Hail Baja - Day 2

Hail Baja – Day 2

The day’s drama started when, despite promises from the hotel management that breakfast would be served at 5am, none appeared. Seemingly no-one had told the kitchen, but fortunately we had planned for such eventualities and headed back to our room for an impromptu meal.

After reaching the Maghwat parc ferme and tracking down Sheila’s driver, we headed for the nearest petrol station to fill the race car before heading to the start, some 60km away. Our interpretation of the road book was that there would be firm bumpy tracks, so we only let the tyres down to 18/20psi. But within the first kilometer of the 300km stage it was clear that we had badly underestimated the terrain, and had to waste valuable time deflating to 15psi.

Then we discovered that we had no brakes, which came as a surprise as they’d worked fine on the prologue. Then, after about 50km, the fuel pump packed up, and after a few nervous minutes diagnosing the problem, we switched to the reserve pump and carried on.

But despite this, we managed to overtake quite a few vehicles both moving and broken down, and when we reached service at 200km we felt reasonably pleased with our progress. Sadly one of the cars we passed was Dave Mabbs’ FJ, out with a blown engine at the 150km point. At service we topped up with brake fluid, which promptly fell out of the broken flexible hose to the front right wheel – looks like we twatted a rock on the prologue and broke the union at the diff end. It being reinforced hose, we had no quick fix to hand and only a 20min service time, so we grabbed a bite to eat and carried on.

The terrain is quite different from Liwa, with more vegetation and generally firmer sand, but no huge desert dunes to speak of. The Patrol was running well, and Lee was doing a sterling job on the navigation, not greatly helped by a roadbook which contradicted the GPS data at every turn! At his instigation, we took several hors-piste detours off the track, enabling us to hit every one of the 128 waypoints. So in the final third of the stage, now with a lighter fuel load, we turned up the wick a bit and went for it. We still got caught by Hamad Al Thani from Qatar, running a much quicker T1 Patrol, but made a fast run through to the finish.

After the road liaison and refuel, we had only 3 hours to fix the car before it went into parc ferme again. Sheila and Hamad went in search of parts while I stripped out the damaged pipe, enabling Lee to take it as a sample. By the time they arrived it was late, dark and cold, and we only just managed to finish the repair, bleed the brakes and refit the wheel in time.

By counting the vehicles we passed (and were passed by) we guessed that we might be around 13th. However, it turns out that we are lying 10th overall, and 2nd in T2 class by a mere 6 minutes – less than the time we spent deflating the tyres! Team Saluki are 2nd overall, behind Yazeed Al Rajhi in a South African-built Nissan Navara, and seem to have finally laid their engine demons to rest.

Tomorrow we have it all to play for – can we make up six minutes on Ali Al Shawi’s brand new T2 Patrol? Will there be breakfast? Will we have brakes? Will our engine rebel against the relentless thrashing I’ve been giving it? By this time tomorrow, dear readers, these and many other questions will be answered.

(Pix: The Gates of Mordor, and leaving service)

Hail Baja Prologue

Six kilometres seems a lot for a prologue, in fact in a local EMSF rally it would almost qualify as a stage. We were given two hours to walk the route in the morning, and we needed it! It was very close to the Meghwat Rally Control and ran through a local park close to the mountains, and through a shallow wadi.

Lee did a great job of pace notes and although not fantastically quick, we made no real errors and came through (by our count) in 6mins 17 secs. So weren't best pleased to find that the timekeepers had given us 7mins 32 secs, putting us in 27th place out of 30, and promptly lodged a written complaint at rally control.

After the dust had settled and the drivers briefing was over, the timing gear was re-checked and our time was changed to 6mins 15.5 secs, bringing us up to 21st overall and 7th on T2 which isn't too bad.

Everyone here - local competitors, organisers, media, spectators - have been absolutely great. There was a huge turnout at the prologue and everyone wanted to have their photo taken with the khawajas!

Tomorrow is a 6am start, so we're up at 4.30 and the hotel has laid on breakfast at 5am specially for the rally crew, which is nice.

Next year they plan to extend it to 4 days and rename it the Arabian Desert Challenge - talk about throwing down the gauntlet!

Sheila - as Hail sees her.

With the benefit of hindsight, the Prado was probably not the ideal choice for towing a three and a half ton load 1700km. But it was either that or the Patrol, which is now in its 18th year and clearly past its prime. Even with its supercharger, we struggled to top 120kph on the flat, and any sort of incline or headwind knocked us back to around 90. But after the long haul up from Dubai to Riyadh, we reached the Al Janadriah Hotel in Hail at around 2.30pm Sunday, and had time to visit rally control and complete some of the formalities.

Most of the UAE entrants are housed at the Janadriah – Team FJ, Team Saluki, Nabeel Al Shamsi, Abdullah Al Heraiz with his beautifully prepared Patrol, as well as Miroslav Zapletal’s Czech team, fresh from their successful completion of the Dakar. Despite its removal from the FIA Baja Championship, the event has over 30 entrants, a third of whom are competing in our T2 class. Prize money is not yet confirmed, but rumoured to be over SR100,000 (₤20k). A small share of that would make our journey worthwhile!

Sheila seems to be able to get away with wearing jeans and sweater, with her head covered in an Arabic shayla or headscarf. Western women are still a rarity in Hail, almost a century after Gertrude Bell’s visit, so her appearance in any garb will hardly go unnoticed. Since she is unable to drive in Saudi, we have managed to retain a driver called Hamdan. He will take Sheila in the Prado, with its cargo of tools and spares, to and from the service point each day.

Hail is noticeably cooler than Riyadh, which was much colder than Dubai. At over 1000m altitude, its sere air dries lips and skin continually. As night falls, the mercury dips to around freezing and our rooms need heating. Hail is ringed by a mountain range which appears to have been transplanted from a ‘Lord of the Rings’ set. There’s even a wall between two mountains with a huge gateway – surely the entrance to Mordor! The city boasts interesting road features, too. The interchange behind Sheila we have christened ‘Blackbladder Roundabout’.

We’ve installed the GPS, Iritrack and Sentinel equipment, applied our lucky number 13 rally stickers, and successfully completed scrutineering, so we are all set for tomorrow’s prologue.

We got ourselves a convoy!

I drove the Prado with the race car on the new trailer for the first time yesterday, and a bowel-loosening experience it was. Having three and a half tons hanging off the towbar doesn't do a lot for the handling of our 1800kg Prado, the acceleration is non-existent, and it has the braking distance of a supertanker. So tomorrow's road trip is going to be an interesting one. All three teams - us, Team Saluki and Team FJ - have decided to meet up at 0630hrs Saturday and proceed in convoy. This may hopefully mean that we only have to explain once to the Saudi customs what we're up to.

Above are a couple of shots taken by Tim Ansell - a sunny day in RAK and a rather gray and rainy day in Dubai.

We've spent all day packing and making last minute preparations, removing the RAK rally stickers and replacing Sheila's name on the doors with Lee's. Now I'm going to bed.

1800km each way? We must be mad!

A Samuel Becket Day

In the play ‘Waiting for Godot’, nothing very much happens. And it carries on not happening for quite a long time. Samuel Becket’s play could well have been set in the visa section of the Saudi Consulate in Dubai, where I spent most of today.

Yesterday, we had our visa applications typed. But, for reasons best known to the Consulate, you have to wait till the next day to apply for your visas. So today, our P.R.O. took all three visa applications to the Consulate – where he was denied admission. According to the notice outside, with effect from 25th January, visa applications must be submitted in person or via one of their authorized service providers. Pointing out the fact that this is only the 19th January did not seem to impress them at all. So Sheila, Lee and myself had to drop everything to trek down to the Consulate, arriving around 10am.

There we met James Thomas of Team Saluki, who had already had the visa stamped into his passport the previous day. But there was a problem. The visa stated (in Arabic) ‘by air’, whereas, like us, Team Saluki are trailering their race car through the road border at Silla. So we queued, and waited. And waited. Time in the visa section passes slowly. Paint drying would be the cause of almost unbearable excitement. But eventually we reached the counter, where the official informed us that our visas would only be granted for air travel. We pointed out that this restriction would prevent us from participating in their prestigious international motorsport event, so what were they going to do about it? After some discussion, we were asked to return at 1.30pm to meet the consul and explain our problem to his excellency.

It being already noon, we decided to indulge in another extended period of waiting, and at 1.30pm we were waiting outside for the doors to open – after which we enjoyed another hour of waiting to be served, while the will to live slowly ebbed away. Finally, and without meeting said consul, we were informed that our visas would be processed for road travel, and James’s would be amended. But, since the bank counter only opens in the morning, they couldn’t accept our application as we couldn’t pay…so we should come back again tomorrow, between 9am and noon. And then, of course, come back again in the afternoon after 1.30pm (OK let’s be realistic, 2.30pm) to collect the visas.

However, after the frustration of wasted hours in the Saudi Consulate, things could only get better, and they did. Gareth turned up from his base in darkest Ras Al Khaimah with our trailer! Unfortunately, this silver lining had its own cloud – our towball is 2” diameter, whereas the hitch is 50mm. The 0.8mm difference is just enough to stop it fitting, so tomorrow the towball takes a turn on the lathe of our local machine shop. Oh, and we can’t get a 7-pin socket for the trailer lights here – but after a quick call to Team Saluki’s Mark Powell, their tuning guru Mark Adams has been dragooned into bringing one out from the UK tomorrow.

Team FJ’s Dave Mabbs will be up at the Consulate tomorrow – but we’ve made sure he knows how to avoid the road-trip issue. Because, although there’s rivalry, there’s also a great deal of camaraderie between the three UAE teams heading for Hail.

Hail, Dakar and Ras Al Khaimah

HAIL BAJA UPDATE

Last week I picked up the 2009 international rally licences from ATC for Sheila, Lee and myself, as well as the carnets-de-passage for Sheila’s Prado and the race car. These are now required for the border crossing to Saudi Arabia, unlike previous years when a simple police permit sufficed. The visa authorisations for Lee and myself also came through, and finally today Sheila’s came through as well. So these are going into the Saudi Consulate tomorrow for stamping.

On the car front, the inbuilt QuickAir 3 compressor started making a horrible noise when we were inflating the tyres at the end of the UAEDC. I pulled it out and stripped it down, to find that the main motor shaft, about 13mm diameter, had sheared off next to the bearing! So rather than try to repair it, I have decided to install a dive cylinder and regulator. This gives us compressed air at 200bar, and will provide more than enough air than we can expect to need even for the Challenge. (Of course, having made that decision, I was then unexpectedly able to find a replacement motor for the QuickAir – typical!) So our local dive shop, Scuba Dubai, have done a great job testing the tank and installing the fittings we need.

Lee and I have done a shake-down in the car over part of the 2008 DC route, and he’s got to grips with the Terratrip and the road book. Rally gear to fit him is being begged and borrowed from various sources. Our shiny new Ifor Williams car-trailer is in the port, and Gareth will hopefully arrive with it on Monday. I need to fit a new stereo into the Prado as I fear we may run out of conversation before the 3600km trip is over, and Saudi radio is unlikely to provide any relief from the tedium!



HAPPENS-TO-THE-BEST-OF-US DEPARTMENT

Nice quote from Giniel de Villers, the South African winner of the 2009 Dakar in a VW Toureg:

"20km from the end of the stage, I crossed a sand dune and I really had bad luck waiting for me on the other side. We were in the wrong place and ditched right into a hole. I lost 20 minutes trying to get out. The front of the car is a bit bruised but the car is so sturdy... it’s incredible. I hurt my back more than I hurt the car. There was nothing I could do to avoid it. It was just bad luck. Of course, I am a bit disappointed because we have lost even more time. We just have a lot of bad luck. This is really not our Dakar!"

So next time it happens to you, console yourself with the thought that even the professionals get it wrong sometimes!

“This really is not our Dakar!” You reckon? Perhaps, reading that again from his top step of the Dakar podium, he might reflect that he was being unduly hard on himself that day!

RAK RALLY

Finally, the last event in the 2008 UAE Cross-Country Championship was held this weekend in Ras Al Khaimah. We were seeded 8th out of 12 competitors, only nine of whom showed up for the spectator prologue stage on Friday. One of them managed spectacularly to break the front drive shaft of his V8 Patrol by landing it nose first after a jump, whereas we managed a fairly tidy attempt at the twisty circuit and ended up 5th.

That left eight of us to contest three stages over some 100km on Saturday. Recent rainfall meant that the sand was firm, and we were happy to get 6th place behind the more powerful T1 vehicles – our main concern being not to break anything before Hail!

Raed Baker won the event in his tasty Mitsubishi L200 pickup, all space-frame and carbon-fibre, followed by Bin Humaidan in his V8 Toyota-engined GQ Patrol, with Glen Reid 3rd in his V8 GM-powered GU Patrol.

Hail Baja beckons!

On 2nd January, the SAMF issued the following press release:

SAUDI AND GCC ENTRANTS PREPARE FOR PUNISHING HA’IL SAUDI BAJA

2009 Ha’il Baja will not count for FIA Baja championship points

RIYADH (Saudi Arabia): A host of Saudi Arabian drivers have entered the forthcoming Ha’il Saudi Baja, which takes place in the north-central region of the Kingdom on January 26th-29th. The entry will be dominated by drivers from the host nation and other GCC countries this year.

The event is being organised by the Saudi Arabian Motor Federation under the patronage of HRH Prince Saud Bin Abdul Mohsen Bin Abdul Aziz, Governor of Ha’il, President of the Supreme Commission for Ha’il Development and the Head of the Supreme Commission of the Ha’il Rally.

The FIA, motor sport’s governing body, have also confirmed that the 2009 Ha'il event will not count for FIA Baja championship points because of the restriction on female competitors taking part in a motor sport event in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This means that competitors taking part in the FIA Baja series will have to wait until the Northern Forest Rally in Russia to kick-start their points-scoring campaign at the end of February.

"This decision by the FIA is regrettable, but totally out of our hands," insisted Mishaal Al-Sudairy, chairman of the organising committee. "However, we will continue to advance and improve our event which crosses some of the most challenging terrain in the world, with a view to re-entering the FIA series in 2010. We have good support from local drivers and several teams from other GCC countries have expressed their desire to compete in Ha’il.

“We received terrific feedback from several of the world’s top teams last year when we were a round of the FIA Baja series for the first time and that gives us great confidence going forward into 2010 and beyond. We have the scope in Saudi Arabia to run some of the most difficult and admired cross-country events in the world and this small set-back will not sway us from planning our future path in off-road rallying.”

What this means is that SAMF has informed the FIA that they will not allow Sheila’s participation, and the FIA has removed the event from the Baja Championship – which is what they said they would do. So if any of our readers were hoping to score Championship points at Hail, I’m sorry.

I had already started canvassing for a substitute (male) co-driver, and after numerous rejections, and with time running out, today finally Lee Marshall said he’d do it. Lee (pictured here driving the ‘toast-rack’) and I were partners on the Sweep Team for the 2006 UAE Desert Challenge, and we hit it off immediately. Now the strength of that friendship is about to be tested! Lee has plenty of off-roading experience although he’s never competed in motorsport, and he’s a keen cyclist and triathlete (i.e. a lot fitter than me) so he definitely gets the first turn on the shovel if we have to dig!

So our revised entry is going in to SAMF today, and hopefully the required visit visas won’t take too long to come through – we have exactly 20 days to get ready for our planned departure on 24th January. We’re also trying for a visa for Sheila as support crew – we’ll see what happens. So far they have 14 entries (of which only two are T2) and the details are here.

Our ‘to-do’ list is now more administrative than technical, although the QuickAir 3 compressor on the race car has died so I am getting a dive tank fitted instead, for which I need a regulator. The Prado needs a road pass for Saudi as well as a new CD player (it’s a long drive), the race car needs its annual test, and Lee needs a rally licence.

But at least I have a co-driver – welcome to NewTrix Racing, Lee!