Last-minute ADDC Panic

I rather glossed over the fire-extinguisher explosion one Day 1 of the Dubai International Baja.  But it's a pretty big deal and is going to cause one heck of a lot of problems for everyone involved.

FEV are one of the very few manufacturers homologated by the FIA to supply the new CO2 powered gas fire extinguishers, which replace the old AFFF (automatic film-forming foam) type.  They are family run British company which has been supplying the motorsports industry for many years., Their local distributor is Gulfsport, who supplied several systems immediately prior to the DIB.  One of the same batch as mine went to buggy-driver Khaled Al Jafla, who I bumped into as I was heading to Gulfsport on Sunday,to report what had happened.  We chatted about the event and wished each other good luck for the ADDC.

Once inside Gulfsport's office, I saw why Khalid had been there.  His extinguisher was sitting on the desk, and had exploded during the event, exactly like mine.  It now turns out that a third unit exploded in Mexico.

In the past week, FEV have stopped production of this system.  They have recalled all the 300-plus units they have supplied worldwide, and their FIA homologation has been cancelled.  Once they get to the bottom of the problem and redesign the system, they will have to re-apply for FIA homologation.

Their situation is about as bad as it can get.  They have just lost their entire installed base of these latest-generation systems, which will obviously be replaced by their competitors, and the damage to their reputation will be hard to repair.  Despite the problems they've caused, I can't help feeling sorry for FEV.

We're lucky, by comparison - a replacement system from SPA will be one of four to be shipped at the end of this week.  It should arrive on Monday, giving us the rest of the week to install it before Friday's ADDC scrutineering.  Given that some competitors were caught out by the FIA's new firex regulations, it's entirely possible that they could be caught out again -  as things stand, if they opted for the FEV system, they will fail ADDC scrutineering.

The Beast is back at its second (or is that first?) home, Nanjgel.  A new front wing is replacing the one that took the brunt of my impact with Mansour's Prado, and a few other jobs are on their list.  A new heavy-duty front halfshaft is coming in from the USA, at a specially discounted price - even though I told them the break was caused by a bent axle tube!  Big thanks to the guys at www.JustDifferentials.com

A new T-shirt design to commemorate our 10th successive Desert Challenge has been produced - mainly by me, with help from Parvez, the graphic designer at Magic Touch.  Lists are being prepared, stuff is getting organised, and we have the team finalised.  Sadly our long-time engineering guru Richard Bailey can't be with us this year, and will be sorely missed - and not just for his impressive tool collection.  Rick Carless and Jason Lyness will now be joined on the spanners by Phil Cravens, who has been angling to do the ADDC for a while, His experience as support for saloon-car endurance racing, alongside Jason, will be invaluable.  Kate Stedman joins us again from the UK, to help share the housekeeping and logistics load with Sheila, and keep Rick company in the chase car.

10 days to go. So much still to do...

The Big 2017 Update - Dubai International Baja

I have been remiss in not updating the blog for so long.  Life appears to have got in the way, but I shall now try to fill in some of the gaps.

After the 2016 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, we traveled to Freiburg in Germany where I had a cochlear implant surgically, well, implanted.  This was to restore the hearing I have lost in my right ear.  After the operation and recovery I returned for a first tuning of the device, and then headed back to Dubai for a month or so - before heading out to Spain for the summer.

The main work required on the Beast was to repair the back axle, which was cracked and leaking.  We welded it up in the field but that wasn't a permanent solution.  So I bought a pre-loved axle tube from Joy Scrap in Dhaid, took it for sandblasting, and handed it over to Robbie at Saluki for reinforcement.  Then Nanjgel transplanted the innards of the old axle into the new axle tube and we were pretty much sorted.

The first race after the summer break was Round 1 of the 2016-17 EDC series at Lisaili, where I managed 2nd in T1 and 3rd overall.

So far, so good.  Our next outing was in the 4th round of the Emirates Rally Championship, organised by Emirates Motorsport Club.  Only one stage was used, and was supposed to be driven in 5 repetitions.  In fact, the track became so cut up and dangerous that it was halted after 4 rounds, by which time three vehicles had rolled - including us.  We clipped the apex of a left-hander, and the Beast rolled onto its roof - my bad.  Once we had escaped from the car unscathed, it was apparent that there was a lively fire going on under (or rather, above) the hood, where axle oil was dripping onto the hot exhaust manifold.  Rather than go back into a burning vehicle to fetch our own fire bottle, we flagged down the next race car - Fayed's son, Mahmoud - and pinched his extinguisher which successfully put out the fire.

Next stop - Nanjgel.  New wings from Ali Al Shawi, new door from Joy Scrap, lots of hammering and painting from Nanjgel and the Beast emerged in time for the candidate round for a proposed new FIA event, the Dubai International Baja.  This was a cross-country event to replace the old Dubai International Rally, a saloon car event which had been declining in popularity for some time.

The event was based at the Endurance Village stadium, near Bab Al Shams, and was overseen by the FIA to verify its credentials for inclusion in the 2017 Cross-Country World Championship.  It consisted of two repetitions of the same stage, in the Faqaa region used by the EDC.  Halfway round the first stage, we lost 4WD - which would normally be 'game over'.  But we decided to try and finish by lowering our tyre pressure to 10psi and crossing our fingers.  Soon after, we were faced by probably the biggest climb of the day, through a gnarly dune section.  As we approached, we could see one vehicle already stuck - which was Tom Bell's Bowler EXR. This didn't exactly fill me with confidence, but we went for it anyway.  As we blasted through, we found another vehicle stuck, and a sweep team in the process of righting Yahya Bel Hili's Patrol!  Enjoy the moment here...

So we were able to finish the first round, and were actually leading T1 at that point!  But the front axle was clearly bent and we presumed (correctly, as it turned out) that the halfshaft was broken.  Which was a shame, since I'd recently fitted uprated halfshafts, sourced from www.justdifferentials.com in the USA.  Anyway, we didn't have any choice but to go back into battle for stage 2 with 2WD.  Unfortunately, lightning doesn't strike twice, and it only took one bad decision to scupper our chances of finishing - we got hopelessly stuck and had to await the sweep team to extract us.

Over the Christmas period I gave the car to Rob  Bryan, who was by now managing 1000 Dunes Garage, for a report.  There were a number of issues which he identified as needing attention, and by January I was repeating the refurb procedure on the front axle (see above!).  Nanjgel also revised the radiator mounting, to provide better resilience, using rubber bobbins on the side mounts.  A complete set of new Accel igniters came from Summit, and - just before the 2017 Dubai International Baja -  a bomb was dropped in our lap.

Last Wednesday - eight days before Baja scrutineering - we were informed that the 2017 FIA T1 regulations mandated a completely new plumbed-in fire extinguisher system.  Oh joy!  On Thursday, we ordered an FEV system from Gulfsport.  On Friday, FEV despatched it from UK.  On Monday we received it, and I spent Tuesday working with Nanjgel to pull out the old system and install the new one.  Wednesday was another full day at Nanjgel, fixing various other jobs and installing additional roll cage padding (another FIA requirement). Finally, the Beast was loaded onto the trailer and we arrived at the rally bivouac, to camp overnight.

Thursday was documentation and scrutineering, which was extremely strict, and required the installation of even more roll cage padding - which thankfully Saluki Motorsport had available - and braided covering for the fuel vent line, which Rick was able to get from ATES in Al Quoz.  By Thursday night we were able to enjoy a well-earned beer with the Beast ready to rock.  But with eight FIA 'priority' professional drivers competing, I was resigned to the fact that a top-10 finish was probably out of the question.

Friday's  schedule was for 91km and 84km desert stages, with a regroup parc ferme (no service) in between.  SS1 went well, the navigation was very critical as there were very short distances between waypoints and frequent sharp direction changes.  We passed two vehicles, and discovered at the end that at least two other vehicles which started ahead of us - Mark Powell's T1.3 Saluki buggy and Tom Bell's EXR - were out. So we had made up at least 4 spots on our 20th place starting position.  After an extremely long wait in the middle of the desert, we finally started SS2, which was a faster section than SS1 - more subkhas and fewer technical dune sections.  Our progress was temporarily slowed when there was a massive BANG behind my seat and the entire cockpit filled with gas - the new FEV fire extinguisher had exploded!  We decided to keep very quiet about this, as the scrutineers would certainly exclude us if they found we were running without a working extinguisher system!

Back at the bivouac after another good run, we had two hours for service, and discovered that we were now 12th overall - pretty good, considering we had been seeded 23rd.

The next day's SS3 was exactly the same route as SS1 and SS2 combined, but with no intermediate stop - so 173km stage.  Once again we had no issues, but towards the end we came up behind and passed Yayha Bil Hili's Patrol, which was clearly sick, and ran to the finish behind Mansour Bil Hili's Prado.  Unfortunately, he managed to stall at the top of a dune, and I clipped his rear quarter panel with my wing - sorry about that!  We crossed the finish in fine style, having had no real issues.  But then the drama began.

First, we couldn't get the compressor to work to air up the tyres.  And with a scant 40 minutes to get back to the bivouac, I decided to do it without worrying about the tyres.  But before we got back to the tarmac, the engine died.  The starter turned but...nothing.  So we flagged down the next race car - Emil Khneisser's Y62 Patrol - and they towed us in!  At service, Jason identified a blown ECU fuse and the Beast started again.  A huge sigh of relief sounded, the car was put back into parc ferme, and another long wait ensued before the ramp finish at 1830hrs.

But just after exiting parc ferme, it died again.  Completely.  No starter,  Nothing. Nada.  By this time we knew we were 11th overall and Emil was 12th, and the ramp was being held in reverse order.  So once again, Emil and Manie came to our rescue and valiantly towed us up and over the finish ramp!  At this point, we discovered that the final stage had been sponsored by Nissan, and that there was a trophy for the first Nissan to finish SS3 - which was us!

Apres moi, le maelstrom!

Emil's Patrol is on the other end of the tow-rope

Nanjgel Garage service crew

In the end, the top six places were, as expected, taken by FIA priority drivers - with Nasser Al-Attiyeh (Hilux) taking the victory from Khaled Al Qassimi (Peugeot).  7th and 8th were buggies (T3) which were always going to be quicker than us in the dunes.  So to achieve 11th overall was a real achievement - only one place shy of our best-ever 10th place ADDC finish.

Thanks to my guiding light, co-driver and life-partner Sheila Hutton, Jason Lyness and Rick Carless on the spanners, Nanjgel Garage for all their hard work, Tim Ansell for the photos  - and last but not least Emil Khneisser for the towing service!

So now we have only 17 days to the start of ADDC 2017.  There is a list of jobs, and it's not getting any shorter.  This will be our 10th consecutive Desert Challenge, and we would like to go out on a high!  Watch this space...