History

by Vivien Mitchell

Elephants + trees

Excerpt from History of the Safari Rally by Vivien Mitchell
Published for the Safari Organising Commitee, 1982

Ever since the first horseless carriages rumbled along the roads of Europe in the last years of the 19th century, men and women have responded to the challenge of long distance competitive driving.

As early as 1894 inter-city road races, usually with Paris as the starting point, were attracting large entries. Considering the condition of the roads and the primitiveness of the vehicles, surprisingly high average speeds were achieved.

During the first decades of the present century the motor car gained steadily in popularity and in availability to the public. Roads previously inhabited only by horse and cart, ducks and chickens, now reverberated to the sound of the internal combustion engine, and public safety soon become a major factor in the survival of motor sport. Governments severely restricted the extent to which open roads could be used for competition: only the classic ‘Mille Miglia’ round Italy road race survived for any significant length of time in its original form. Thus events were devised which were based on the challenge of the terrain and were more a test of the endurance of both automobile and driver – these were ., aptly called ‘reliability trials’. So began the immortal Monte Carlo Rally, timed to coincide with some of the worst weather a European winter could offer, and the Alpine Rally, which traversed the roughest passes of the Italian, French and Swiss Alps. (The word ‘rally’ was originally used in motor sport in its most literal sense: a ‘coming together’ of competitors at a predetermined point after going through various trials. In line with the evolution of the sport itself, the word ‘rally’ now means a regulated and controlled long-distance speed test).

While sporty young men atop their early motorised vehicles vied for superiority on the roads of Europe, the continent of Africa was opening up in the wake of the automobile. Roads were being hacked out of the bush by courageous and self-sufficient men such as L Douglas Gallon Fenzi, who pioneered roads throughout Kenya northwards to Khartoum and Cairo and southwards to Nyasaland and South Africa.

By the late 1920s it was quite feasible to journey by motor car from Nairobi to Cape Town, thanks largely to the work of Galton-Fenzi and to the massive strides subsequently made in road construction and maintenance. Traffic was negligible, political barriers were few, and there was virtually no constraint on motorsportsmen of the time who wished to indulge their sense of adventure.

Needless to say, it was not long before enthusiasts came together in competition, and an epic Nairobi to Johannesburg Road Race was organised in 1936. This open road race of just under 3,000 miles through the heart of Africa was won by C L ‘Fairy’ Engelbrecht who, together with Gordon Goby, was to be a regular competitor in the early Coronation Safaris.

The 1939-45 War retarded the development of such organised motor sport, although the challenge of Africa was still accepted by individuals. In 1950 Nairobi received its charter as a City. a celebrate the event a young Nairobi broadcaster, business sport enthusiast, Erie Cecil, drove his Skoda from Nairobi to Cape Town and back again, delivering letters of greeting from Nairobi’s Mayor to mayors of southern towns passed en route. The fact that, on his return Cecil was able to boast the fastest recorded time for the return journey was too much for his friends and cousins, Donald and Neil Vincent. The Vincent brothers set off together in a standard Vauxhall Velox and made the journey from Cape Town to Nairobi in 92 hours 11 minutes – a record which they still hold.

By the late 1940s motor sport in all its forms had become highly popular in East Africa, and it was increasingly apparent that a cony. ?fling body was needed. The responsibility for providing this lay with the Royal East African Automobile Association, to whom the Royal Automobile Club, the controlling body of motor sport in the United Kingdom and the Colonies, had earlier delegated its authority regarding motor competition in East Africa. Thus it came about that a Competitions Committee of the REAAA first met in Nairobi on 20th February 1950. One of the first pronouncements of the Committee was that the REAAA should exercise its powers in accordance with the RAC General Competition Rules (GCRs) of 1939, which thereby became the basis for all motor competition in East Africa.

The responsibility of the early Committee included that of organisation, for in 1950 motor clubs in East Africa were few and far between. The Committee, under the chairmanship of Colonel L F Manton, addressed itself to the problems of providing the many forms of motor sport for which there was a demand trials, hillclimbs, racing, motor cycle events and long-distance reliability trials’. Africa was a superlative opponent: the terrain difficult and conditions varied; distances great and roads relatively unpopulated. There seemed to be no reason why a reliability trial in the best traditions of European motor sport could not be successfully organised in East Africa.

The first positive step towards the realisation of such an event can be found in the Minutes of that very first meeting of the new Competitions Committee of the REAAA in February 1950. Minute 10 is headed ‘Three Capitals Rally’ and reads:

“Colonel Maitland Edye proposed that consideration be given to holding a motor rally to be called ‘The Three Capitals Rally’ starting from Dar es Salaam and Entebbe, and converging on Nairobi City Hall for the finish.”

This idea was tossed around in Committee for many months, and reached the stage where an award for the winner, to be called the The Capitals Trophy, was presented to the Committee by the East African Hotelkeepers’ Association. But the organisational capacity of the Committee was already overloaded – mainly with the development of a three-mile racing circuit on newly-acquired land at Langa Langa near Gilgil – and the Three Capitals Rally did not materialise.

The organisational body may seem to have been ineffective, but the spirit was strong and willing. In spite of its failure to get the Three Capitals Rally off the ground, other even more ambitious schemes were being considered – and frustrated. Members envisaged a road race to start in Johannesburg and to finish in Nairobi, a re-run in reverse of the 1936 Nairobi-Johannesburg Road Race. But this idea met with little enthusiasm from the South African authorities, and the idea was Undaunted, the Committee decided to investigate the possibility of a road race run west to east across Africa, but again the idea was dropped due to lack of co-operation from the other authorities involved. Hopes soared when a suggestion was received from the then Belgian Congo that a rally should be run between Costermansville (Bukavu) and Nairobi using roads of east and central Africa, but this idea seems to have dried up under a welter of correspondence.

Only one Reliability Trial, or rally, organised under the auspices of the Competitions Committee actually got on to the road during the first three and a half years of the Committee’s life. That was a ‘Round the Mountain’ trial held in September 1950, the mountain in question being, of course, Mount Kenya. The event was popular and received a large and enthusiastic entry, although there were many hitches in the organisation; with an inconclusive result being obtained due to most of the competitors receiving no penalty points. The experience was invaluable, however, and the Sub-Committee set up for the sole purpose of organising the event debated at length how an improved Reliability Trial should be organised in 1951. More care would be taken to ensure that there was an outright winner; there would be faster times, longer sections, better planned elimination tests; scrutinising would take place at the finish as well as the start. Tapley meters should be used to measure brake efficiency at the finish; a date during the rainy season would be chosen to ensure a more difficult route; and so on. A second ‘Round the Mountain’ Trial never took place, but valuable lessons had been learned.

That the Committee produced so little in competitive long-distance events was not entirely their fault. Their work-force consisted of half a dozen enthusiastic volunteers and the majority of their effort went into the creation of the race-track at Langa Langa, which during 1951 and 1952 provided many days of excitement and entertainment for the East African motoring fraternity. Red tape was just as sticky in the 1950s as it is now, and no one was able to devote the necessary time to get the more ambitious ideas moving. Even the administrative work involved in maintaining the race-track at Langa Langa eventually necessitated taking on a part-time Competitions Secretary on an honorarium.

But one very much more important factor was acting as a b eke on progress of motor sports in the Colony, and that was the increasingly serious security situation. A State of Emergency was declared in Kenya on 20th October, 1952, and it seemed unlikely that there was much immediate future for long-distance competitive motor sport.

Against this background of frustration and disappointment for would-be competitors, the much-quoted conversation took place between a member of the Competitions Committee, Erie Cecil, and his cousin Neil Vincent. Vincent was a dedicated motor sportsman, but try as they may, nobody could persuade him to compete at Langa Langa. “I can imagine nothing more boring than driving round and round the same piece of track. ” When urged to describe what would be to him an exciting event, he thought for a while and said “it would be one which covers a large mileage across all kinds of African roads. Slam the door and the first man home is the winner.”

There it was again – the same old longing for a long-distance, open road competition. Not a new song, but a haunting refrain that would not go away. Cecil and other enthusiasts such as Ian Craigie, the Competitions Secretary, pondered the problem of how to succeed where so many others had failed. Question: How to get the necessary administrative co-operation from territories outside East Africa? Answer: Don’t try. Keep the rally within the East African territories and thus have to deal with only one absolute authority, the Royal East African Automobile Association. A route starting and finishing in Nairobi and circumnavigating Lake Victoria in either a clockwise or anticlockwise direction was considered most suitable, with Controls at Jinja, Bukoba and Mwanza. Question: How to get the idea approved by the ‘establishment’ of the REAAA and the Competitions Committee, particularly in the difficult security situation prevailing? Answer: Appeal to the colonial establishment’s strong ties with the home country and the monarchy by making the event a tribute from the motoring public of East Africa to the young Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her forthcoming Coronation on June 2nd 1953.

The idea worked, and approval in principle was given by the REAAA. The matter was taken to the Committee, Colonel Manton suggested a name for the fledgling event, and Minute 115 of a meeting held on 21st January 1953 states:

“Coronation Safari: The question of a race from Nairobi round Lake Victoria and back was discussed, and the following points approved:

(a) The event shall be called the Coronation Safari, and for obvious reasons it was not to be suggested that the event was an out-and-out race, but would rather be on the lines that the event was a reliability trial.

(b) The Chairman (Colonel Manton) would send off a letter to all parties likely to be interested, but using care as to the wording of such a letter, bearing in mind the uncertain state of the country at this moment. Such a letter would in the first instance be sent to the trade and oil and tyre companies, with a view to obtaining their reactions as to support by them of such an event.

Reaction from the motor trade was favourable, and furthermore the East African Standard donated the princely sum of £500 and thereby became the sole sponsor of the event. A special Coronation Safari Regulations Committee was formed under the Chairmanship of Colonel Manton, its other two members being Eric Cecil and Ian Craigie.

But problems were still to arise. It became increasingly apparent that a route round lake Victoria was not practicable. The main difficulty was the unavoidable problem of the Kagera river which could only be crossed on a pontoon ferry. Cecil and Craigie were only too aware of the tricks their fellow sportsmen might play at the ferry – an early crew could easily persuade the ferry operator to be “off duty” for the arrival of a later crew. This and other potential trouble spots, such as unreliable bridges, caused the Committee to reconsider the wisdom of the route. Finally, a decision was taken to revert to the basic route proposed by Colonel Maitland Edye in 1950: a ‘Three Capitals’ Rally, with starting points in Uganda, Tanganyika, and Kenya, all to converge on Nairobi for the finish. Final Regulations, which relied heavily on the experience gained in the 1950 ‘Round the Mountain’ Reliability Trial, together with details of the route to be followed, were published on 27th April, 1953. The Three Capitals Trophy was taken out of the cupboard, polished up and offered as a major award.

Although no one realised it at the time, a star had been born.

Loading