Blow by Blow 2019 SMC Masaka Rally Part Three – Fight or Settle? From 1 to 0 and the fight back up

Previously on Blow by Blow “…up the leader board, it was getting tighter.  Subaru drivers Duncan Mubiru and Hassan Alwi Jr had been separated by just 7 tenths of a second in stage, Duncan being the faster and marginally reducing the gap to Hassan in 3^rd to 36.7 seconds.  At the very top, Ponsiano Lwakataka who was 2s slower than Omar Mayanja on stage had also taken 16s from Ronald Ssebuguzi taking the overall lead from the latter to sit up top with an advantage of 13.2 seconds. “

The next stage, named after General Kayanja (Kalunnumu) was used in 2016 but not in 2017, it was all the same familiar to all top contenders.  However, it was one of two stages that we considered the trickiest for surprise elements of rough, kicker-drops and step-ups, as well as rock slabs.  This was a stage on which the brave could take positions or lose everything.  The first casualty was Arthur Blick Jr whose evo X lost turbo boost and with it almost 3 minutes of valuable time dropping him into tenth from 5th.  V-power team mate Omar Mayanja’s  bad luck was behind him, he escaped a near miss to post another second fastest time on stage and move up to 8^th overall displacing Yasin Nasser.  The fastest time on stage again belonged to Jas Mangat, jumping into 6^th between Kepher and Fitidis who had swapped positions again, the latter taking the loss of position as Kepher took the gain and also took advantage of Blick’s fall.

Up top, Lwakataka set the 3^rd fastest time after Omar Mayanja to more than double his gap to Sebuguzi which now stood at 28.9s.  Sebuguzi also eased himself away from Alwi Jr by a further 8s to make it 19s while Duncan’s 4^th fastest time, 16s quicker than Alwi shrunk the gap between them to 20s.  For the time being advantage remained with Hassan, however it was becoming clear that he would be the loser of a podium position if he didn’t put up a fight. 

Watendwa tried his best to catch the runaway Waliggo and came quite close in this stag, only 6 seconds slower this time.  But that meant that the gap between him and the leader was growing.  Fred Senkumba who won the category in Mukono earlier was still more than a minute off the pace but was now holding 3^rd place ahead of Umar Kakyama.

Some relief, however little would come in the way of cancellation of the first running of the Kasasa spectator stage.  While it was only 1.74 kms short, a big mistake on it could be catastrophic as Sebuguzi will narrate from his experience in 2016.  A cancellation was a good thing for those on a defensive strategy.  Cars transited through the stage non-competitively to enter the adjacent service park.  Rare mistakes from Ponsiano Lwakataka and Hassan Alwi Jr would see them enter the service park earlier than booked and earn themselves penalties – just 10s not too disastrous for Lwakataka but 90s for Alwi Jr made Duncan’s job easy, promoting him a place into 3^rd and making it near enough impossible for alwi Jr to reclaim it in the remaining distance.  To make matters worse, Kepher Walubi was now just 5s behind while the pilipili fox was lurking a mere 8.2s behind.

The world wide movers stage (Mayanja) is the second of the two trickiest stages that offered competitors a little more chilli in their favourite drink however it was also mostly familiar – with changes coming in the last 30% of the stage.   In scenes reminiscent of the 2012 season, Byron Rugomoka rolled his Evo 7 on a stretch of seemingly harmless grasstrack very similar to where Black widow had shunted his Impreza N10.  Godfrey Lubega was doing well in 11^th until a puncture in this stage cost him 6 minutes and dumped him into 15^th.  

  

The evo x that loves pilipili gobbled the stage up in 10m21.2s only 3s faster than Lwakataka and 13s up on Duncan.  These stage performances consolidated Lwakataka’s lead to 45s over Sebuguzi but reduced the latter’s advantage to Duncan Mubiru in third, to only 23s.  However, the lion’s share went to Jas mangat who leapt two places to take Hassan Alwi Jr’s 4^th position.  Similarly Omar Mayanja had posted a 4^th fastest time and gained two positions into 6^th, pushing Kepher and Fitidis down into 7^th and 8^th respectively.  More interestingly, Omar was now just 1.6s from taking Hassan’s place with 2 stages to go.  Arthur Blick Jr came in 6^th fastest but it was not enough to move him any places and he remained in 10^th, 31.9s behind Yasin Nasser holding steady in 9^th. 

Next on Blow by Blow “…The repeat of General Kayanja stage was up next.  Remember this is where fortunes are made and fallen heroes interred. … Susan Muwonge had had a bad day in the office, not the first since the beginning of the season, but this was shaping out worse than any before it.”