Kenya: Sky’s the Limit for Khalid After Impressive Safari Show

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Samson Ateka

23 June 2011

After impressive show in the just concluded 59th KCB Safari Rally, Naveed Khalid, the youngest driver from Coast and the only Formula Two representative from region, has set his sets on bigger things.

Naveed navigated by Adnan Din would have actually won outright on his debut Safari if it weren’t for the huge 11 minutes penalty he incurred in his spirited attack and with the manifold gremlins he had to contend with. “Standards have been set and only the sky is the limit,” said Naveed, who at 20 years is setting some good times in his 2WD campaign. Naveed was, however, left to rue his mechanical gremlins knowing he had the grit and pace as well as victory in sight.

In competitive section 3, Naveed blew rear shock of his “Waka Waka” Toyota Levin. Coming into CS4, he picked up a puncture and lost time trying to fix the mess but managed to finish. “It cost me more than ten minutes,” said Naveed, who thanked Farhaan Khan “Don” of Eagle Motorsport, Nanak Engineering of Mombasa, Coast Brakes and Clutch Mombasa for enabling him take part the Safari.

Naveed came to the limelight when he won the 2WD class of the 2010 Tanga Rally in Tanzania last year as well as setting the fastest time at Voi KCB Rally. “My benchmark was to win the Safari and I was really psyched up,” quipped Naveed.

Naveed’s navigator Adnan Din was enthusiastic of his association with the youngster Naveed who recently impressed at the Coast MMC Rally in Ramisi.”We enjoyed the Safari together. We had some bad luck with a burst shock and a tyre burst but we managed to soldier on and finish 5th overall in the 2WD. Naveed is really good on his driving lines, very talented I must admit. He listened to my notes and I’m very happy with his performance. His car is standard compared to the others in his category and so a 5th position is actually very good. He is a future champion for sure,” said Adnan.

Adnan and Naveed enjoyed excellent driving at the spectator stage at Jamhuri. “The atmosphere was amazing at Jamhuri with some very deadly jumps to clear,” continued Adnan, adding: “We enjoyed every second of it.”

“This was Safari. We just had to keep the car in one piece and not break anything. So we were fully focused on that day. On Leg 1B on Saturday, we had 3 stages. We were doing really well on the first two stages; setting good times but on the third stages the rear shock burst and we also had a puncture. That dipped us down to 7th. On day 3, we had only 2 stages. We went on an all out attack, recovered two positions to finish 5th. But then the car is a bit under-powered- so we had to drive to the limit to keep up the leader board. If we didn’t have a puncture, I could see a podium finish for us, but that’s safari,” continued Adnan.

AllAfrica – All the Time