It was 9 years since the last WRC event took place in the Dark Continent. Last month over 9 days & 4,000km in Kenya & Tanzania the 5th biannual East African Classic Safari Rally took place. It was was a fantastic adventure is the most difficult & challenging conditions seen since the 1977 Safari. WRC now operates in a sanitised, politically correct PR World, top-flight rallying will never be what it once was and, for an easy kop-out excuse, the main protagonists can immediately jump to ‘Health & Safety’ reasons to hide an otherwise inconvenient truth. Where has the long-distance endurance element to rallying gone? Do we need to have 13 similar flat-out sprint rallies just to reaffirm that Sébastien Loeb is the best driver and Citroën have the best car? What’s the spectacle for the TV viewer today? WRC’s visual appeal has not improved in the last 20 years. Travis Pastrana described his time in Kenya and Tanzania this year as some of, ‘the best days of my entire life’. Travis, don’t expect the same if you come to the Acropolis next year. I guarantee you that there is nowhere else on earth where you can have as much fun in a rally car as you’ve just had in Africa. I take my hat of Surinder Thati and the organisers of the East African Classic Safari Rally, your event is a real gem in a sea of mediocrity. I will be back in 2013….......