Jeff Fialho: My favourite people
Joginder Singh - The Flying Sikh (Kenya Rally Champion)
Joginder Singh was a successful Kenyan rally driver in the 1960s and 70s and was noted for winning the gruelling Safari rally three times. This event is rated as the toughest and most challenging in the World Rally Championship calendar.
Joginder started his rallying
career in the early 60s, driving Volkswagen motorcars and achieved his first
outright win in 1965, driving with brother Jaswant in a Volvo PV544 a vehicle
that was written off in the year before by a Swedish competitor. He was
previously an REAAA patrol man and his historic first Safari win proved to be a
triumph against expectations and a defiance of superstition.
It was the 13th running of the
event, and the car was given the number one, which was at the time considered
an unlucky number in the Safari. Subsequent wins came in 1974 and 1976 in a
Mitsubishi Lancer 1600 GSR...He is fondly known as the Flying Sikh. His record
of 19 finishes in 22 attempts at the rally is an unprecedented feat of
consistency in what is regarded as the world's toughest rally, where the
attrition rate can exceed 90%. He has competed in several different makes of
motorcar and was one of seven crews to finish the gruelling 1963 event when
only seven cars completed.
He had no experience in motorsport until he was 26 but made up for his late start by eventually accumulating over 60 wins in the East African rally championship in Kenya Uganda and Tanzania and aside from his three wins on the Safari rally he has scored three top five finishes in the southern Cross rally in Australia and in the 1970s was twice awarded Kenya’s motor sportsman of the year title – 1970 and 1976 Joginder died in London aged 81 of a heart attack and is revered by the Asian community who regard him as the Simba (Lion) of rally driving.
Vic Preston Senior -
Kenyan Rally driver Why Vic Preston Snr you might ask? As a petrolhead, I have
followed the Coronation Safari since its inauguration in 1953 when a certain
Vic Preston attracted my attention for completing the event in a rather unusual
vehicle – a Czech Tatra 600. The name Vic Preston is synonymous with raw speed.
Vic Preston Senior is regarded as a motorsport legend of Kenya for being a
talented rallyman man a sports car and motorcycle racer. He became one of the most
prominent figures of the first Coronation Safari rally until it became known as
the East African Safari In 1959.
Vic Preston would win the Safari in 1954 and 1955 in Volkswagen and Ford Zephyr cars, respectively. It is worth mentioning that on one occasion while leaving Kampala to head back towards the finish in Nairobi, he and his co-driver experienced a problem with the car in that the splines of the rear hub had sheared. Preston cut a deep V into the hub with a cold chisel, refitted the hub onto the driveshaft and rammed the chisel home as a key.
Along the road, they located a
similar Volkswagen which belonged to a young lady about to take a cruise on a
lake steamer. Preston asked the lady if they could borrow her rear hub to which
she agreed and the local Volkswagen agent promised to repair her car free of
charge. They went on to win. As a sports car driver in 1962, Vic Preston won
the national track driving championship in a Lotus MK 20. He was then signed up
by Ford to start a five- year collaboration and in 1965 finished third in in
the rally in a Ford Cortina. His last finish came in 1967 when driving a Ford
Lotus Cortina he finished second behind the Peugeot 404 of Bert Shankland with
Peter Hughes in a Ford Cortina GT finishing third.
My claim to fame is that I was
able to successfully predict the first three finishers in that event this year
and shared the prize with thirteen winners of the competition organised by the
Esso petroleum company in Kenya. Preston Senior abandoned rallying in the late
60s and remained largely involved in motorsport as a promoter of the Safari
rally. He took his own life at the age of 69 in 1998. His son Victor Preston
Junior was to follow his footsteps also with great success and drove for
Lancia, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi and Nissan factory teams
His highest place in the Safari
rally was second in a Porsche 911. He has been regarded by many as one of the
best drivers of his generation, and sadly passed away at the age of 72.
Such is the Vic Preston Heritage.
Ayrton Senna was a Brazilian
racing driver who competed in F1 – Formula One from 1984 to 1994 and won three
Formula One world drivers championship titles with McLaren. At the time of his
death on 1 May 1994, he held the record for most pole positions and most wins
at the glamorous Monaco Grand Prix making him the Master of Monaco. With his
brilliance, one cannot help but wonder how many records he may have broken had
he not been so tragically taken away from us at the young age of 34.
Although he passed away over 30
years ago, Senna is still viewed as one of the greatest drivers ever to take
the Formula One grid and has earned the reputation of being one of the finest
drivers in the rain. His tragic death at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994
forever changed the sport. F1 hierarchy believed that his death would be the
end of the sport. However, for the good of the sport, we are thankful that this
has not been the case. Senna a three times world champion and one of the
biggest names in the sport died instantly
when his Williams car ran off the
road at 190 mph and hit a concrete wall on the seventh lap of the Tamburello
corner at the Imola circuit. The car was demolished. Senna slumped in the
cockpit. A helicopter flew him to the Maggiore hospital but his forehead was
crushed beyond medical skill. He engaged in an epic battle for supremacy with
his team partner Alain Prost his mantra being – there are certain things in
life over which we have no control – I cannot quit.
Senna has secured 41 victories,
65 pole positions and 80 podiums. His remarkable driving skills and daring
overtaking manoeuvres brought excitement to all viewers worldwide with his
death being mourned by all. It must be stated that in his career he secured
victories in machinery, much less competitive than that of his colleagues. He
is responsible for one of the most iconic memories in the sport, namely the
passing of multiple drivers on the opening circuit of the 1993 European Grand
Prix and his daring overtaking skills and raw speed.
His dramatic drive to the front
is now known as the “lap of the gods“. He was never afraid to force himself or
call to new levels despite deadly risks and his ability to drag a car beyond
its limit and yet keep it on the track I found mightily impressive.
His tragic death was a great loss
to the sport, with the actual cause of death still being questioned. It has been
stated that the steering rod on his car had metal fatigue, likening it to a piece
of gas pipe… There are astonishing pictures of his car, which have not been made
public but the Brazilian racing team Williams and the Italian magistrate in
charge of the official crash investigation refuse to comment about the tragedy
and the vehicle remains impounded in Maranello.
A verdict of accidental death was
announced, but many disagree. Formula One racing has not been the same for me to
watch since Senna's passing and I believe that he is the greatest of all time
and died too young. We were not given the chance to see him reach his peak. Long
live the legend.
Winston Churchill – British
statesman and prime minister.
Winston Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who served as Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955.
He was the first to call for a
United States of Europe. Following the Second World War, he was convinced that
only a united Europe could guarantee peace, and he aimed to eliminate the
European ills of nationalism and war mongering once and for all.
Thus, the driving force behind
the anti-Hitler coalition became an active campaign for Europe’s cause.
After becoming Prime Minister in
1940 he helped lead a successful allied strategy with the United States and
Soviet union during World War II to defeat Nazi Germany.
My Early Life by Winston
Churchill was one of the books that I read when preparing for my GCEO levels,
and a few of his famous quotes remain embedded in my mind:
If you are going through hell,
keep going.
Now is not the end.
We make a living by what we get –
we make a life by what we give.
To improve is to change. To be
perfect, change often.
A pessimist sees the difficulty
in every opportunity, an opportunist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
These words have given me much
inspiration over the years. Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature
in 1953 for his many published works. He has also come in for criticism and has
been described as being “gloriously unfit for office”
His second term as Prime Minister
was most noticeable for the Conservatives party’s acceptance of Labour's new
welfare state, and Churchill’s effect on domestic policy was limited. His later
attempts at decreasing the developing Cold War through personal diplomacy
failed to produce significant results, and poor health forced him to resign in
1955, making way for his foreign secretary and deputy prime minister, Anthony
Eden.
In 1963, President JFK bestowed
Churchill the honorary US citizenship - the first time a president has given
such an award to a foreign national. Winston Churchill died on 24 January 1965
and is still regarded as one of the greatest statesmen of all time and an
outstanding world leader.
Nelson Mandela - First black president of South Africa. Nelson Mandela was a Black nationalist and the first black president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.
His negotiations in the early
1990s with South African president FW de Klerk helped end the apartheid system
of racial segregation and assured a peaceful transition to majority rule.
Mandela and de Klerk were jointly
awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993 for their efforts. Nelson Mandela is
known for several things, but perhaps best known for successfully leading the
resistance to South Africa’s
policy of apartheid in the 20th century when he was in famously
incarcerated at Robben Island
Prison from 1964 - 1982.
I visited South Africa in the
summer of 2023 and attempted to visit Robben Island but was not allowed to, on
the grounds that the mist had heavily descended, but local sources informed us that
the place is in a state of neglect and tourists were being deterred from
visiting.
Mandela served 27 years in prison,
split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor and Victor Prison. Amid growing domestic
and international pressure and fears of racial civil war, President FW de Klerk
released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to
apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which
Mandela led the ANC to victory.
Globally regarded as an icon of
democracy and social justice, he received more than 260 awards over 40 years,
most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, and from 1994 to 1999 he was president
of South Africa, the first African to be
elected in a fully representative democratic poll.
His famous mantra: “As long as
poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can
truly rest”
He is held in deep respect in
South Africa (and the world), where he is often referred to by his clan name: “Madiba”,
described as “Father of the Nation”
A man with a formidable record.
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