And so begins the task..

42mm, Mr Goat? Nowhere near.
62mm, David? Getting better..
130mm, Ian? Very close, but since I told you the answer it doesn't qualify as a guess. (And anyway, you've had a ride in the Beast already!)

The worst dimension is 132mm, just over 5" in old money. This is the vertical outage on the front left chassis rail. If you combine this with 65mm lateral outage and 23mm longitudinal outage, it's actually 149mm away from where it should be!
So, since I don't allow anonymous people in my car, I pronounce David the winner. Now, if only I knew which David that was...but don't worry, I have plenty of time to find out - the car won't be doing passsenger rides any time soon!

Polimar have confirmed that they can re-align the chassis to 'factory spec' and repair the bodywork, but they need the engine out first. So the Beast is back at A2B, where they will pull out the engine and gearbox complete. (The gears were becoming increasingly hard to engage as the DC progressed, so we need to find out what's going on inside the bell-housing anyway.) Once that's done, I can trailer it back to Polimar for them to work their magic. Then it will be back to A2B for a long list of mechanical jobs.

I've ended up with almost 10 hours of high-quality in-car video from the DC. Now I need to view it all and find the interesting bits, and hopefully have it edited into something watchable!

Going to Car-O-Liner in my mind

It’s taken a while to get round to an update. Unfortunately, my ghost-writing colleague was so completely worn-out and knackered by his narrative efforts that he had to immediately rush off on holiday to India as soon as I got back from the DC. This left me, worn-out and knackered as I am from our rallying, to do some actual work in the office. Sadly, this has taken priority over blogging.

Anyway… 2nd April saw me heading back to White Sands Grocery with the trailer on tow, while Streaky and Dave Pryce headed out from Pryce Mansion in the leafy suburbs of Abu Dhabi. In accordance with my cunning plan, they reached the dead Patrol a lot earlier than me, and did all the donkey work. They winched the truck out of the hole, winched the steering rod into some semblance of straightness and (surprisingly) drove it back to the gatch track, where I only had to load it on the trailer. Job done, and many thanks to the two of them.

Back in Dubai, we realized that we had an impressive list of mechanical jobs to do. Front hub bolts to be drilled out and replaced, gearbox to be removed (sounds like a ton of sand in the clutch), front axle to be straightened, further work on the cooling and so on. And on. But before we get to that, we need to rectify the damage, which turned out to be much more than superficial. With the wings off, we could see that the chassis was bent, so I contacted Mr Sacco Dermoussissian at Polimar. Polimar have the Car-o-Liner, a piece of Swedish magic which makes a 3D map of the damaged chassis and compares it to the record in its 10,000-plus car database of what the chassis should look like. Each of the 60 datum points should be within 3mm of the original, and the data shows exactly what has to be pulled, pushed or massaged to achieve factory-perfect alignment.

So now we have a competition. Using your skill, judgement and the above photos, guess the maximum misalignment of the chassis in any direction. All I can tell you is that the left hand chassis rail is bent up, and both are bent to the right, and anything in excess of 9mm is sufficient to fail registration at Dubai Police (who also have a Car-o-Liner). The nearest guess wins a passenger ride in the Beast once it’s back in one piece!

It ain't over yet!

Well, first I must congratulate my ghost-writing friend Mr Ansell for his enormously creative and entertaining account of each days events, generally based on our five-minute phone call at the end of each day. All you have read is true - only the facts have been altered to make it more interesting.

The Beast is still in the desert, somewhere out near White Sands Grocery. (I won't give the exact location in case someone gets there before us and nicks it, although they'll have a tough job moving it!) So what needs doing? The tie-bar is so completely bent that moving the steering wheel only bends it more, without moving the wheels, so we need a big lump hammer to break the taper joints before we can replace it. The front LH wheel is off the rim, not a major problem. One of the main engine oil pipes is crushed against the clutch master cylinder, but not leaking - so we need to fix that before we run the engine, to avoid oil starvation. The engine runs but the throttle is sticking. The whole of the front LH area is stoved in, bonnet/wing/lights etc well knackered. Whether there is anough clearance for the front LH wheel to turn, we will only find out once the field repairs are accomplished. Oh, and we're down to three out of six bolts holding the RH hub in place - if they go, we're down the 2WD. The rest have sheared off one by one over the last 2 days.

The good news (yes, there is some!) is that despite all the penalties we got for yesterday's misadventure - about 18 hours by my reckoning - we managed a 10th place finish and have the trophies to prove it! Fadi Melky and Mario Mitri got the 6th place we were hoping for, along with the 3rd-in-Gulf prize, which would have been ours as well if the dice had rolled the other way. I'd set a top-ten finish as my aim, so I should be happy with that - but it's hard when it could have been so much better.

I now realise that we have the speed and the suspension to take on the best in the world - works teams excepted! We pulled 170kph (GPS reading) on the gatch track at the start of Day 5, and climbing through the dunes no-one could catch us. When we crashed out, we had only Novitsky (top seed and eventual winner in the BMW X3) ahead of us, having passed everyone else. With a bit more work on the cooling, we'll be set for next season.

Major thanks are due to Rick Carless and Cesar Marquez, our untiring service crew who battled (and bodged!) for 5 days to keep us running - without their hard work and late nights we'd never have made it. Words cannot express our gratitude, they are the real stars of the team.

Anyway, I have to go - there's a Beast in the desert that needs my help.

BUGGER!!

For once I’m afraid the witty comments and music hall gags escape me. Today started out full of promise, with Ian and Sheila lying in 6th place overall and 3rd in the T1 category. And as they set off on this, the last day of the 2010 Desert Challenge, they stormed through the field, soon dispatching one competitor after another on the early stage gatch track and dunes.

Eventually they caught up with friends Fadi and Mario in the “Strange Rover” and knowing Fadi is an excellent dune driver, Ian decided wisely to protect his race position and simply follow Fadi through the rough patches of desert.

Unfortunately, at some point, Ian drifted just a few feet to the side of Fadi’s own route. Maybe the width of a car or two but not more, yet in the desert, at race speeds, these things can make a huge difference. Fadi crossed a dune crest perfectly safely yet as the front of Ian and Sheila’s vehicle broke over the top just to the right of Fadi’s line, it slammed into rising terrain on the other side with such force that it broke the front suspension. With the vehicle crippled, the heart-broken pair knew their race was over. They were just 100kms from the finish of a 2,500 kilometre race and, having started later than Fadi, were incredibly, running in second place on the stage. Only the works BMW driven by a professional race driver was faster.

To add insult to injury, just a few minutes later one of the Abu Dhabi based Fitech cars came over the same dune, smacked into the back of Ian’s Patrol and incredibly, then drove off without stopping to see if anyone had been hurt or what damage had been done. So, to the French driver of the offending car, I take great pleasure in reminding you that if it wasn’t for Britain you’d be called Fritz, speaking German and eating sauerkraut right now. Ever heard of Trafalgar? Remember Agincourt? We whipped your boys there too. So we happily raise two fingers at you, in the traditional English archers salute. Read ‘em and weep.

Anyway, moving on…..

Ian and Sheila traveled back in a support car to the Yas Marina circuit for the race finish, then Ian and Rick returned to the race car to try, without success tonight, to recover it from the desert. Our good friend Streaky is currently driving a borrowed monstrous Ford F350 truck which is probably the most suitably equipped rig in the area to drag the Patrol to the side of the road, so tomorrow he’s offered to help recover it. Rick must hot foot it back to Dubai tonight because he’s on a plane home to Manchester about now – thanks Rick for your sterling support. What are you doing about this time next year mate?

Also thanks to Cesar who ably assisted Rick, Ian and Sheila. Sorry Cesar but it’s back to reality on Sunday – we’ve got an installation for you at Dubai Investment Park.

Aaaah. There’s always next year……………….!

Fadi went on to finish second on the stage I believe and second highest placed gulf team. A prize that might well have been Ian and Sheila’s but for lady ‘luck’.

Malcolm Anderson and Mark Schofield finished just outside the top 10 but Malcolm drove incredibly well today, covering over 100 kilometres in a 20 year old Range Rover with a broken diff and consequently without front wheel drive. Well done mate!

Sorry but as yet the official results are not on the race website so I can’t be sure how Team FJ got on.

Congratulations too to my friend, bike rider James West. After shattering his leg in last year’s race then suffering all sorts of complications with the recovery, James rode the race of his life this week and finished second overall, giving KTM bikes a 1-2 finish with Marc Coma taking the victory. A works ride for James can’t be that far away surely…….are you listening KTM???

Right, I’m so exhausted I’m now taking two weeks holiday to travel around India. Assuming I’m not eaten by tigers in Ranthambhore, in the words of Arnie. “I’ll be back”. Do you think I'll spot any cheese eating surrender monkeys while I'm there? Je ne sais pas.

Meanwhile ‘normal service will be resumed’ with Ian’s first post race post (ooh, I like that, first post race post. Sounds good) in the next 72 hours I’d imagine, when he and Sheila have slept off their exhaustion.

WELL DONE to the pair of you.