It's race against time as mechanics put on final touches

Mechanics give rally cars their final touches at the service park at the Wildlife Research and Training Institute as teams prepare for the start of the 2026 WRC Safari Rally Kenya in Naivasha.[Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

Mechanics were racing against time to fix different car components on racing machines before the WRC Safari Rally gets underway this morning in Naivasha.

Kenya Wildlife Service Research and Training Institute has been a hive of activity as the crew seeks to beat time ahead of the Shakedown this morning.

One of the rally cars being fixed was that of Diego Domínguez, who'll be navigated by Rogelio Penate.

Dominguez, who'll be taking part in WRC Rally 2, will be driving a Toyota Yaris.

As all these went on, foreign rally fans started trooping into the lakeside town while others were on their way for the four-day-motorsports extravaganza.

"Some of my countrymen are already there (Naivasha), but I'll be on my way tomorrow (today) so that we can team up together just the same way we have done in the past," Ugandan Patrick Onyango told Standard Sports from Kampala.

Most of these rally fans had bookings at their hotels. Most of them are from the East African Community (EAC) block of Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania.