TREVISO. More than just a race, an incredible obstacle course. Zebras, buffaloes and giraffes crossing the road, kilometers and kilometers of people crowded along the roadside who, if the police do not intervene, will sit on your car to take a selfie. A mixture of passion, history and exhausting roads. This was the Safari Rally, the sixth race of the World Championship. There were also two Venetian navigators, Simone Scattolin from Scorzeto and Alberto Marcon from Vittorio.
More or less, for both the Safari was bittersweet. Scattolin finished eleventh overall with Lorenzo Bertelli and their Ford Fiesta Wrc, just 54 seconds from being able to return home from a grueling race with a world championship point, the sixth of his career. Marcon got worse, as he had to retire due to the consequences of an accident he suffered during the transfer. Yet both speak of this Safari as an incredible experience, a race that was an honor to run.
Of course, history also counts: here up to twenty years ago people ran on roads completely open to traffic on a route over a thousand kilometers long. This year was different, but certainly not simpler: «It was not the race of the past, but there were all those characteristics: the tests were very hard, full of holes and stones for 300 kilometers.
There was also the fesh-fesh, where it is easy to cover up. We had started calmly and our strategy would have made us seventh, but in the fourth race a muff came off and we lost all the water. We retired and took a 40 ‘penalty: it’s a pity, we would have deserved the top ten », says Scattolin.
After the tests, the difficulties came in the transfers: in one of these “Scatto” he had to walk three kilometers trying to get rid of the people, who had invaded it to greet the rally: «We would never have been able to reach the last test. There was a lot of police, but where there was none to close the roads, the residents skirted the transfers or took up the road in cars on all four lanes, passing you everywhere. The people are welcoming, but very poor: every time we stopped, an armed guard came towards us », he continues.
In addition to the difficulties of the road, there were those of nature: «It was wonderful to be able to experience a safari alone, by car, in close contact with nature. I saw giraffes, elephants and zebras up close, and indeed in a test we had to stop in the middle of the road because there was one that blocked our passage. It is a unique race: it is a great luck to have run it and to be able to finish it », he says.
Marcon also had a very close experience with the local fauna, less pleasant: «We risked hitting a huge buffalo: I’m sure we at least caught its tail. It was huge, it went well for us, ”he says with a little fear in his voice. His race, conducted with Piero Canobbio and his Mitsubishi Lancer evo X R4, ended on Saturday evening: 50 kilometers of testing were missing, but the safety cell damaged in a road accident with a truck forced the FIA not to allow them to leave for Sunday morning.
“It was a pity, but that’s how it went. The last test we ran without a door: there was so much dust that I could not read the notes. It was an enriching experience on a personal level, a race run in beautiful places. Leaving Nairobi we drove 40 kilometers with people from one side of the road to greet each other, and on Sunday we found a line of 20 kilometers of trucks stopped so as not to hinder the progress of the race », he says incredulously.
The touristic part of the race also led him to see warthogs and learn to be wary of zebras, who change direction in an amen and risk ending up on the windshield: «We only missed the cheetahs, but it was wonderful. People were everywhere and at times it was even dangerous, but its warmth was truly extraordinary, ”he says. An indelible memory.
The race took place entirely within private estates and the organizers, strongly supported by the FIA, worked for years to rediscover all the characteristics of the old Safari in a small way: «They succeeded. It was really a grueling race », Scattolin repeated at the end. This is also why the retreat in Marcon burned even more: «Canobbio has lived in Kenya for about thirty years and for this reason he knew those roads well. He held down where possible, but above all he knew how to lift his foot in the most complicated places. We really didn’t want that accident during the transfer: we tried to continue despite the fact that the door came off precisely as a result of that collision, but when we saw the FIA technical commissioner arrive in assistance, we immediately understood that we would not have moved from there. The damage was really evident, ”he says with a touch of bitterness.
But it is nothing, in front of the wonder of having run an inimitable race.