Me and the Safari - Biasion Lancia Delta in Kenya

The magic of victory is never the same, because of the way you built it and obtained it, because of the opponents you competed against and beat and because of the place or circumstances in which you achieved it. It was like this for me too: the first in my career; the first in the world rally championship; the one conquered by force or invented with cunning. The one in which the heart prevailed over the foot and the brain. Twenty-eight times fate or destiny ensured that I achieved success in my career, seventeen times in the highest level rallies. Impossible to decide on a ranking. Yet, among them all, one dominates in my memory: the victory at the 1988 Safari.

A perfect, even historic victory. I was not considered to be among the favourites and Lancia had never won the legendary Kenyan rally, a unique challenge of its kind and therefore unparalleled, the most difficult, unpredictable and fearsome ever for men and vehicles.

Perhaps due to the fact that today the Safari is reduced to a rally like all the others and from the past it retains only the name and not the spirit, or perhaps because of that season for Lancia we are, alas, losing the memory; this is – if it can be said – the reason that this book is not only and not so much about Miki Biasion in East Africa, but about the epic period of the Safari, which can be summarized in two numbers: 3 wins in 6 appearances.

As in my other literary experiences, this diary took shape by involving a long-time friend such as Maurizio Ravaglia, who at the time as a journalist reported live on a dozen rallies in Kenya. I wanted not only to illustrate the joys and disappointments felt at the steering wheel and the most curious or bizarre racing episodes, but also to show what the Safari was like behind the scenes: from the preparation of the various versions of the Delta “Safari” to the different phases and secrets of planning this equatorial rally event. With the aim and pleasure of reviving the atmosphere of that fantastic African version of the ‘Mille Miglia’ and those years full of fascination.