A lot of balls

Lock up your daughters. For t’is I, the phantomest blogger this side of Phantom Blogsdale. Once again I have cracked the top secret and n’er to be discussed password (“newtrixpassword123”) of their dognesses account, and once again I shall be plumbing new blog depths, in a James Cameron / Mariana Trench sort of way. But obviously without the funding, the back-up, the global interest, 7 miles of garden hose or indeed, the pictures. But more on that later.

The entire NewTrix support team (that’s Rick “I’ll never leave you Carless”, Offshore Ian and I) gathered en masse this afternoon at the windswept, bland, featureless, flat, dull, boring piece of litter and re-bar strewn wasteland known as a “Special Stage”, in deepest, darkest Abu Dhabi. It’s a “Special Stage” in much the same way that some schools are “Special Schools”. For reasons known only to those of greater foresight and wisdom than I, this windswept, bland etc. etc. is now the regular home of the two minute televised spectator stage dash, designed to mix up the starting order a bit and to teach all the show offs a lesson. This year it was the turn of the second “G Force” team, car# 205, driven by Vladimir Vasilyev and co-driven by Vitaly Yevtyekhov, to make complete fools of themselves. As they passed the corner from which I was photographing, they spun the car round so hard that a large rock flew out and hit me on the back of the head (I was ducking for cover by then). Somewhat miffed by this, after regaining consciousness and borrowing 3 pints of blood, I shouted after them “You bounders, I jolly well hope you suffer from ill fortune within a very short space of time”. And 30 seconds later they rolled their car onto its side. HAH! Nobody messes with the Phantom Blogger and gets away with it. I can’t help wondering if tomorrow, that particular car will have been rebranded “Centripetal Force”

Oh you’ll notice from some of the shots that in an attempt to brighten up the windswept bland etc. etc. the organisers placed large blue and green plastic balls atop the steel marker posts. Many drivers struck these posts, causing their balls to fly off in different directions during the rally, whilst others drove ‘balls out’, meaning that they kept their car lined up between the balls, thus avoiding striking their balls on the front bumper. One driver drove over balls dropped by a previous competitor, crushing one of them and putting a nasty dent in the other. He struggled to cross the line and appeared to be in a great deal of discomfort. This is probably an opportune time to say “Thanks for all your hard work” to Dr. Sean Petherbridge and his medical / SAR team.

Unlike the Russians with the Countdown conundrum names, Ian and Sheila drove in a very considerate manner, allowing me to take a great many photographs with my Canon 7D camera and 70-200mm lens. They were all technically outstanding photos showing appropriate depth of field, perfect exposure, pin sharp details and yet eye wateringly beautiful motion blur of the wheels and scattered dust. I tell you that because not one of those pictures is here on this blog. For the first time in the 4 years I’ve been shooting with digital cameras, one of my memory cards became corrupted and I lost all the shots. Did it happen midway through the shoot so I could change cards? No it happened after I’d actually finished shooting, so I lost everything taken on that camera. Canon uses the CF format card and today I learned what those initials stand for. Completely Fubar. Fortunately, being the consummate professional (as opposed to a consummating professional) I also carry a second camera (my venerable – and reliable 40D) and the shots seen here today were captured with that. Hurrah for back up equipment.

Speaking of which, just an hour before I left the office to drive down to Abu Dhabi, TNT delivered the long lost drag link. So, unlike last year, this time when I carried some spare parts down to the team, a) they were the right parts, and b) they were genuinely happy to receive them.

Finally a quick “Bongiorno” to our mate Tommaso “No mates” Castellezi whose presence at the rally is always very welcome. Tommy earned this entirely inaccurate nick-name simply because he races his Land Rover Defender without the aid of a co-driver, thus “no mate” in the car. But the fact is that you won’t find a nicer, more pleasant and friendly competitor than Tommy (well, not now I’ve retired) and it’s great to see him back racing. “Forza Castelazzi”

Until tomorrow, ciao, arrividerci.

News just in: Ian and Sheila will start tomorrow in 14th position, which is an excellent spot. They finished the stage in 2’11”, 2 seconds ahead of Mark Powell, 6 faster than Dave Mabbs, and 7 faster than the team who have no scruples. Stick that in your baguette and smoke it.