Muna Finishes 4th

Ignatius Mazeko

18 April 2011

South Africa — Former African champion Muna Singh has finished fourth in the FIA African Rally Championship (ARC) race after powering his Madison Subaru Impreza WRX to 17th overall position in the highly competitive Sasol (Pty) Ltd-sponsored Sasol Rally that ended on Saturday night.

Muna and his Botswana-based Zambian co-driver Dave Sihoka used their massive years of experience to remain in the rally after surviving a scare on the 17.72km Magsleigh-Hendriksdal-1 stage 11 just before service when they raced the entire stage, including transport part of which was right in the busy heart of Sabie town, without both pedal and hand brakes.

The hand brakes ceased on Friday when the finished 14th overall and third in the African race and pedal brakes followed suit on Saturday just at the start of the stage, forcing the Team Madison Racing crew to crawl on the mountainous York Timbers forest in Sabie.

In the process, he lost a massive two minutes in the section that also broke the Mitsubishi Lancer and Toyota Auris driven by Zimbabweans Craig Green and Chase Attwell respectively.

Two minutes was enough for Muna to lose third position to African champion Jamie Whyte who had difficulties throughout the rally adapting to a Toyota RunX S2000 hired for him from South Africa by Toyota Zimbabwe managed by Ian Howden who headed the Toyota branch in Kitwe not too long ago.

Finishing ahead of 2007 African champion Conrad Rautenbach of Zimbabwe driving a G-Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000 was like negotiating the mountains of York Timbers on foot, hence Muna’s target in coming into this rally that started with 44 cars ending with 27 was to finish second in the Africa championship.

“Had it not been for that (lost hand brakes) we would have even finished second ahead of Schalk Burger Jnr because we were really moving on those previous stages,” said Muna.

Muna has now leapfrogged to third position in the African race with 24 points, trailing leader Rautenbach by 26 points who himself has doubled his points to 50 after finishing third overall.

The Zambian and double African champion has warned his rivals to brace themselves for fireworks in the Zambia International Rally, the third round of this season’s African championship, set for the weekend of May 20-23 in Lusaka and Chisamba.

It is the second successive time in four weeks that Muna and Sihoka were finishing fourth in the African championship after their exploits in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge that was comprehensively won by Rautenbach, who is also leading the Sasol South African Rally Championship after two rounds.

The Sasol Rally was scooped by the surprise package pair of Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee who powered their Toyota Auris S2000 to a time of 137:27.4 edging their Team Castrol Toyota mates Johnny Gimmell in an identical car by 7.6 seconds and completing the podium bracket a further one minute 44 seconds off the pace was Rautenbach and his French co-driver Nicolas Klinger.

Coetzee entered the record books by becoming the first female to win a South Africa Rally Championship title, and also making history was his driver Poulter who bagged his maiden local crown barely a year after graduating from the S1600 class.

The rally ended on an explosive note at the Show Grounds with a 30-minute display of fireworks amidst rains after a thrilling 0.55km super special stage won by Jon Williams and Cobus Vrey in a Team Sasol Fiesta S2000.

African Rally Championship Standing

1. Conrad Rautenbach (G-Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000) 139:12.3

2. Schalk Burger jnr (Power Line Africa Mitsubishi Evo X) 151:39.7

3. Jamie Whyte (Toyota Zimbabwe Toyota RunX) 154:24.7

4. Muna Singh (Madison Subaru Impreza WRX) 155:30.4

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