In a boardroom decision, former National Rally Champion Nasser Mutebi was declared the winner of the just concluded Southern Motor Club (SMC) Challenge Rally in Masaka and Kyotera districts.

The event that took place on Saturday and Sunday, April 13-14 had Jas Mangat as the winner, but after a review of the results, the stewards on April 17, excluded Mangat as having not finished the rally.

According to Kakeeto Saed, a steward in the event, they considered the time taken by Mangat to return to the service park and also the tracking device which indicated that he spent much time in one position.

“Having found sufficient evidence of outside assistance by following the chronological order of how events unfolded in TC 6 up to the time of his arrival at the service park, we discovered that there is no way he can still be classified as a finisher,” Kakeeto said.

The decision handed Mutebi, who had finished second behind Mangat, victory.

The steward’s decision ended Mutebi’s jinx of 13 years without winning an event and this is a motivation for him to aim for more wins.  

With the change in the results, Jonas Kansiime who finished third behind Moustapha Mukasa, now leads the NRC log with 93 points, seven ahead of Mukasa (86pts).

Mangat is now relegated to fifth position with the 60 points he got after winning the Mbarara rally.

The delay in the release of the final results put the prize giving of the event on hold and will be held on Saturday in Kyebando.

Mangat navigated by Enock Olinga in the Hyundai i20 had dominated all the stages till in the sixth stage when his car got mechanical issues and called his service crew to rectify the fault.

The SMC Challenge rally was the second leg of the NRC and 10 out of 25 drivers finished the two-day event that had 119.35km of 137.43km of the entire rally covered after canceling the power stage.

The SMC Challenge helped the crews to prepare and fine-tune their machines ahead of the Pearl of Rally next month May 10-12 in Jinja which doubles as the third leg of NRC and the opening leg of the Africa Rally Champion.

SMC Challenge rally final results

1.Nasser Mutebi 1:39:06.9

2.Moustapha Mukasa 1:42:56.6

3.Jonas Kansiime 1:46:43.4

4.Didas Matsiko 1:52:16.4

5.Isaac Ssozi 1:52:17.4

6. Fred Busulwa 1:57:06.1

7. Faisal Kayira 1:58:16.2

8.Edward 1:58:30.0

9. Julius Ssemambo 2:01:38.61

10. Hajji Amir Kavuma 2:08:30.8

Top five on NRC Standings:

Jonas Kansiime 93points

Moustapha Mukasa 86

Didas Matsiko 75.5

Isaac Ssozi 68

Jas Mangat 60