Just needed to take the race car out to calibrate the trip-meter, so we headed out on Al Qudra Road. After a couple of attempts we still needed to run another km, which took us past a parked police car - who promptly nicked us for driving a rally car on the road. So I followed him to Barsha Police Station, kicking out Sheila an route to pick up all the relevant documents and follow us there.
Finally they decided that the car must be impounded till Sunday, which would be a total disaster! At this point I realised industrial-strength wasta was called for. I asked Ronan Morgan if he could get Mohd Bin Sulayem on the case, and late yesterday evening he called back to tell me 'the fix was in'. After a nervous few hours we picked the car up this morning, took it to Abu Dhabi and breezed through scrutineering. I owe Ronan and Mohd big-time.
Not so lucky were our friends Matar Al Mansoori (wrong restrictor size) and Dave Mabbs (wrong restrictor, plus they need to stop oil coming out of the front diff and the timing cover). Sounds like they'll be working late tonight. 40 vehicles were still awaited from a vessel docking at 6am this morning, so that's 40 more teams who are worse off than us.
For once, and to our great surprise, we're ahead of the game.
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.
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