A dog called Digger. Damn. Busted.

Another day, another six hours spent hurtling like a turtle through the Rub Al Khali, the incessant rolling and pounding of the DogBox not made any easier by the fact that, overloaded as it was in the absence of its rear counterpart, (see yesterday’s work of fictitious drivel), now the front left damper has detatched itself from the front axle. So long and thanks for your support. Now the car looks like it's been set up for a NASCAR race. Yeehar, rubbin's racin' boys.....


Look, we had all four dampers in the prologue!



No doubt with his energy drained by having to man-handle a Patrol bouncier than a space hopper experiencing a sugar rush, Ian fell foul of a couple sand traps this afternoon. He tried using a wedge to chip out and although that didn’t work, he did at least realise that the car was easier to drive once he’d stopped wearing such ridiculous footwear. At one point they were stuck for close to 40 minutes, and I can tell you that if you can’t extricate yourself from a stuck in the first 5 or 10 minutes, you just know you are going to be there for the long haul, and it saps not just your physical energy but your mental resolve too. Digging yourself out of a sand dune at any time is exhausting work, but when you are dressed from head to foot in fireproof clothing, the sun is overhead, and in the background you can hear, and often see, competitors’ cars passing you at speed, the frustration builds very quickly. That in turn tends to lead to rushed decisions to try to move the car when really you should probably dig for a few more minutes, often with the result that the car just sinks down to its axles again, taking your heart with it.

But just when you feel as though you can’t go on, the kindness of other competitors often shines through, and today it was Emirati driver Mansour Al-Heli and co-driver Ali Mirza (car #217) who pulled up alongside Ian and Sheila, hooked their own Nissan onto Ian’s, and helped pull their Dognessess free from the clutches of the desert. And the brake calipers of the desert, and the front spoilers of the desert, and all the other detritus of broken cars lying around in the sand. Thanks Mansour.



Mr. R Carless from the UK wrote "More dirty photos please P.B."
Happy to oblige Rick. How dirty do you want?

 From there it was a 40 minute run down to the Finish line, where Richard was found barely alive, having lost the will to live under the weight of 115 SMS updates from Nextrix Mission Command; my chair in the office. I’d raised the Newtrix Crisis Intervention Level from DefDog 1 (lower cup of tea and frown) to DefDog 4 (Well I suppose I’d better put the deckchairs back in the boot then) when I saw they were having problems, and Richard had lost no time at all taking affirmative action. He’d told Fred to put another spoon of sugar in each of their teas, in case they needed the energy later. Sterling work chaps, keep calm and pass the scones. 

Nice to see Sunderland winning for a change.

So that was Day Four in a nut-house. Sorry, nut-shell. The only other exciting news of the day was that Ian experimented today with a new tyre set-up, running Yokohamas on the rear axle and BF Goodrich on the fronts. I could waffle on like David Coulthard and tell you that’s because the firmer sidewalls on the BFGs give Ian more feel for the camber angles on the steering tyres, whilst the firmer Yokohamas help maintain the rear bias of our torque differential and thus counterbalance the centripetal chassis yaw. But the fact is we are down to our last four decent tyres, and that’s where they ended up. Such is life on the privateer competitor side of the tracks.

Other local entries making the news include biker Sam Sunderland (#007, “the name’s Sunderland, Sam Sunderland”), who won yet another stage today, whipping World Champion Marc Coma’s butt for the second time in four day’s desert racing. Dave Mabbs #027 is currently lying in 25th place, Alan Boyter #036 in 28th, and Sean Linton #096, who is based just around the corner from our office in Al Quoz, is going great guns in 10th overall.

Ian and Sheila are currently lying in 17th overall, 13th in class (T1) and have ‘just’ 296kms of desert to cross tomorrow to make it to the end of what will be their first complete Desert Challenge. And no I’m not tempting fate, it’s got to be done, so bring it on.
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