed by a race into Kilimanjaro region then on to Tanga town, where the drivers will once more camp for the December 18 night.

Starting from December 10, the rally is set to climax in Mombasa Coastal city of Kenya on the19th of December.

A special helicopter, Eurocopter AS 350 B2 will be hovering above the entire event, filming the race. The chopper is fitted with a FLIR system computer controlled aerial camera for the task.

Aboard the helicopter will be a Canadian specialist, Dr. Premod Shah and Film maker, Helmut Deimel.

The person who founded the rally in 1953, Eric Cecil (83) who is also the rally winner of 1956 will be at the helm as the event patron. The veteran driver currently lives in Australia.

Last modified: November 06, 2003.
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