Day 4 start is only a 5 minute drive from the bivouac. The route heads west, then south through some huge dunes with many difficult slip-faces and bowls. I’ve driven this stage several times and relish the challenge! We start overtaking people even before we hit the southerly leg, and then suddenly we’re into a scene of carnage – competitors vehicles everywhere, some stuck, some uncertain how to proceed. I plough in, down to a soft bowl, realize that I can’t go forwards, so make a U-turn to try and escape parallel to my entry. But I’ve lost all my momentum, and our escape attempt stalls. I hit reverse, planning to get some altitude to gain momentum for another attempt. But as I reverse, I feel the tyres start to grip – so I floor the throttle and the car shoots up the dune in reverse! Reaching the top, I calmly turn the car round and carry on, leaving a dozen drivers watching in open-mouthed astonishment at this audacious manoeuvre. As we exit the high dunes and reach the subkha to head east, I still can’t believe what I’ve done. We’ve passed almost half the field in the space of 15km.
From this point on it seems we can’t put a foot wrong. We cross each succeeding dune ridge with ease, and although some of the cars we’ve passed end up re-passing us, most of them come to grief later on, and we pass them a second time. The blue Bowler Wildcat comes past like I’m standing still, and disappears into the distance, so we’re not going to catch him. Then I see another Patrol stuck ahead of us, so I back off and reverse to find a way past him. BANG! Oh shit, where did that Pajero come from?? I’ve reversed into a car I had no idea was there. It looks like only the bumper is damaged, we shout apologies through the open door, but I don’t want to waste time getting into a post mortem right now so we head off. I feel guilty, but hey, this is rallying and dinging a bumper is hardly a hanging offence.
To the east of the Crescent now and we’re into some horribly soft white dunes, and the blinding sunlight reflects off them, giving no sense of perspective. It’s too easy to make a nasty mistake, but taking it carefully in 1st gear, our Coopers pull us through without a problem. Then it’s into some easier plains, with only occasional dune ridges, before we end up reprising the closing stage of day 1. And on the last dune of the day, there is the blue Bowler – they’ve had a stuck and are just putting the sand ladders away. I power past them, determined not to let them overtake us in the final 5km before the finish!
We know we’ve had a good day, we’ve passed so many cars and not had a single stuck. It‘s only later that we find out how good – 13th on the day! It is to be our best result of the week.
More rips are appearing in the front cross member, and Maurice and Cesar are kept busy fabricating more ironmongery to hold it together. It only has to hold for one more day..
These are the voyages of the starship 'Newtrix'. Its multi-year mission: to compete in any rally within striking distance of Dubai, and to acquire shiny trophies. To boldly go wherever this quest may take us, as long as we can be home in time for tea.
