• The leader will be navigated by his elder brother Ravi Chana.
• Patel's Fiesta has won four out of six rounds on the continental arena, including the closing round of FIA African Rally Championship (ARC), last month's Zambia International Rally.
Image: /HANDOUT
Series leader Jasmeet Chana will be the first off the ramp when the eighth and penultimate round of the Kenya National Rally Championships gets underway at Lisa Ranch on Saturday morning.
Chana has a 20-point advantage over Karan Patel and will sweep the Lisa Ranch gravel roads with his Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 10.
The leader will be navigated by his elder brother Ravi Chana.
Patel is seeded second in the Rallye Sports Club-organised round and returns to the series with his Ford Fiesta Rally2 machine, better known as “Toto Moto”.
Physically challenged driver Nikhil Sachania, in a hand-controlled Evolution 10, will take off in eighth position, followed by youngster Rajveer Thethy, Amman Shah and Edward Maina.
Also in the Machakos mix is classic driver Shakeel Khan in a Ford Escort and two wheel drive contestants Leo Varese and Daren Miranda.
The rally will revolve around the expansive Lisa Ranch, covering a total distance of 152km.
Three repeated stages-Phill (30.27km), Mickey (28.22km) and Phinny (14.95km)-will make up a cumulative competitive total of 146.16km and a liaison distance of 3.54km.
“The route is compact, which means that transport will be less than 3-kilometers. The course is not the usual Lisa roads that drivers are used to. It’s a totally different technical experience,” Clerk of the Course Helen Shiri explained.
The 2022 Kenya National Rally Championship has been to Nakuru, Il-Bisil, Nanyuki, Eldoret, twice in Naivasha for the WRC Safari Rally and ARC Equator Rally and, most recently, Bamba in North Coast.
START LIST
1(# 6) Jasmeet Chana/Ravi Chana (Mitsubishi Evolution 10)
2 (#3) Karan Patel/Tauseef Khan (Ford Fiesta Rally2)
3 (#12) Hamza Anwar/Riyaz Ismail (Mitsubishi Evolution 10)
4 (#7) Eric Bengi/Absalom Aswani (Mitsubishi Evolution 10)
5 (#23) Steve Mwangi /Dennis Mwenda (Subaru Impreza)
6 (#22) Kush Patel /Mudasar Chaudry (Subaru Impreza NAT- S)
7 (#20) Maxine Wahome/Murage Waigwa (Subaru Impreza)
8 (#19) Nikhil Sachania/Deep Patel (Mitsubishi Evolution 10)
9 (#35 ) Rajveer Thethy/Wayne Fernandes (Subaru Impreza)
10 (#49)Amman Shah/Rahil Shah (Subaru Impreza)
11 (#32)Edward Maina/Anthony Gichohi (Subaru Impreza)
12 (#34) Shakeel Khan/Assad Mughal (Ford Escort NAT-Classic)
13 (44) Leo Varese/Kigondu Kareithi (Toyota Auris NAT-2WD)
14 (#29) Daren Miranda/Vinya Varsani (Subaru Impreza NAT-2WD)
KNRC Standings after Round 7 -MMC Bamba Rally
Driver
1 Jasmeet Chana "Iceman" 187 points
2 Karan K Patel 167
3 Leonardo Varese 75
4 Maxine Wahome 74
5 Kush Patel 73
6 Carl "Flash" Tundo 59
7 Steve Mwangi 49
8 Jeremiah Wahome 41
9 Ghalib Hajee 40
10 Raaji Bharij 33
10=Zameer Verjee 33