Down memory lane: Meet Kenya’s first homegrown female rally driver
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Reading Time: 2min | Thu. 27.02.25. | 12:09
“I was angry that we were hosting the Safari Rally annually and the few women who were participating were all foreigners."
It’s that time of the year again, when man and machine battle nature for the Safari Rally crown, now more prestigious since rejoining the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) series.
With several women’s crews set to light up the four-day competition running from Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 March in Nairobi and Naivasha, they walk a trail blazed by the late fashion icon, politician, women’s rights crusader and businesswoman Orie Rogo Manduli.
Manduli competed in the 1974 and 1975 Safari Rally when the event was truly the toughest round of the WRC with challenging terrain, extreme weather conditions, and demanding navigation on public roads.
Moving to private land has, however, not snatched that title from the Kenyan event.
“I was angry that we were hosting the Safari Rally annually and the few women who were participating were all foreigners. I wanted to prove that Kenyan women, too, could participate in car racing. I do not like to be put in a box or to be stereotyped," Manduli told the media in several interviews in yesteryears on her participation.
The trained teacher who was a beauty icon, being crowned Miss Kenya while still a teenager, was navigated by Sylvia Owino. The duo was flagged off by Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta in their brand-new Mitsubishi Colt Gallant.
“The Safari was hectic. It was, also beautiful and the most exciting thing I’d ever done in my life,” she said of the two editions she competed in, albeit without finishing.
This year’s event will see the renowned driver and former head of communication at the Ministry of Sports Pauline Sheghu, navigated by veteran Linet Ayuko in an all-female crew, enjoying a path that Manduli trod decades ago.
The mother-daughter duo of Caroline and Tinashe Gatimu add to the dynamic of women participating in the event. Tinashe, the driver, will steer her Subaru Impreza GC8 in her third Safari Rally, at just 18.
