Years ago, Easter had a special flavour for Kenyans. Despite the rains and mud, Kenyans were treated to a great extravaganza that drew huge crowds to the roads across the country.
Typically, the Safari Rally would be flagged off by the President on Good Friday and would end on Easter Monday after traversing many parts of the country. It was a perfect family outing, a tourist attraction and a foreign exchange earner.
The world’s toughest rally for ‘man and machine’ was a permanent fixture that made many Kenyans, regardless of age, leave their festivities and run to the nearest vantage point to watch the cars race.
It was spectacular to watch cars get stuck in the mud and boys rushing to help the drivers. At checkpoints, the cars would stop with the co-drivers rushing out to a tent to have their timestamp documents get stamped.
Seeing the dust rise from the roaring of the cars last week was nostalgic for many Kenyans who watched the Safari Rally from the 1960s until the race was dropped in 2002 due to insecurity and financial constraints.
‘Safo’, as many referred to it in the old days, roared back to life in a spectacular way after being reinstated to the World Rally Championship. Watching the crowds cheer wildly as the cars zoomed through the spectator stages was a joy.
On social media and newspapers, the fantastic images of the cars blowing dust in the wild made everyone want a piece of the action. The short clips of the cars racing, and unfortunately for some rolling or missing turns, were even more beautiful to watch.
This year’s Safari Rally was flagged off by President Uhuru Kenyatta, as other heads of state had done before him, on Thursday and ended on Sunday, and in all measures, it was a resounding success
The organisers, led by the Sports CS Amina Mohamed, have made Kenya proud in not only fighting to bring ‘Safo’ back, but representing our nation with pride.
Hotels, cars, everything to Naivasha and Nakuru was fully booked, with numbers surpassing even those seen during Christmas or popular rugby games. Major hoteliers in Naivasha said they served almost 10,000 visitors - a great boom for an industry that has been among the worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
For once, there was no Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Teso, Turkana or Luo spectators, only Kenyans united under our flag and proud to witness the rally. Kenyans forgot all the challenges that they may be facing to witness and cheer on their favourite drivers.
Social media space was awash with all kind of Safari Rally jokes – with ‘Subaru boys’ getting the longer edge of the stick. Subaru drivers were the butt of all jokes, and everyone was eager to get a sneak peek and picture of the rally drivers.
The success of the just-ended rally was a result of magnificent planning by the organisers and we must commend all of them. They restored the ‘Safo’ pride that we all grew up loving with an injection of more than Sh6 billion to the economy.
Tourists who have been looking for somewhere to go later this year are seriously considering Kenya after images from the Safari Rally beamed across the world.
This reminds us that sports should be a key ingredient in our quest for progress as a country. This should not be the only major sporting event that Kenya hosts. We must work hard to make the country attractive to sports organisers and fans.
Sports is also a uniting factor as we saw during the rally. It has a way of bringing all of us together regardless of our political or tribal affiliations. We must therefore nurture sports as a uniting factor for Kenya.
Athletics, rugby and now rallying continue to put us on the world map. We must work hard to maintain this and also work on building up more sports to attract major sporting events.
