Nairobi — Twenty-four-year-old Jeremiah Wahome racked up his second career Kenya National Rally Championship (KNRC) victory following brilliant displays in the iconic Mombasa Motor Club round.
Driving a Ford Fiesta Rally 2 and navigated by home driver Victor Okundi, Wahome sped to his second win of the season in a cumulative total of 02h12m12s.
The Coast tour was incidentally a repeat of the season-opening RSC Machakos Rally where Wahome cleared the ground with all his stage adversaries.
Wahome, who has previously represented Kenya in the FIA African Rally Championship as well as Safari's WRC3 category, beat Jasmeet Chana by a 1 minute 19 seconds margin to move to the second position on the KNRC log.
Samman Vohra driving a Skoda Fabia Rally 2 won the Clubman category in blistering pace.
After failing to finish Day One's night stage on Saturday. Samman rejoined the rally on Sunday morning to partake in the Clubman category.
But Vohra bounced back with the fastest times on all Day Two speed tests including a joint lead with Wahome on the 41.17km SS3 Wild Cat stage.
Despite Wahome's win, Chana aka "Iceman" extended his massive lead on the 2023 KNRC log after the dust settled on the season's only sea level event.
But it was an absolutely blissful sea level experience for the winning pair as Wahome's navigator Victor Okundi celebrated his maiden career home win.
"Words alone can't explain the excitement of my first National home win and second career KNRC win. And that they've both come in the same season makes this my best season this far!"
Okundi continued: "Rallying being rallying, of course, we had our own set of amazing challenges, the worst of them all being loss of the intercom before the start of CS4. So, Jeremiah's displayed incredible ability to memorize all his notes came in quite handy as we couldn't hear each other at all for the whole 44 kms!! Can't thank our sponsors Safaricom and Kenya Airways enough for the opportunity, I'm chuffed."
The result in North Coast's Vipingo also went down as Wahome's second podium of the season after finishing third in Eldoret.
Wahome has two retirements so far in the 9-leg season at the WRC Safari and ARC Equator Rally events.
Former three-times Open Class Motocross Champion Anthony Nielsen navigated by Nairobi's Riyaz Ismail in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X completed the podium dash in a time of 02:14:18.
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Jasmeet was all smiles: "Yes, we enjoyed MMC rally night stage with a third fastest time and this morning we were fighting with Nielsen for second and we pushed harder in the second loop and were able to pass him. Second overall has given us a push even further in the championship. The car has been running flawlessly and I thank my team for an awesome job."
At the same time, home driver Izhaz Mirza aka Izzy delighted the home fans in the opening night stage (SS1) to put himself right in contention heading into Sunday's four-stage challenge.
The Coast Pekee Racing team's Izhar is a member at Mombasa Motor Club and he made all that local knowledge count as his 39-second advantage over Wahome moved him to summit on home soil after the dust settled on Day One proceedings.
Due to the extra time taken to complete the SS1 Ocean 1, by all the competitors and running over the itinerary by over an hour, Clerk of the Course Roy McKenzie in a bulletin declared SS2 Ocean 2 run cancelled.
KNRC6 MOMBASA RESULTS
1.JEREMIAH WAHOME / VICTOR OKUNDI (FORD FIESTA RALLY 3) - 02:12:12
2 JASMEET CHANA / RAVI CHANA (MITSUBISHI EVOX) - 02:13:31
- ANTHONY NIELSEN / RIYAZ ISMAIL - 02:14:18
4 IZHAR MIRZA / KAVIT DAVE (MITSUBISHI EVOX)- 02:26:12
5 KUSH PATEL / MUDASAR CHAUDRY - 02:32:25
