2017 MMC Lato Milk rally, Mbarara

This time last week it was impossible to imagine we would be here this week as not just finishers but  the celebrated winners of the first round of the Uganda national rally championship, the Lato milk sponsored and Mbarara-based event.  I was down with the worst case of Man flu which I had battled for 2 weeks.  I was also dealing with a bereavement in the family (RIP Hajat Anisha).  Much was uncertain and what little was, did not go according to plan.

We had planned to map and install a new ECU that would give us Bang-Bang, raise the power produced by the engine and the noise that gets the fans hearts racing.  This did not happen as the tuner we had booked changed plans.  We had also imported new tyres and suspension parts but again these had arrived in the country when we had not done any pre-customs clearance work and so were not with us by the time we loaded up to go to Mbarara.  I had only done 50% of the recce and my health was improving ever so slowly i was not sure I would be able to do more than 50% of the actual rally.

When the ceremonies for the start of the event were underway there was no sign of rain but by the time the convoy of rally cars entered the Kakyeka stadium, venue for the super special stage, clouds had gathered and a light drizzle had commenced.  By the time the first car took to the stage, a full blown storm was in session.  The start list had 40 cars and although we were seeded 9th, the super special stage would run in reverse order meaning we had the benefit of seeing other drivers navigating the grass and mud bath that the track had become.

When our turn came, we followed the approach we had decided before the rally, which was conservative.  All too often in the season before we had taken an aggressive start and ended up losing too much time or even a broken car and some times both. On this occasion we would end the day in 7th overall and only 16 seconds adrift of rally favourite, three-time and defending national rally champion Jas Mangat.  However, Jas was only in 3rd overall behind Duncan Mubiru in second and Kuku Ranjit overnight rally leader.  Sebuguzi Ronald had picked a 5 minute penalty for missing a run due to a broken fan belt.  Our car (Edna) was in tip-top condition and my spirits were up despite nursing a headache I had carried over from 2 days before.  I popped a pill and retired early determined to see off the headache.

By morning the headache was gone.  I could hear a light buzz outside my room at the Lake View Resort and when I pulled the curtain I could see it was raining  and apparently had done so half the night.  If the rain we had seen in the town the day before and this morning had also pounded the stages, we were in for a shocker - seeing as the recce had been completed in bone dry conditions.  I then prayed that the rain would stop by rally start so that even if we the road was wet, we would have clear visibility at the very least.  That prayer was not answered.  The rain would fall and even increase pace from the moment we entered the last stage up until the start of the very last stage. The upside of this was that for me who had done only 50% of the recce, the rain was in fact an equalising factor, these stages would look jus as strange to those who had gone thru them twice or even four times.

The start order had Jas Mangat, Hassan Alwi, Arthur Blick Jr, Christakis Fitidis, Ronald Ssebuguzi, Godfrey Lubega, Yasin Nasser, Duncan Mubiru, Omar Mayanja and Kuku Ranjit as the top ten and for the main leg we would be attacking the stages in that order.  I lowered my tire pressure and wished I had a suspension setup for the wet but I didn't.  Luckily my heater blower works like new - the benefit of buying a car from a winter nation.  I had clear vision, in the circumstances, considering the sky was completely black and visibility was down to a couple hundred meters.

A few kms into cs2 (first of day2) the Kakoba - Sanga 40km stage, we encountered Yasin Nasser fresh from a roll on a slippy and narrow downhill, we slowed not just to check both drivers were ok but also because there was not much space to negotiate thru.  A message had been delivered to us to watch  our step.  After about 15km the stage touches Biharwe town and a hairpin right connects us to the road to Sanga thru cow country.  For another 10 or so km the road is wide and smooth and interspersed with high speed jumps and holes before it suddenly switches back to cow country road, red and black earth and single lanes lined with trees, tree stumps and anthills.  The change or lets say loss or complete degeneration of grip for this last section is impossible to imagine.  Every driver reported suspected differential failure at the end which only shows it was simply the road treating everyone the same.  We soldiered thru it and it was only the last 2 km that caught us when we spun and lost about 30 seconds trying to get the car to face in the correct direction again.  From there we tiptoed to the end of the stage where we were surprised to clock the 3rd fastest time behind Jas and Hassan and ahead of Duncan, Sebuguzi and Arthur Blick Jr.  Jas had taken the lead, followed by Hassan with Duncan in third but only 5 seconds ahead of us in 4th.

In service at Sanga we found a broken rear stabiliser bar which we eliminated entirely and a rear left damper which we replaced.  Next up were two stages to be done together before the next service stop.  The first and toughest (at least during the recce) was the 30km Sanga-Ahakyapa stage which starts with a blast of 12km of dead straight ascents and descents, followed by 2km of grave deep trenches, 8 kms of medium trenches and holes and finishes with about 8kms of near dead straight ascents and descents.  We were now running 8th on the road with all cars apart from Yasin Nasser ahead of us still running and in the original start order.  On the stage, the grip was not bad and the only surprise was finding that practically all the anthills had been removed (but due to poor visibility you would only confirm this after slowing down for them).

We cleared the stage with a bulged and about to blow tyre in 21 minutes exactly, and 4th fastest behind  Sebuguzi, Duncan and Jas with the first 2 being a whopping 120 and 85 seconds respectively faster.  Jas was only 14 s faster on this stage and had lost the overall lead of the rally to Duncan Mubiru, Hassan was in 3rd and we were holding steady in 4th.  Sebuguzi was smarting from a 5 minute penalty the night before when he did not complete the super special stage but was now firmly back in the top 10 and hunting. Duncan had also overtaken Lubega in the stage and Sebuguzi had overtaken Fitidis.  For the next stage, Lubega would request that Duncan runs ahead of him and we would now run behind Lubega.

The second of the two stages was the 12km Akageti-Ahakyapa  stage which runs thru Lake Mburo National park.  It starts out on smooth wide and winding roads before branching off into cow country where it finishes on black soil and in grip conditions worse than we had seen on cs2.  We would complete this stage 3rd fastest behind Jas and Duncan and reduce our gap to Hassan in 3rd to just 9 seconds.  Jas would also retake the lead from Duncan and take a slender 5 second advantage into the next stage whil

e Duncan' advantage over Hassan was now 34 seconds.  We checked in to service with no problems to report and I was on the whole much happier with the car.  After service we had another two stages to be run together.  Each of these stages was more than 20 kms and for fear of catching up with Lubega we asked to run on a 4 minute interval behind him.

Cs5 (the fourth of the day) was 20 kms long, starts at Sanga and finishes at Sanga on the side of the kampala-mbarara highway.  Very similar to Akageti-Ahakyapa in character it starts on wide smooth roads before transitioning and finishing in black and clay soils in cow country.  We found Lubega at the FF control of the stage vindicating our decision to run on 4 rather than 3 minutes interval.  We had cleared the stage 4th fastest behind Jas, Hassan and Sebuguzi.  Jas had extended his lead from Duncan to 88 seconds while Hassan was now pressing Duncan from behind by just 6 seconds.  We were holding fort in 4th overall but now 43 seconds behind Hassan but ahead of Arthur Blick Jr while Sebuguzi had now climbed up to 7th overall.

Cs6 starts at Sanga at the same point as Cs3 but goes separate ways at the 12km mark and this time onto winding roads that are a mix between fast wide and narrow-pot-holed roads which were now filled with water.  It is 26 kms long and generally the easiest stage for the day.  Sebuguzi posted another blistering time in this one ahead of us in 2nd fastest, Jas and Hassan in 3rd and 4th.  Duncan lost more than 5 minutes due to overheating and lost his second overall in the provisional classification.  Even without a scratch time, with the falling back of Duncan, Jas had extended his lead to 130 seconds ahead of Hassan in second and Omar in 3rd a further 30s adrift.  Arthur Blick Jr was 4th but now dangerously in the bull's eye of a hard charging Sebuguzi.  We checked into service with broken front right damper and a bent right side rack end which caused our active center diff to mal-function during the previous stage and effectively leaving us with two-wheel drive.  We changed both broken parts but were unable to realign and re-calibrate the steering to eliminate the ACD mal-function.  However this is a problem we have driven around so many times before and here we only had one stage to go.

The final stage is 27 km long and starts at Kamatarisi near Biharwe, winds very slowly thru the kamatarisi village for about 4 kms before joining the wide road from BIiharwe near the Rushozi hairpin (at the coca cola sign) and takes us back to Kyamugorani on familiar wide and fast roads.  My team did not reveal that we were only 30s behind Hassan and I was under strict instructions to maintain pace (as opposed to raising it to attack 2nd place), we were in 3rd place and we would remain there if we got to the finish safely.  Perhaps Hassan did not know this or perhaps the conditions were just too treacherous on the first 3kms of the stage where we hit a tree stump that luckily for us only bent the sump guard and took out pieces of the body work.  This same tree stump or anthill (no one really knows) had minutes before taken out Arthur Blick Jr and Hassan with similar suspension damage.  We would now take 2nd place if we could navigate safely to the end.  We did not see the leading car of Jas Mangat at the Rushozi junction.  We slowed considerably and just drove till the end of the stage and to the finish point at Lake View Resort.  It was here that we discovered that Jas had not emerged from the stage and we had won the rally OVERALL!!!  It's really true what they say, 50% of success is showing up.

Duncan had also lost more time in the stage and now Sebuguzi was in 2nd overall, Duncan third, FItidis 4th and Byona 5th.  Arthur Blick Jr emerged from the stage after doing repairs for more than an hour to finish 17th overall.  The top ten was completed by Musa Kabega, Godfrey Lubega, Kuku Ranjit, Fred Busulwa and Dr Ashraf.   

This is yet another event that reinforces our peculiar strength in the wet and muddy conditions.  But even as we won, the real gladiators of these conditions are the thousands of fans who took to the stages and weathered the storm to see us thru.  Our newly installed V-powered engine also ran faultlessly in the cold and wet conditions.  We owe this win to our sponsoring partners Vivo Energy, Guvnor Entertainment and Nippon Plant and Equipment hire as well as to each member of the CleanLines Racing Team - Hussein Mukuye, Paul Ekudu, Vincent Matovu, Kasozi, Ipsum, and Ivan.  We now lead the 2017 championship with 100 points, we shall be running higher in the start order meaning more visibility for our fans and partners.  Look out for the surprises that we shall unveil in Kabale on the weekend of March 3-5th.