Never in the history of Namibia’s toughest rally has anyone won the event three times. That is, until this past weekend, when driver Wilro Dippenaar and his navigator Carolyn Swan, secured their third consecutive win at Namibia’s most iconic motorsport event, the oldest known rally in Africa and perhaps the toughest rally on the continent, the Tara Rally. The rally kicked off last week Thursday at the Tony Rust racetrack on the outskirts of Windhoek. 

The rally teams raced around the town of Rehoboth on Friday and returned to Windhoek on Saturday, covering just under 500km, which entailed over 180km of special and super special stages. 

Different classes of vehicles ensured a level playing field at the Tara Rally. These classes consist of the S and CR that indicate sedan or challenge (bakkie) classes. The S1 class allows cars with an engine capacity of up to 1600cc, S2 are sedans with an engine capacity of 1601 to 2000cc engines, S3 class entails cars with engines with 2001 to 3000cc, while S4 is fitted with 3l engines and above. Additional factors also determine the class category, such as if a vehicle uses a turbo or a rotary engine. The CR class consists only of two classes, namely the CR1 and 2. CR1 and CR2 refer to 2×4 and 4×4 vehicles, respectively. 

In the CR2 Class, the winners were once again the M&Z Motors team of driver Ekko Eisenberg and Horazio “Rassie” Rietz, second place went to SJ Schoeman and Chane Havenga an third place was taken by Chrizelda Engels and Ruan de Lange. 

The year’s event, which secured major corporate backing from Shell V-Power and JAC Motors as the headline partners, attracted 16 entries that set the stage for an adrenaline filled racing weekend.