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!
