With its rugged terrain, rocky roads and water crossings, the Safari Rally Kenya is one of the toughest rounds of the World Rally Championship. But two men, Naveen Puligilla from Hyderabad and Musa Sherif from Kasargod in Kerala, have chosen to make their WRC debut in the event which begins at Kasarani, near Nairobi, on March 20.
Naveen, a leading off-roader with three consecutive triumphs in the Hampi Utsav earlier, is rather new to the international rally scene. He did the full INRC National Championship in 2024 but has competed in just one rally outside India, in last year’s Asia Pacific Championship’s New Zealand round.
From that to the WRC is a huge leap.
“Not just me… nobody ever thought this will happen,” said Naveen in a chat with The Hindu.
“I always wanted to drive. But once I started getting a hang of better cars, I started to like driving the better cars more. I just wanted to try the speed track once and see how I can understand the track better. It’s all about driving and your passion in having control over the track. I thought, why don’t I take a chance,” he explained about the decision to take the big jump.
The 39-year-old, an architect and a businessman, had longed to drive fast cars from a very young age. But since he was overweight as a youngster, he had to wait and work out hard before thinking of entering the fast lane.
“I was very obese in 2015, around 130kg, I was competing in the Volkswagen Polo Cup and Rayomand Banajee (a former champion racer) was my instructor. I was very passionate about driving but Rayomand told me that it would be impossible to drive with that weight,” said Naveen.
He followed a strict regimen to cut flab after that and now weighs 75kg which allows him to drive freely and think big too.
Since he is rather new to the international scene, he signed up Musa Sherif – the country’s most experienced rally navigator – as his co-driver for the WRC Rally Kenya and the duo will be competing in the WRC-3 category in a Ford Fiesta Rally3, a four-wheel drive car.
“I wanted an experienced person to be around me, I wanted somebody who could understand international rallying,” said Naveen.
Incidentally Musa is the current National champion having won the INRC title with Karna Kadur late last year, the eighth time he was winning the National rally trophy. The Kerala ace has done 331 rallies of which 72 were with Gaurav Gill, perhaps the country’s greatest rally driver.
Musa is a seasoned pro, having competed in 91 international rallies but at 53 – an age when one’s eyes and reflexes are not at their best – he will have his first taste of the WRC.
“That will make Naveen and me the first all-Indian team in the WRC,” said Musa.
“Gaurav Gill and Naren Kumar had taken part in WRC earlier but their co-drivers were foreigners.”
For Naveen, who had finished runner-up in the South India Rally – an APRC-Asia Cup round – in Chennai last year with his co-driver Santosh Thomas, it will be his first big drive with the experienced Musa.
Unique challenge
And Kenya will throw up another new challenge.
“My Ford Fiesta in Kenya will be a left-hand drive. I’m a resident of Dubai as well, I keep driving left-hand drive cars there but I’ve never driven a left-hand in a rally,” said Naveen who began motorsport with go-karts as a kid.
“That way, driving in the WRC in a left-hand drive is a very big decision. But with an experienced person like Musa, I don’t think it will be a big problem because it’s all about controlled aggression in a rally. You have to know when to control your horses and when not to.
“It’s not that complicated, it’s purely based on the stages, everybody has been trying to tell me that the stages are very tough…let’s see how I do there.”
Naveen tried out a similar left-hand drive Fiesta on a forest route in Jakarta a few days ago and he felt very comfortable in it.
“When I trained in Indonesia, I felt like I was driving a car I really know,” he said.
The stages in Kenya are very long and the elephants, giraffes and zebras on the forest route should make it a wild and memorable adventure.
“Usually, in the INRC the total distance of the special stages will be something between 110 to 120km but here in the WRC, the special stages total around 385kms (total distance 1400km, including transport sector).
“The longest stage, at Camp Moran, in the 21-special stage, four-day rally (which will be mainly run near Naivasha, some 90km from Nairobi) is 32.20km,” said Musa.
“Our car’s top speed is 185kph which we will be doing in many places.”
Musa is a very busy man, very much in demand these days.
Last year, he did 16 rallies and he plans to do four more this year which should see him cross 100 international rallies soon.
“This year, it could be more than 20 rallies… I don’t think anybody else in the world will be doing 20 rallies in one year. I’ve already finished four this year, including two in the Middle East and one in Thailand,” said Musa.
He has done some very long ones too.
“Sanjay Takale (of Pune) and I have taken part in four Asia cross-country rallies, from Thailand to Cambodia …that’s a six-day event and the last one we did was in August,” said Musa.
“It’s mostly through jungle, wildlife area. The Asia cross-country has similar terrain like the Kenyan WRC round.”
Musa is a very flexible co-driver, in fact, there have been times when he has been in two or even three rallies in a month. Which means he has to adapt to different types of cars and drivers very quickly.
“I’ve driven with more than 50 different drivers, Naveen will be my 55th. Every month (in different rallies), there will be vehicle change, driver change, so I have to adapt immediately according to their notes because driver to driver the pace notes are different,” explained Musa.
The Kenya round will have many interesting twists and turns and the two had a lot to say on Monday night after their recce in a street car.
“Very tricky and very technical,” said Naveen.
“Very challenging stages, they have everything… rough, slippery, fast and narrow uphill drives. If it rains, it will be tougher,” said Musa. Check out our website at https://8dayk.com/ for the latest news and updates.
For Naveen, it will be like living a dream while Musa will have a lot more interesting stories to write in his long rally diary.
Published – March 18, 2025 11:04 pm IST