Baldev Chager is looking forward to Saturday's KCB Ramisi Rally with great expectations.
The defending champion is putting behind him the gremlins of Machakos, where he retired on his second outing with Onkar Rai's VW Polo R5.
As far as he’s concerned, his Machakos woes have further fuelled his desire to edge his fellow frontrunners in the rush for Kenya National Rally Championship points at the coast.
The multiple Kenya and Safari Rally champion hopes to secure a decent finish at the Mombasa Motor Club event.
"We are more or less ready for the MMC round this weekend. We didn't do much mileage in the last event so there was not too much to do on the car," Chager revealed.
"We retired with a front LH damper failure in the Machakos event about 40kms into CS1. There was not much we could do to limp out and get to service and so we had to call it a day."
Chager believes the next four rounds will be crucial in determining who wins the title.
"We have four events remaining in the KNRC so we shall just tackle them as they come. We lost valuable points by not finishing the Machakos round and this has dropped us from top to third in the standings," said Chager.
Chager is third on the standings, 30 points behind series leader Carl Tundo, who has 111 points.
Voi winner Karan Patel is second on 83 points while Jasmeet Chana aka Iceman is fourth on 77 with WRC 3 Safari winner Onkar Rai on 73.
The KCB Ramisi Rally will count towards the sixth round of the KNRC after Nakuru, ARC Equator, WRC Safari, Machakos and Voi rallies.
Rally action will revolve around the KISCOL Sugar farm in South Coast’s Ramisi. The start and finish of the event will be centered at KISCOL.
MMC chairman Roy McKenzie said the event will feature a competitive mileage of approximately 151km and a further liaison distance of about 100km.
The MMC round will be followed by Nanyuki Rally, RSC Rally and the season-closing KCB Guru Nanak Rally.
KNRC driver standings after Machakos Rally
1. Carl Tundo 111
2. Karan Patel 83
3. Baldev Chager 81
4. Jasmeet Chana 77
5. Onkar Rai 73
6. Tejveer Rai 49
7. Eric Bengi 46
8. Aakif Virani 40
9. Nikhil Sachania 38
10. Hamza Anwar 33
11. Evans Kavisi 32
12. Jeremy Wahome 30
13. Jas Mangat 21
14. Ian Duncan 21
15. McRae Kimathi 20
