The Spirit of Africa is the brain child of Sarel Van Der Merwe in conjunction with Mitsubishi Motors. I am not only a fan of this competition because I love and drive a Mitsubishi, but also because it’s something put together by the legendary Sarel.
Towards the end of 2007 I read about this competition again, and something inside me said I must do this. I spoke to Barto and together we decided that we will do it in 2008. We didn’t really know what to expect of the competition, so really, we were expecting the unexpected, and we were surprised at the end of the day.
Maritime Motors in Port Elizabeth was kind enough to lend us one of their vehicles to go and practise a bit a couple of weeks before we went up to Kosi Bay for the first stage of the competition. We appreciated this very much as it enabled us to get a feel for the vehicle.
We flew up to Durban, hired a car, and drove for about 450km to get to our destination. There we were met by Sarel and his team and enjoyed the first evening relaxing.
The next day it was time for all the heats of the competition. It turned out to be full on offroad racing. Where time, hitting poles, everything was counting against you. We enjoyed it very much.
The following day there were a couple more challenges, of which we turned out to be the first team to score full marks for one of them. That was a nice feather in our cap.
After that it was back home, after an incredible experience!
This year Bernadette and myself will be going up as a team and Barto with another friend.
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