Tuthill Porsche East African Safari preview

Tuthill Porsche set to tackle the Worlds greatest rally

Francis Tuthill Ltd is geared up to tackle the Kenyan Airways East African Safari Classic Rally 2009 and with no less than five Porsches in their arsenal this professional outfit has a mammoth task at hand for the marathon ten day event which takes place at the end of November.

Oxfordshire based Tuthill Porsche are no strangers to this test of man and machine, having contested the bi annual endurance rally since its inception in 2003. In 2007 the team very nearly won the event outright with Gerard Marcy. Only navigational errors cost the Belgium a near certain victory. Gerard returns this year, with experienced World Rally Championship co-driver Stephane Prevot alongside.

Joining Marcy and Prevot for the Mombasa based rally are Steve Troman, Paul Eric Jarry, Thomas Flohr and Phillipino Martin Aguire who is making his Safari Rally debut. With three Porsche 911 3.0 RS's and a pair of 2.7 RS's the preparations have presented a colossal task. The team, headed by former Subaru World Rally Team operations director Paul Howarth, consists of no less than 15 technicians and a further nine staff. And with the four 40ft high cube containers of vehicles, spares and provisions needing to be shipped some eight weeks before the rally, the British summer has been a busy time for the whole team.

Paul Howarth, Team Manager; the last few months have been hectic but we have achieved our first goal of getting everything loaded and on the ship! Now we have the small task of the actual rally. The team has a lot of experience in Africa but the continent has a habit of throwing up the unexpected and that is part of the great challenge.

The Kenyan Airways East African Safari Classic Rally 2009 takes place over ten days between 22 November and 01 December 2009. After the ceremonial start in Mombasa the crews travel across a variety of terrain, ranging from car breakingly rough to some of the fastest gravel roads in the world, interspersed with exotic wildlife, enthusiastic locals and breathtaking scenery before returning to the seaside town for a ceremonial finish some 4500 kilometres later!

-credit: francistuthill.co.uk