Hail Day 3

Once again we are up at sparrow-fart to unleash The Beast from its cage that is parc ferme. It's barely light and it's damned cold - a thermometer reads 3 degrees c as we head out through Hail for another 100km-plus liaison to the stage start. The steering is OK-ish - there's a wobble at certain speeds on the road and I suspect the steering damper is on its way out.

On the road, the engine water temperature never exceeds 50 - and that's without using the twin electric fans! So we seem for have overcome that problem at least. At the start we head off for a 212km stage, again new to us all. It promises some rough and rocky sections and I worry about tyre pressures. In the end I stick with 18/19 as the majority of the route is sand.

The route starts off with some wide plains where we can use some of the Beast's speed, but soon we're into twisty, bumpy tracks among small dunes, and areas of sharp stones hidden in the sand. We run wide at one point and I see a nasty rock just too late to avoid - the front right is punctures and the rim is damaged. We swing into action with the trolley jack and rattle gun. We're not exactly F1 standard, but our wheel change is pretty slick, and we head off to the viewing point just ahead where Sheila, Osama and Desert Knights service team await. Then I realise that the rear right is damaged too, and when we stop just past them to change it, they run up to assist in another wheel change. Oh, and the battery clamp has come loose and the battery is just lying there, and the wash-bottle is only held on by one bolt. So we ditch the wash-bottle, refit the battery, bin the damaged wheel and rim and continue. But carefully - because we've now run out of spare wheels.

The steering is a bit stiff but manageable - until we reach 144 kms, when it becomes very heavy. Oh no, not again! We've lost the belt - and the welded-on pulley. This time the pulley is gone for good and we're completely stuffed. We inform control through the Iritrak and wait for the sweep team to arrive.

Their brief is to tow us to the nearest tarmac - but the guys from Jeddah 4x4 go the extra mile - well, actually it's more like an extra 100km. They argue with the police, who finally allow them to tow us to the outskirts to Hail, where we get a recovery truck to deliver us back to Rally Control. (Towing through Hail in the rush hour would have been suicidal!)

So once again we take 8 hours of penalties. But we do have a finish - 29th place (i.e. last), which is better than 5 others who failed to start day 3! The closing ceremony is scheduled for 'sometime after 5pm' and we're determined to get the car over the finish ramp, come what may. It eventually kicks off at 9pm, by which time most of us have lost the will to live, having been hanging around since about 3pm. The engine runs - but with no water pump operating, I don't want it running for any more than a minute or two at a time.

Finally it's our turn, and we park it on the ramp to shake hands with Someone Important - probably the new head of SAMF. We accept our finishers' trophies and suddenly it's all over.

Not our greatest rally, really, but we've had fun. Richard has been an absolute star, learning rally nav and tripmeter-calibration on the job, getting stuck in with some awesome bush-engineering. What can I say about Sheila? She's been running the show, organising food and running around with Osama out on the stages, and out with various other strange men to find parts. Osama, Tariq and all the guys from Desert Knights get a special mention for all their help, as do Jeddah 4x4 Club, whose menbers form the sweep team. Matar Al Mansouri, who stayed late to help us fix our oil pipe, Saeed Al Hameli for the transport, Elie Semaan (the Clerk of the Course) who probably should have given us even more penalties than he did - and so many spectators and competitors who became our friends and saviours over the course of a week in Hail. Many, many thanks to you all - and yes, despite everything, we'll probably be back next year.

The results are here.