The engine's sooty, so we'll sweep instead.

You were probably thinking that with Ian and Sheila retired from the rally, there would be nothing for a Phantom Blogger to do but put his feet up and enjoy a dram or two of Scotland’s finest fire water. Yes, so was he. But alas, just as I was thinking of cracking open a bottle this evening, Ian rang to tell me about his day, and halfway through the conversation, I realised that the words “update” and “blog” were about to leave his lips. I desperately tried to drop the phone in a convincing manner, but the fact that you’re now reading these words means I clearly didn’t get away with it.

Today's photo, of Ian and Sheila leaving the Start ramp at the Prologue, is brought to you by Bob McCaffrey, motor sports photographer extraordinaire. 1/400 @ f 2.8 Bob. You'll be fine.

With The Liwa Four (Sheila, Ian, Rick & Ian. Pay attention) now enjoying an early summer holiday, they decided to do what any sane person(s) would do when surrounded by sand – i.e. go and play in it, in Ian’s regular road / sand going Nissan Patrol. Their initial foray was merely to PC 1 to watch the first 10 or so cars go by, but they decided that that was as boring as watching 10 cars go by in the desert, so they low ratio and high tailed it across to PC2, where they bumped in Rear Vice Admiral Sir John Mitchell Ross, DSOB @ Bar. John is Commander of the Royal Bathtime fleet, but that has nothing to do with his title of Rear Vice Admiral. You ask him.

JMR is also a legend in his own mind, and a fully signed up member of the Sweep Team - his brush work is amazing. Sheila, Ian, Rick and Ian (you’ll noticed I swapped the two Ians around there just to break things up a bit) offered to join John in his quest for scrap iron a.k.a. abandoned rally vehicles, as a sort of ‘voluntary community sweep car’. It entitles them to the same privileges (i.e. none) but at least they don’t have to damage their car’s paint work with big stickers. So off they jolly well sauntered into the desert, hurling abuse at passing seagulls and galavanting in a manner which only they considered heroic, when they were flagged down by a somewhat concerned co-driver, Dan Schemel, whose driver Boris Gadasin was suffering badly from dehydration.

After the medic who was traveling with JMR took a look at Boris it was decided that he was too ill to continue and a helicopter was called to the scene. However in the very few minutes it took to arrive, the rehydration fluids he’d been drinking and taking by intravenous drip had begun to take effect and he decided he was well enough to drive to the end of the stage. FYI Under such circumstances race crews must actually sign a waiver to say they’ve been advised not to proceed and are doing so voluntarily and at their own risk. Boris did so and though Ian and Sheila (and Ian and Rick) were tasked with keeping up with them to the finish, that’s easier said than done when you’re chasing a rally car. Eventually they gave up the chase and proceeded to the final PC, stopping to help a couple of competitors along the way, then towing one of the same competitors the 15kms back from the final PC to the bivouac after his vehicle suffered gearbox failure practically on the finish line. Which was a ‘lucky’ place to break down I guess.

Much to their surprise, at the Driver’s Briefing later that evening, all round nice chap Mr. Ronan Morgan, who is Clerk of the Course of course, announced that for their sterling efforts today (it’s Euros tomorrow and Yen on Thursday), Ian and Sheila had won the Spirit of the Rally award. The award, four days holiday in Barbados for two people, including all flights and sun tan lotion*, is given each day to those folks adjudged to have embodied the true spirit of the rally. Ian thanked the cheering crowd profusely, and said that after blowing the engine yesterday, he couldn’t have embodied much more spirit last night if he’d tried.

* Actually, it’s two petrol vouchers, but we live in hope.

And thus, folks, you now know how a 15 minute phone call is turned into an hour’s work and 700 words of drivel, simply to keep you entertained for 10 minutes. There's no need to thank me, but if you insist, used notes in small denominations are perfectly acceptable. It's Sterling today and Yen on Thursday. You can keep your Euros merci.

In other news, Tommy’s hanging in there, whilst a few people with a lot more money than Newtrix are still chasing each other around the dunes in some sort of race. Don’t give up Tommy.