Zimbabwe-Rally - Zambia's rally sensation, Mohammed Essa started the season on a good note finishing second in the first round of the Zimbabwe national rally championship held in Norton, west of the capital, Harare, at the weekend. The rally was won by local driver, Craig Green who finished the 350-kilometre rally nearly a minute ahead of Essa, who was using the event to prepare for next month's Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge.

The Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge, which will be staged in Harare and Norton, is the opening round of this season's eight-event FIA African Rally Championship (ARC) series.

Essa said in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that he led the rally in the opening two stages before his pace was derailed by Sherwin Evans, who eventually retired together with pre-rally favourite and African champion Jamie Whyte and Richard Robinson.

"The person in front of me (Evans) was very slow and the roads were tight, so I couldn't overtake but to move at his slow pace. In the first stage when there was no obstruction, I beat the second car behind me by half a minute," he said.

Essa, who was behind the wheels of his Madison Subaru Impreza N11 co-driven by Ra Thornicroft, said the obstruction persisted until towards the end of the nine-stage rally when Evans, on board a Mitsubishi Evo 8, retired with a mechanical fault.

"The damage had already been done because I trailed and lost one minute in the second stage. The worst part was that there was a two-minute interval given at the start of each stage instead of three minutes," he said.

Essa said despite losing nearly five minutes overall, he was happy with his general performance in the one-day rally that had six finishers from nine starters, who also included the speedy Chase Attwell.

The 2008 and 2009 Zambian champion thanked his main sponsors Madison General Insurance Company Limited (MGen) and auxiliary sponsors AfriConnect Zambia, who have just joined the bandwagon for the support.

The veteran Whyte retired after his Subaru N10 went off the road while the gearbox of Robinson's Evo 8 ceased.

Times of Zambia/15/02/2011