East African Safari Classic Rally 2013 Ready for the season’s major meeting ! For Bernard Munster’s BMA team , the top event of this 2013 season is undoubtedly the East African Safari Classic Rally, held bi-annually, and which will be bringing together from 21st to 29th November some 60 teams prepared to take on no less than 6000 kilometres of dirt tracks between Kenya and Tanzania, all that at the wheel of classic cars. And the Petit-Rechain team is ready to take on this new large scale challenge … It was back in 2003 that this not-to-be-missed event of the Word Rally Championship was organised for the first time in classic mode, and since then the success has been incredible! The best international teams are present, and this year BMA will be entering no less than four Porsche 911, all out to prove their ambitions, with Grégoire de Mévius and Alain Guehennec, Bernard Munster and Johan Gitsels, Alain de Mévius and André Ley, not forgetting François Kicq and Jean-André Collard. A question of a final tuning of these Porsche 911 prior to shipment to Africa, which they are reaching by ship, these impressive German machines found themselves on a special test track run by Philippe Wambergue, in the Paris region, some weeks back, a track regularly visited by the teams of the Mondial des Rallyes, starting out with Citroën. A work session which definitely bore its fruits, all the more so seeing it was in the presence of the Reiger company’s top suspension specialists. Gerard Seesing and Sander Van Haverkant in fact came to observe for themselves the work of their most recent developments. A definite plus point for the BMA team, and undoubted proof of the trust … “ The car has truly evolved, especially on the suspension front, Grégoire de Mévius explained. She has become somewhat tetchier to tune, but I’m not displeased by this. One thing for sure on the other and is the fact that the present Porsche 911 are more efficient than those that desperately tried to clinch victory at the East African Safari in the good old days! Two years ago Björn Waldegard gave Porsche the opportunity to come out on top for the first time in this event, and seeing the entry list is comprised for 50% by this type of car I do reckon that the 911 will be able to make it the double this year. The BMA Porsche cars are fast, efficient and solid, which should help us to claim victory … » In order to manage this armada of four cars efficiently, Bernard Munster and his team decided to split up the assistance team into two distinct groups. The first will take on the two best-placed 911 BMA in the overall classification, whilst the second will concentrate on the two other cars. It goes to show that strategy is highly important in this type of road going marathon. “ If on the one hand we were able to get 100% out of the car’s possibilities on the Wambergue test track, on the other hand during the East African Safari Classic Rally we will only get 80% out of the car, Grégoire de Mévius continued. In fact one doesn’t ever really know where the wheels are going, and we must absolutely keep a safety margin up our sleeve in order to avoid any mishaps, of one kind or another … »
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 07:46:35 +0000
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