NewTrix Racing

The Epilogue: A Baldrick Moment

2011-11-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

So, while Sheila and Richard were off to the airport, Ian and I were tracking down the local Nissan dealer and relieving him of a radiator. Richard had taken the old one off – I just had to fit the new one. Five minutes for a competent mechanic, so 45 minutes for me.

Finally said goodbye to Doha around noon, and an hour or so later I was in the Magic Kingdom, missing the entrance to the first petrol station because a truck was parked across it. No problem, I thought, there will be another.

There wasn’t. The fuel light came on and Udaid was just within reach, 15km away. Udaid? Must be a village, probably camels, a mosque, perhaps a few shops and certainly a petrol station. Wrong. There’s a quarry, and bugger-all else. Now it’s 45km to the border (and the next known fuel) and I have about a teacupful left in the tank. What to do? Press on and pray, and possibly end up empty and immobile? No, there was a better way. The words ‘cunning’ and ‘plan’ hovered, unspoken, in the balmy afternoon breeze.

Park it at the side of the road. Somewhere flat and not too squidgy (rain having fallen there also). Swap the cars round, and problem solved. Sounds like another five-minute job when you say it quickly. Unlash the Beast, tilt the trailer deck, drive it off, drop the jockey wheel, move the road car, swap the ball hitch onto the race car, play car chess, manhandle the reluctant Beast into precise position (without, dear reader, the benefit of power steering or a spotter), load up the road car, lash it down…..so that’ll be another 45 minutes, then. But we’re good to go, and the Beast is more than half full.

Two minutes and 3km later we reach a petrol station, fuel up the road car and do the whole rigmarole again. I could have spat.

Truly, a plan worthy of Baldrick himself.

What a result!

2011-11-26T09:48:00.000-08:00

We're at the back of the pack, second to last, with an 0820hrs kick-off time. The weather is overcast and I'm not feeling optimistic. But heigh-ho, we'll give it our best shot.

First we have to get the Beast out of Parc Ferme, then we have 10 minutes for service. I forgot to mention that we'd had to remove the lockwire from the restictor last night (under the supervision of Lionel Carre, Technical Delegate of the FIA), and the first job this morning was for Richard to re-do this, within the 10 minutes. And then clean the windscreeen...

The waiting is of course the worst bit. And there's plenty of that, before you're on the start line. Then...how can I describe it? Your heart rate has already peaked, and once you're moving it gets back to normal. Almost.

We only have the roadbook, the Terratrip, and the waypoint for the next PC. Once we've lost the way, the only option is to straight-line it to the next PC. Which means crossing stone-fields at idling speed, which isn't a lot of fun. But we kept on finding the PCs, collecting their stamps, and ended up at after 240km at the service point, followed by an Emirati who had no nav equipment. Stage 3 started off in the same vein - we were lost, and had to endure the rigours of the stone-fields once more. Then we got into the sands around the Inland Sea - no easier for navigation, but more fun to drive.

Eventually, we're at the finish! We get into Parc Ferme for the last time and there are only seven cars there - how did that happen? Some of the haven't got a full set of PC stanps. Surely we must get penalised for our cross-country excursions, but it seems everyone else had the same problems. But where's Richard?

3km after leaving service, the radiator on the road car (which I'd just driven 650km from Dubai) split. Oh, and it's now raining. And he's 125km away from the bivouac. But by now, Ian Cooper is at Sealine with his trusty steed, a rented Pajero. So, leaving Sheila at Sealine, we head off through the gathering gloom and intensifying rain to rescue Richard. By the time we arrive, he's fixed the split rad with epoxy and we have enough water to re-fill it. Our joy is however shortlived - the split re-opens and Ian ends up towing the stricken road car back to Doha on the trailer. (Rented cars are, of course, eminently suited for such abuse.)

However, our mood is lightened by news from Sealine. Sheila, my trusty co-driver, has just driven the race car over the ceremonial ramp into (wait for it) 5th place!Mabbsy is an unbelievable 2nd, and Mark is 4th in the Buggy. Somehow, the penalties for our late arrival at Parc Ferme have disappeared, and our off-course excursions have resulted in a penalty of a mere 2hrs 15mins - but only three finishers had fewer penalties.

Sheila somehow manages to drive the steering-challenged Beast back to Doha, and the evening chez Ian and Maxine dissolves into an alcoholic haze of mutual congratulation. It's been, as Streaky would say, emotional. What a result!

Qatar Prologue

2011-11-25T19:20:00.000-08:00

Bit of a disaster really! Halfway round the return line of the power steering blew off and we lost all the power steer fluid. Then the isolator popped out and we stopped on the track...aaaargh! Gareth towed us off, I found what had happened, reset the isolator and drove back onto the track through the marker fence, which was a 6km length of string on rebar posts. So then we were wrapped up in rebar and string, can this get any worse?

Well we finished and set about finding a new piece of 3/8" hose (got any 'ose?), but that isn't the problem, just the symptom. The p/s box has packed up which is why the return line is getting pressurised. So we've vented the cap to take the pressure off, and half-filled the reservoir so it doesn't splash round too much. All this has cost us a shedload of penalties because we should have been in Parc Ferme whan we were trying to fix the car.

But hey, we're still in it, let's see if we can get round. I'll have arm muscles like Charles Atlas by the time I've doen 340km without power steering! Wish us luck - looks like we'll need it!

Greetings from Doha!

2011-11-24T05:19:00.000-08:00

Finally, plan B came good. Thanks to Ravi (who has connections there) the passport escaped from the Saudi Embassy on Tuesday evening, and Wednesday morning at 0815hrs I was on my way with the race car on the trailer. Had a close shave at the Abu Dhabi border when they demanded a Certificate of Tourism for the race car – I’d only got one for the road car. But they relented and by 1330hrs I was in Saudi, and 125km later I was exiting Saudi for Qatar. At 1530hrs, 100m from the Qatar Motorsports Federation (QMMF) office, a taxi overtook me, with some familiar faces waving. Unbelievably, Sheila and Richard had managed to arrive by plane and taxi at the exact same time as me!

Major thanks are due to Ian and Maxine Cooper, who have kindly put the three of us up for the duration, conveniently close to QMMF. Ian will join Richard at Sealine on Saturday for the main event.

Documentation is sorted, the car passed scrutineering this morning with flying colours, and tomorrow we need to be at Parc Ferme in Sealine before noon, for a prologue starting at 1300hrs.

Richard has been busy tidying and tightening various things, and we’ve picked up a few points which need attention before our next outing. But the Beast seems in good fettle, we’ve done all we can so let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Best Laid Plans...

2011-11-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

Just when we thought it was sorted, a bureaucratic problem rears its ugly head.
My residence visa expires in the middle of December, and according to the Saudi Embassy rules, they need a month of validity to issue a transit visa. Now with a bit of luck they might not spot it, but knowing them, they will.

But, as the great Baldrick would say, I have a cunning plan. I think this would be Plan C. This is to get Richard a transit visa, and let him drive my car, while I fly to Doha. There is bijou snagette in this, which is persuading the Saudi Emb that he has my permission to drive my car, but surely that must be solvable.

Watch this space for the next exciting episode in the Qatar Baja Saga...

Revenge of the Spider

2011-11-19T03:41:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while, but there is much to report. The car came back from A2B with the refurbished shocks and shiny front and rear bumpers, and went straight into Skyline for the exhaust system to be repaired. They have replaced the broken Y-section and the silencer box, and added a flexible section as well.
From there it went into Saluki Motorsport, for stainless steel top and bottom radiator hoses, and a revamp of the intake system which was seemingly letting dust through the filter. The new system includes a complete new air-cleaner box, leading to a long section of 3” aluminium pipe which exits towards the bulkhead, through a new restrictor (36mm for 2012), over the back of the engine, and then forwards to connect with the plenum at the front. This circuitous route gives us additional post-restrictor air volume, which is a Good Thing.
Then Rick at Saluki found various other things, which had either not been completed or not noticed before. The fuse and relay boxes weren’t anchored to the new inner wing, the compressor wasn’t working, two bolts were missing from one engine mount, and there was a nasty noise coming from the thrust bearing of the clutch.
Now, those of you who have been paying attention will recall that last year we replaced the clutch, thrust bearing and the adaptor plate, because its integral spider (which supports the thrust bearing) had fractured. Well, guess what – it’s déjà vu all over again. Thrust bearing has seized due to dust ingress, and the spider is broken.
The whole thing came from Marks 4x4 in Oz. It’s cast in aluminium, which is fine for the adaptor plate, but not so clever for the spider. The casting is horribly porous and brittle, and clearly not man enough for the job. So Robbie, Saluki’s brilliant fabricator, has managed somehow to weld it back together, and four additional steel legs will be bolted to the adaptor and welded to a new steel ring which will support the new bearing. It’s not the most elegant solution, but should hold together until we can fabricate a complete new all-steel spider. All of this should be complete tomorrow (Sunday).
Plan A had been to send the race car by car transporter to Doha, and fly down to meet it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the minimum 6 cars to make this viable, so we have reverted to Plan B – trailer the race car to Doha. The trailer now has four new boots, and a new jockey wheel assembly to replace the one which got twatted some time ago. I’m in the process of getting a transit visa for Saudi Arabia, which inconveniently lies between the UAE and Qatar. Leaving Wednesday (23rd) morning, I should be there by evening, while Sheila and Richard will fly, getting there in time to complete documentation. We’ll only need to sticker the car before scrutineering on Thursday.
It’s all ended up being another last-minute panic, but assuming the Saudi Embassy and Saluki Motorsport do ‘the needful’, we’ll be racing next weekend.

Summer-time (and the living is easy)

2011-08-11T05:33:00.000-07:00

Once again summer (and indeed Ramadan) is upon us. Unsurprisingly, there has been little to report on the rally car front, but here’s a quick update anyway.

The car has been in A2B Garage since the Desert Challenge. They have stripped out the inner front wings and replaced them with custom fabrication which will hopefully be more resistant to tearing. The Front bumper has been removed, the chassis trimmed by 100mm and a new front bumper fabricated and installed. This provides much better clearance on the approach angle, as you can see from the photos. The rear bumper is going to be modified in a similar way.

All six Ohlin shocks have been removed, and are being reconditioned/repaired by Ivan Ingrilli at Powertec. The top rear shock mount which fractured has been re-fabricated, and awaits welding onto the chassis.

The exhaust will be removed, and rebuilt with some flexible sections to avoid the stress on such a long rigid system, which resulted in the stainless steel pipes shearing in two places. Then, once the vehicle is back on its wheels, we can look further into the low oil-pressure and oil loss which we experienced during the DC. Initial investigation shows good compression on all cylinders.

There will be a Qatar Baja this year, to be held 24-26th November, and we are planning to take part. This is one day plus a prologue, and appears to be in a similar format to the last event held around 2007, using only road books and no GPS.

Whether there will be an Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge in 2012 is still unknown. I understand that provisional dates have been put in the FIA calendar, but Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (the major sponsor in 2010-11) have not yet confirmed that sponsorship will be forthcoming. However, since it appears that there will not be a round of the WRC in Abu Dhabi, (ADTA having rejected the FIA’s offer of a candidate round) we can only hope that the budget can be found for the Desert Challenge. As they say – watch this space.

I’m off to Spain for 4 weeks now, so hopefully there will be further vehicular progress to report once I’m back.

Short Cut to a Home Run

2011-04-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

(The Blog-napper has left the building...)

Having spent most of yesterday faffing about withe the various stuff which the alternator drives, we arrived at the conclusion that the alternator was the culprit. Like the crowd at Fibbers on a Friday night, it was tight and noisy. We drowned it in WD40 and that seemed to help, and we managed a quick blat round the dunes before dinner during which the belt stayed put. Based on this, we decided to start the fifth and final day, but with a view to finishing rather than being heroic.

We managed to keep the Patrol moving along at 'bimbling speed', keeping the revs below 3000 as far as possible, and had only one hairy moment in the early part. We attempted a steep climb, bailed out of it and landed in a soft patch of level sand. Some quick work with the sand ladders got us out, but not before two of the Kamaz trucks had joined us - and the driver of one came within a gnats tadger of putting it on its side. Anyway, we escaped and found an alternate route which ended in a rather hard landing, knackering one of the bonnet pins. Tiewraps to the rescue!

We came into service as planned, topped up with oil and carried on. The plan was to avoid part of the next section where we'd come to grief last year, by taking a gatch track westwards instead of rally route. This would only cost us a few waypoints at 15 minutes each, and get us to the Hameem Road and PC2. However, we couldn't spot the gatch track, and after a fruitless attempt to find it we blew a belt - and another hose. So we abandoned Plan B and moved on to Plan C - which is straight up Deadcoach Gatch to where rally route rejoins - cutting off the entire westward loop. Just as well, because shortly after that we blew another belt, strange banging noises were coming from somewhere down below, and the suspension seemed non-existant. By this time we only had a short section across the dunes before the finish, which we made well inside the 6-hour limit time.

So we finished 20th (and last) on the final stage of a rally that started with 37 cars, which does rather show how tough this event is. Overall we were 18th, which considering all our mechanical issues was not too bad.

The left rear shock mount has sheared off the chassis - this is a pin maybe 30mm diameter - and the shock is just hanging there, having ripped out the hose to the remote can. The s/s exhaust is completely broken in two places - one branch of the final 'Y' junction, and again just ahead of the silencer box. The comms on Sheila's helmet packed up as well, and we had to swap helmets so I could hear her. The alternator bearing, despite lashings of WD40, is still noisy, so we'll have to replace that again. The engine is down on power and needs an overhaul. There's some damage to the front end and the right wing. And we still need to fit studs all round to both front hubs.

Despite the fact that the stages were very similar to previous years, and until the final day the weather was relatively cool, it has been an increadibly brutal rally. The sand has been very soft, and the overcast conditions make reading the sand even more difficult due to the lack of shadow. There have been numerous rollovers and pitch-poles - I believe the G-Force team had their two pickups on their roof a total of three times. Raed Baker pitch-poled his L200 and is in hospital with a broken back, his co-driver Nabil broke his neck and narrowly escaped being a paraplegic. Alan 'Robbo' Roberts from Oz had his KTM come down on him and suffered a massive haematoma to his right buttock, but fortunately not (as originally thought) a broken coccyx.

Major thanks are due to Rick Carless, the team's Technical Director (!) and Fred Santiago, who I'm sure had no idea what he was letting himself in for! And of course my wife, partner and co-driver, Sheila who has been amazing all week.

12 months left before we do it all again!

Brief, but pants......

2011-04-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

To the relief of many of our readers, today’s rambling monologue will be a little shorter. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the reason for a relatively short blog is that Mr. and Mrs B. suffered an even shorter competitive entry in today’s Special Stage. Because about 10 miles* in to what should have been 200 miles* of desert crossing today, a component part of the Patrol gave up the ghost.

I’ll give you three guesses as to which part. Was it;

A) The PK 2040 EPDM serpentine belt

B) The parabolic accumulatory giblet nubbler

C) The sequential crank angled oojamaflip

If you guessed A) then well done, you’ve been paying attention to the earlier blogs. If you guessed B) or C), you’ve probably just come from a very late night out and are currently feeling a little tired and emotional. Or you work behind the parts counter at Halfords.

After replacing the belt for the umpteenth time, looking to the heavens and quietly uttering the words “Goodness me this is all really rather tiresome”, Ian made the smart decision to return to the bivouac rather than keep driving through the stage and eventually run out of PK 2040 EPDM serpentine belts somewhere beyond the black stump.

The whole team spent the rest of today removing alternators, water pumps power steering pumps etc. from the vehicle, dismantling those as best they could and making sure all the pulleys were free to rotate without binding, and aligned with one another. Thanks to the BMW crew for the loan of the Torx tools and letting Ian have a look over what turns out to be exactly the same alternator used on their race car, to ensure ours was not damaged in any way. And how’s this for service; the very nice Mr. Nadir from Al Ghandi, who supplied the parts yesterday, rang me at mid-day today to check that he’d supplied the correct parts, and to ask how the team were getting on. If he carries on like that, Mr. Nadir will be on next year’s service crew!). Watch your back Rick (not you Rick).

In other news Team Saluki’s day was cut short with fuel issues, Fadi Melky pulled out at the halfway point (problem as yet unknown), Mike Ziegler didn’t start and Malcolm Anderson and Patrick McMurren finally had a decent days desert duning. Well done DuneRaiders. It appears James West didn’t start today – apparently he has an injured hand which is making it painful for him to ride, yet yesterday he was fastest UAE finisher. And a mention too for 21 year old local motocross rider Sam Sunderland, who proved that his stage win on Day 2 was no fluke with another Stage win today. Better watch your back James……

Right I’m signing off from the blog for another year. I am flying to the UK tonight to test drive some fast expensive cars courtesy of those very nice people at Jaguar. Ian will hopefully be updating the blog tomorrow, the final day of the rally. I’d like to thank my agent, PR staff, writers, chauffer and masseuse for their support, which has allowed me to make it through a tough few days. But I can’t because I don’t have them. This phantom blogging pays less than being a service crew member. Eh Rick? (no, not you Rick, the other Rick).

It’s been emotional.

* Miles: What kilometres become when they grow up.

A PK2040EPDM Rick Rick Patrol Patrol kind of day...

2011-04-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well there’s enough material from today to stitch a royal wedding dress but I’m going to try embroidering the truth instead. Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to begin. Ian and Sheila started the day in 16th place overall but knew that the problems with the failing / loose serpentine belt might well happen again today. That meant a start time of 08.39 this morning, and as I start to write this, exactly 12 hours later, Ian, Rick and Fred have JUST reached the bivouac after what has been a VERY long day for everyone.

Sat in my office actually getting some work done for a change, Rick rang my phone at 10.30am. According to the Iritrack, the satellite navigation system which allows me to follow the team’s progress via my PC at work, Ian was still moving, albeit slowly. However Rick told me that they had stopped at least once already to say the timing belt – their last one – was showing signs of damage and might not last much longer. I was therefore tasked with buying a half a dozen more “6PK2040 EPDM” drive belts from the “Black Belt” company in Dubai. But judo where they are? No, neither did I. No problem, they have a website. And on the contact page…..there is no phone number. Nor a map. Wonderful. A bit of judicious research led me to find their parent company’s name, which, via directory enquiries, led to one office phone number, which turned out to be an office miles from mine, but that led to another phone number, and at last, the location of their nearest warehouse. 5 minutes after my 20 minute long investigation, Ian sent me an SMS with directions!!

But before I could leave the office, the ‘dreaded’ phone call came from Rick. “They’ve stopped, the timing belt’s broken and they can’t go on. We also need another timing belt tension pulley assembly, the other one’s knackered, call Rick (that’s another Rick, not ‘Rick’ Rick) for details because he fitted the last one. Ian thinks it’s for a Camaro” So I call Rick2 and he can barely hear me over the wind in the dunes. You see Rick2 is a service engineer for Team Saluki and had his own issues to deal with. But eventually “Yes, it’s off a Camaro”. So I ring the local Chevy dealer Al Ghanim, who fortunately are not too far from our office. “There are two types of pulley assembly for the LS2 engine and by the way, the Camaro doesn’t have that engine”. So now I have a choice of two units, that I am to have delivered 400kms away this afternoon, or Ian is out of the race permanently, and they could both be wrong. Remember yesterday when I wasted mine and Rick’s afternoon (that’s Rick, not Rick) delivering the wrong parts? Hmmm, I don’t need to repeat that. So I drive to the dealership where the incredibly helpful counter clerk Mr. Nadir, agrees that I can take both the similar looking items, and return the surplus one next week. Take a bow Mr. Nadir. As I call Ian to confirm the details of the required pulley, I can hear the unmistakable sound of a helicopter in the background. “Got to go, the chopper’s here”. So that’s Tim 2, Ian and Sheila 2, in the Desert Challenge helicopter rescue stakes. Oh, and for future reference, it’s off a Corvette. The pulley assembly, not the helicopter.

Next it’s off to the back of beyond to find Black Belt. The ‘sign’ on their warehouse is nothing more than black spray paint. It looks like graffiti but Ian had at least warned me. Anyway they were very helpful and sold me a dozen belts (by now Rick (not Rick) had asked me to buy 6 of another length as well “to be sure”.) A sort of belt and braces approach to a belt and pulley problem. Next stop is at the office of Sebastien Husseini Racing. Seb is supporting Quad racers down at the DC this year and his engineer Stefan was leaving Al Quoz, (thankfully near our office) at 3pm. So with the parts duly delivered to Stefan, my work was done. Yeah right……………

Back in the office at 3pm I checked on the location of Ian’s car. I knew he and Rick and Fred had gone into the desert with Ian’s road going Patrol to recover the race car. Thanks to the Iritrack I can see where it is - but it is MILES from anywhere, 42 miles as the crow flies from the bivouac to be exact. But crows have the advantage of not having to climb every 400 metre high energy sapping dune with a 2 tonne Nissan Patrol on tow behind them. 42 miles of desert recovery might as well have been 400. It would be a dreadful experience towing the car through that, and the chances of a nasty accident occurring under such conditions were very real.

BUT, technology is a WONDERFUL thing. Having worked out their position on the ground thanks to Iritrack (which shows the location relative to local terrain but does NOT give a GPS coordinate, for fear teams would use it to somehow cheat), I found the same pattern of dunes on Google earth, zoomed in and determined their coordinates. I could then see that if they headed South (which is directly AWAY from the nearest tarmac and so would not appear to make sense if you were on the ground working under pressure) they could pick up the border fence with Saudi Arabia. This is patrolled by border patrols (funny that) and so there is a well defined track running its entire length. After 20 miles or so they could pick up another well worn track heading North, which would lead them to tarmac and a road home. Thank you Mr Google.

So at 4pm I called Ian, explained the plan, sent him the waypoints, and it was agreed that they’d turn South initially. Between them the guys rigged up another (worn out) belt on the (worn out) pulley assembly and Ian was able to drive through the tricky 1.5 miles of dunes to the border track. Unfortunately Rick, who, bless him, has pretty limited sand driving experience, popped a tyre off the rim of a wheel as he followed Ian out. Easily done when the tyres are VERY deflated. It took almost an hour of digging and struggling with the car to get it back on the move again (changing tyres on steeply inclined soft sand is dangerous and energy sapping work), but from there the way home was at least ‘clear running’. Time now – 5.30pm

Well, it would have been a clear run except the race car threw its final fan belt and that was that. There was no way to drive it without cooling or power steering, so they hitched it on a tow trope behind the road going Patrol and carried on. Well, they would have carried on except they were then stopped by one of the border patrols who, upon spotting a Patrol, towing a Patrol, at dusk, along the border, became nervous. So Rick (not ‘Rick’) plus Fred, in the Patrol, followed by Ian, in the Patrol, followed the patrol to the patrol post. Which luckily, was exactly where they had intended to turn North anyway. What they hadn’t intended on doing was spending an hour explaining why they were at the Saudi border at dusk. (You’d have thought the race overalls and race car on a tow rope would have been a bit of a clue, wouldn’t you?). Time now, nearly 7pm.

So just the small matter of towing a car at night down 20 miles of desert track then. But they made it. Well done guys. Have a drink. Time now, 8.30pm. As I finish this blog, (time now, 10.00pm) I still don’t know if the pulley assembly was the right one because Rick and Fred are not answering their phones. Ian’s is switched off. Maybe they are all sleeping peacefully, having replaced the parts. Maybe they are working hard replacing the pulley. Or maybe they are desperately trying to modify the wrong part the Phantom Blogger sent them. It’s been that kind of day………..

Sleep well………………. I know I won’t.

UPDATE @ 11pm. Rick 1 just rang - one of the two pulley assemblies IS the correct one. Hurrah, Hurrah and Thrice Hurrah. Night night. Sleep tight.

Belts off, briefly undone

2011-04-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

360 kilometres of endless monotonous tracks through the desert, racing at speeds of up to 180kmh, swerving in and out of traffic with just one objective – meeting Rick Carless halfway between the bivouac and my office, to give him the front wheel hub studs I’d brought down from Dubai this afternoon, to fit to Ian’s car this evening. Of course it would have helped if I’d paid more attention to the part number Ian carefully repeated twice when he called me last night. I could have saved myself the four hour round trip if I’d realised that I had the wrong parts with me. (Now look. As everyone knows, many studs look very similar. I mean, I bear more than a passing resemblance to Brad Pitt). And I could have saved Rick four additional hours of driving too. Sorry Rick. Sorry Ian. Sorry Sheila. Sorry Fred.

It doesn’t help that Nissan (you know, that little car company) actually carried only two of the correct wheel studs in all of the United Arab Emirates (you know, that little country where 15% of all the vehicles on the road are Nissan Patrols) Of course 67% of all quoted statistics have just been made up. And Rick had bought those two the day before, so now Nissan is fresh out of them. But anyway, I digress. Ian and Sheila finished today in seven hours and eight minutes, a long haul journey by any standards and much harder when you’re sweating inside a race car. But a steady finish each day is the best way to a top ten finish overall, so it’s another good day.

Early on in the day Newtrix passed a race vehicle, possibly a pick-up, which had shot straight over the top of a dune and pitch poled onto its nose and then its back on the other side. Mark Powell / Evans Quin and the crew of the other Predator buggy had both stopped to help so Ian and Sheila pressed on, and were soon passing many vehicles, including local racer Fadi Melky. Their two cars would trade places several times during the day, with Fadi eventually gaining the upper hand. At one point their dognesses were dicing with a black Land Cruiser when the two drivers decided to approach a bowl from two different angles, the Cruiser being the first to enter. However the car became stuck at the bottom, and Ian had to take avoiding action to avoid smashing into it. After all, he’s not French (see the 2010 DC blog). Eventually the Cruiser worked its way out but the crew kindly stopped and helped Ian and Sheila to recover their vehicle too. Obviously the Cruiser team weren’t French either. Remember Agincourt. Yes, so does my Grandad.

Shortly before the service PC the Dog Patrol dropped over a seemingly innocuous (63 points scrabble score, although that statistic may also be made up) drop and the impact was enough to bend the drag link on the steering.(And now, over to Danny La Rue; another fine example of a drag link). Consequently the Patrols wheels were never pointing in quite the same direction for the rest of the day and this may have had some bearing on its bearings. Then after the service PC, Ian and Sheila had another brief stuck. Now if you’ve ever had a brief stuck you’ll know how uncomfortable it is, but this one was worse because they were briefly stuck just exactly where a photographer was standing. So now, somewhere on the ethernet, there are no doubts photos of Ian and Sheila’s brief stuck.

Free from their brief dilemma, the doggy duo were a mere 10 kilometres from the finish line when Ian’s belt broke. I appreciate that this blog is now taking on the overtone of an advert for a gentleman’s outfitters but honestly, his belt broke. His serpentine belt to be exact, you know, the one which drives the water pump and power steering. To make matters worse , the belt had decided to give Ian’s bottom hose a good whipping. (This blog now carries a ‘over 18s only’ rated certificate). You know, the bottom hose on the radiator. The belt had cut clean through the hose as it “left the building”, so now the dynamic duo were without power steering, without a water pump and, more to the point, without coolant in the radiator. “Never fear” thought Ian “for I have cunningly packed a spare hose and serpentine belt with me in this here box of critical spares”. Which is good. But try as he might, and, perhaps, distracted by thoughts of briefs and belts, poor Ian could not make the hose fit. Which is bad. It seems it was a smidgen* too small a diameter. Ian was not about to take such a setback lying down, because the sand was too hot for that, so he took the original damaged hose, cut a tad** off, and managed to just about fit it back onto the radiator. With most of the water they were carrying now in the radiator, and the second belt fitted, off raced Newtrix.

Now I’m going to let you guess what happened next. You’ve got 30 seconds. Tick tock, tick tock. Have you guessed yet? Nope? Well it involves a serpentine belt and a bottom hose whipping. For a second time. Incredibly with just 5 kms to go, history repeated itself (does the time taken to cover 5 kms of sand dunes count as history?), the second belt broke, the hose was split again, and the radiator drained. By now, Ian and Sheila were a bit miffed, to say the least. I could say more but our ‘18s only’ certificate doesn’t allow it. With no more belt, and no chance to cut the pipe any shorter, Ian patched up the remains of the pipe with gaffer tape (well, he’s the gaffer after all), took the radiator cap off to ensure there was no pressure to strain the gaffer tape (which is not known for its resistance to high pressure water), put the last dregs of their drinking water into the rad. (there was only 5kms to go after all) and sped off. Slowly. And they made it to the finish that way, on a wing and a prayer, but they made it. So congratulations Mr. and Mrs BriefStuck BeltWhippers.

As we go to press the final results are not yet published on the internet but if I had to guess I’d say they are probably placed around 13^th or 14^th overall at the moment. Mark Powell and Evans Quin finished 5^th on the day in their fire damaged Predator buggy, Fadi Melky / Dane Novarlic finished well (but as yet – no published results) Malcolm Anderson / Patrick McMurren appeared to retire at PC 1 with an as yet unknown problem (but the car is back at the bivvy) and Dave Mabbs / Andy Robinson’s FJ Cruiser is still stuck in the desert, a long way from anywhere, with (apparently) a blown engine.

Local biker and my mate James West is doing very well on his Yamaha bike, lying in 2^nd overall just 2 minutes 22 seconds behind multi time world champion Marc Coma. Way to go James. And our Aussie friend Allan “Robbo” Roberts is back over from Oz to have another go at the Challenge and is currently in 21^st place. Hang in there Robbo and we’ll throw another shrimp on yer Barbie.

Information for our European friends. And the French.

*Smidgen. An imperial term meaning 7/12^ths of a bit **Tad. 11 & 8/19ths of a Smidgen

Of studs and gesticulation

2011-04-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

A steady day One in the dunes was much like watching Channel 4 in the UK. A few interesting moments but no major dramas. In Ian’s words “for the first 30 or so kilometres we overtook quite a few cars, some which were actually moving and only one of which was on its roof”. I’ve no idea who the first casualty was but apparently the driver flipped his car onto its roof just two kilometres into a 2500 kilometre race. In the words of the organisers “Thanks for the entry fees – the airport’s that way gentlemen”. Not a good start, but I’ve heard no reports of any injuries so I’m sure the occupants were OK.

After 30 kilometres or so Ian noticed that the oil pressure was a little low and the oil temperature a little high, so at the service point he sensibly stopped for a while to top up the oil and change the filter as a precaution. Special mention here for Mr Rick Carless, Newtrix’s Technical Director (he must be because that’s what his T shirt says) who has once again flown to Dubai at his own expense so that he can burn his hands, scrape his knuckles, become dehydrated and sun burnt, whilst groveling in the sand under the Patrol just to keep it in fine fettle. Rick, we salute you, you are a diamond. (Of course that could mean that he’s very expensive and you get little in return, but that’s not the case. Rick’s cheap as chips, and there’s more of him this year than ever before). And whilst we are on the subject of technical support, Rick’s left hand drive right hand man is Mr. Fred Santiago, rally support engineer, a.k.a. Service engineer, Al Thika Packaging LLC. I suspect Fred thought that helping his boss go motor racing for a week would be a cushy little brown nosing number. HA!! Fred is now learning that 22 working hour days filled with mindless boredom staring at sand dunes interspersed (87 points in scrabble?) with manic high pressure servicing moments, do not a cushy number make. You live and learn Fred, you live and learn.

So after changing the filter and kicking the tyres, Rick gave Ian and Sheila the all clear and they shot off into the desert at great velocity. A short while later, whilst minding their own business, bothering no-one and making fine progress, Ian saw our good friend, very experienced off roader and sweep team member Streaky (if you have to ask, you don’t want to know) gesticulating wildly in their direction. Now Streaky has been known to gesticulate for self amusement before but this particular gesticulation seemed aimed in Ian and Sheila’s direction, so naturally, Ian followed Streaky’s frantic “go this way” signals. The consequence of which was that Newtrix became almost immediately stuck in a sand bowl, from which it took Ian and Streaky approximately 30 minutes to extract the car. When asked why he had led them into a sand bowl, Streaky pointed out that Ian had noticed him long after he had started waving and subsequently turned long after he had intended Ian to change direction. I am of course a remotely located non witness to this event but I can’t help wondering if perhaps he could have stopped waving a little earlier? Note to Streaky; Gesticulation. It’s all in the timing mate.

Finally free from the bowl, once more their dognesses hurtled onward, only to note, after some time, that when exceeding 4000 rpm (a not uncommon scenario when driving in the desert) the car was mis-firing. Ian correctly diagnosed that in fact the fuel pump was giving problems and went to switch on the spare (it’s a race car – we fit them), only to discover that his knob had fallen off. Ian and Sheila were, quite understandably, shocked at this development (it‘s only fair to point out that Sheila was perhaps more disappointed than shocked). You see the bezel, which secures the fuel pump selector knob to the dashboard, had shaken loose due to the constant vibration within the race car, and the knob had fallen inside the dashboard. “No problem” thought Ian, “I’ll just pull over here and reach inside the dashboard to retrieve it”. A minute or two later, with the knob firmly grasped in one hand, he was able to twist it in the required direction and all was well again. Until that is, he went to pull away from the “now you tell me” soft sand in which he had parked. Unfortunately the car became bogged down for a while, but much use of sand ladders and earthy language later, the hounds were off after the rabbit.

Then they raced, chased, climbed, descended, cheered, cursed, hurtled, yadda, yadda, yadda and arrived at the finish line. (See how the last two hours only took a couple of lines – impressive!)

So Newtrix ended the day in 17th place with no major damage. The front cross member was slightly bent in “Streaky Bowl” but it’s like a ‘mascara edition’ of Cosmopolitan; it’s a mainly cosmetic issue. Less cosmetic is the problem of the shaking loose of the bolts which secure the front hubs to the drive shaft. Having a wheel fall off a car at high speed is not a lot of fun. Ask me how I know. (Been there, got the T shirt and special edition underpants to prove it) Rick drove almost 300kms this evening to Madinat Zayed, location of the nearest Nissan dealer to the race bivouac, only to find that they had just 2 of the special studs needed to secure the hubs. Yours truly is hoping to be able to buy a dozen of them tomorrow in Dubai and then to find a way of getting them 400kms down to the bivouac by tomorrow evening. So a typical day for the Desert Challenge then.

In other local news, Fadi Melky / Dane Novarlic in Fadi’s wonderful Strange Rover is in 10th place. Good job guys. Malcolm Anderson / Patrick McMurren (Team Dune Raider – Ansell) are in 20th (I’ll take all the credit for that thanks – my old Rangie chassis and I showed Patrick the DC co-driver ropes ;-). Dave “Broke Back” Mabbs and Andy “Didn’t I learn the first time I co-drove for him” Robinson retired early with engine problems in their FJ Cruiser. Their crew are battling against the clock to find the problem and rectify it. Mark Powell’s Predator buggy burst into flames, or rather the spare tyres mounted above the exhaust did, damaging the throttle cable and other engine components in the process. The car is at the bivouac and they hope to continue tomorrow – with the spare tyres relocated!

Photos today are of yesterday’s prologue. A theme which may continue for some time given the absence of any internet connection down at the bivouac.

That’s all folks. Tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode…….

The Prologue

2011-04-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

(I always have a bit of a Frankie Howerd moment when I write those words - but maybe some of you are too young to remember 'Up Pompeii'.) Drivers Briefing produced - along with the usual info which we've heard before) a nice letter in Arabic which asks the Police to be nice to competitors. That might have been handy yesterday!

Then it's off to Marina Mall for lunch, followed by a post-prandial stroll through the prologue. To call it the 'Super Special' does rather invite disapointment - the terrain is a bit of landfill beside the sea, full of bits of rebar, rocks and assorted building detritus. I don't expect to be quick, and the bulk of the Patrol is not very happy in all the tight hairpins - not helped by my oversteering at every turn. There is a jump (no, I didn't) and a watersplash which covers the entire vehicle in shite. Mohd Bin Sulayem starts the affair by taking his old Escort WRC car round. I end up 21st out of 35 cars and trucks, rather worse than I expected, but still ahead of Mark Powell, Dave Mabbs, Fadi Melki and Malcolm Anderson. This does rather give a hint of things to come - it's a strong field and the top 6 positions read like a who's who of cross-country rallying - Peterhansel, Novitsky, Zapletal, Briskindov (who?), Gadasin and Schlesser.

Peterhansel in the Mini is absolutely awesome and I'll be surprised if he doesn't win. Sheila has carefully packed my reading glasses in their case and left them in my road car - which Rick has taken to the bivvy - so I'm walking round this evening in my heavily tinted driving glasses looking like Stevie Wonder, and with similar visual acuity (but less musical talent). I am actually typing this in braille. We start SS1 tomorrow at 1040hrs and plan to be back in the bivvy in daylight. Hopefully. Live tracking should be up on http://www.abudhabidesertchallenge.com/, so feel free to log on and check out our progress - car 214.

Knock Knock, Who's there?, The Phantom, The Phantom who?, The Phantom Blogger of Old Ranches

Oh yes 'tis I, Ian's surrogate blogger, the one they call 'thingummy' who once a year crawls out from under his drinks cabinet to assume the role of Communications Director of the Newtrix Blog. It's a very important role. For Ian and Sheila's blog. I like to think of it as my Blog Role.

And apart from toilet humour, I have also been known to contribute photographic evidence of Ian and Sheila's "Further Adventures In Rallyland". So for your delight and delectation, I have generously donated a plethora of digital pixels, organised in such a manner as to entertain and inform your optical nerves. So until tomorrow..........."Enjoy".

ADDC2011 Scrutineering

2011-04-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

The new alternator is slightly bigger than the old one, which means another change to the serpentine belt length - we're now up to 2050mm. And investigation of the steering wobble leads to the discovery that the 'new' wheels I fitted for Hail are not, in fact, circular. So another trip to the wilds of BMW Road in Sharjah yields a secondhand set of original Nissan rims which are 100% straight, and a couple of decent Yokohamas as well. So I now have 6 (straight) rims on/in the car, and 4 spares on the truck. Result. Now if only I had the trailer tyres, life would be perfect.

Sadly, life isn't. TNT let us down, the tyres arrived on Wednesday and got snagged by customs on Thursday - and they don't re-open till Sunday. Bugger! So, sod it, I'll drive the race car to scrutineering and if we have a problem in the rally, I'll hire a recovery truck.

However, when one of Abu Dhabi's finest saw me heading down to Yas, he decided that a rally car shouldn't be on the road and pulled me up. He was all set to give me a ticket, but couldn't find exactly which traffic regulation I had infringed - so he let me off with a slap on the wrist. Another result!

We made a our midday scrutineering appointment, and spent the rest of the afternoon queueing and being scutineered. But mainly queueing - behind Novitsky (X3), Peterhansel (Mini) and Zapletal (L200) - which allowed ample time to renew old acquaintances. The two Powertec buggies were no-shows, sadly they couldn't be finished in time, although they had been registered - as motorbikes! Anyway, we're through scrutineering with minimal fuss. Third result!

Meanwhile, back at NewTrix HQ, Fred was getting stuck into loading the pickup with all kinds of everything, including a bunch of spares from the Nissan dealer, Al Rostamani, on sale-or-return. What nice people! Anyway, Fred was basically finished by the time we got back, which saved us a load of time, bless him. So he not only knows what's on the truck, but where it is - which is a change from previous years.

Tomorrow is drivers' briefing at Yas at 1100hrs, then start and prologue at 1500hrs at Marina Mall. After that, Rick heads off to the bivvy to set up camp, the rest of the team are overnight at the Rotana on Yas, and then it's 'game on'.

The alternator has landed

2011-03-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, I finally got my hands on it this morning and rushed it round to A2B - and it fits. Huge sigh of relief. So hopefuly they can nail it into place this afternoon and tomorrow I can take it to Rob at Bin Sulayem Garage for testing, and then to the TRA for registration. The door is re-painted, the few odd jobs they had to do are done and who knows, we might even have the chance to take it for The Final Shakedown before the DC.

Tyres for the trailer have had to be sourced from UK, because none that are here have the right load rating. And the supplier in UK couldn't ship outside the EU. So I ordered them for delivery to my Dad in Kingsbridge, who then had to individually wrap them (why?) before TNT would pick them up on Friday. As long as they arrive sometime this week that'll do, because I don't need the trailer till this Friday.

Lots of information has now been posted on the ADDC website, including the start list where I am seeded at 214, ahead of Fadi Melki (who beat me last year) and behind Dave Mabbs (who I beat last year) - go figure. But who cares, once we get going the numbers are academic. It looks a strong field - maybe another top 10 finish isn't on the cards.

I've reached the point where excitement and panic are pretty equally balanced. Last year's cooling problems and this year's disaster at Hail are still too fresh in my mind. I just want to get Day 1 out of the way without any dramas, then I can settle down.

See ya later, alternator

2011-03-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

There's not much that attaches to the serpentine belt that hasn't been changed since the Beast came into my posession. The AC compressor has been binned and replaced with a spring-loaded jockey wheel. The water pump has been replaced with one that doesn't have a viscous fan. The P/S pump just got changed as well. And now it's the turn of the alternator. (I'll say that again for those of you who didn't get it first time - the TURN of the alternator. It rotates, you see - please try to keep up.)

The nice man at Bosch told me the voltage regulator had ceased to regulate and the bearings were noisy, and maybe he could fix it. Yeah, right. Unfortunately, the required parts for this Delphi alternator are 'not coming in Dubai' to quote my friend the Grumpy Goat. So after fruitless waiting for Mr Bosch to fix it, and equally fruitless searching for parts in the darkest recesses of Dubai and Sharjah, I decided to hit the internet - because you can find anything on Ebay.

Bingo! Mr Kovaleski in Connecticut had the exact alternator in its original GM package for a starting bid of $100, and when the hammer came down no-one else wanted it. So Mr TNT wil be picking it up shortly, hurrah.

Other bijou problemettes have been addressed by A2B, the fans re-wired, the hub re-sealed and the door taken off for beating and painting. So sometime soon we should be able to get it re-registered.

The clock continues to tick.

Long Way Out

2011-03-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. My business partner and part-time blog-napper knows a few people. People who know…people. A certain celebrity was visiting, and would like to go out in a race car. So when he asked if the Beast would be ready, I naturally lied and said yes. This was before I realized that the pump would take two days to fit and that the oil line had been sabotaged.

But by dint of ignoring anything vaguely work-related for a week or so, it all came together, and on Wednesday we were out in the desert with that star of stage, screen and TV – Charley Boorman! He and his sidekick, Billy ‘Biketruck’ Ward were out for an appearance at the Dubai Literary Festival, and had a day free. So Dave Mabbs (Team FJ), Mark Powell (Team Saluki) and I shared the arduous task of blatting round the desert for the best part of a day with them, which was great fun.

Well, most of it – except the bit where I managed to prop the car up on a damn great rock near the Saddle, and the bit where the alternator packed up and the battery went flat, and we had to be towed. Both times with Billy ‘the Jinx’ on board. So I explained that they’d actually been on a shakedown, and as bikers accustomed to things going horribly wrong, they took it in their stride. And a nicer couple of blokes you couldn’t wish to meet.

We ended up seeing their show on Friday, which was great fun, and then meeting up again on Saturday at a charity fundraiser for Tony Jordan, a biker involved in a horrendous crash at Dubai Autodrome in November.

Anyway, the race car is back at the Al Quoz Hospital for Poorly Race-cars, the alternator is allegedly being fixed elsewhere and I’m starting to panic because the DC looms ever closer.

Still pumping..

2011-03-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

How hard can it possibly be to fit a power steering pump? A couple of bolts, a couple of hoses and Bob’s your uncle. If only life was that simple.

Turns out the pump reservoir wasn’t exactly made for this pulley, and the pulley fouls it, so I have to insert a washer behind the pulley to make everything fit. Then the pump has to be spaced off the block so the pulleys line up. Looks like about 10mm, so I get an aluminium spacer made up, which needs a bit of filing to make it fit round the bolt head which hold the existing plate onto the block. But of course then the pump retaining bolts are too short, and of course they are UNC thread which means I have to go hunting for them. Another hunt into darkest Awir produces the required 6-rib drive belt 2040mm long. But the plumbing turns out to be complicated enough to necessitate a house-call from the Hose Doctor, but at last it’s all working. A five minute job has taken almost 2 days.

Except – there’s a pool of oil under the car when I stop. And it’s not ATF, it’s engine oil. Remember the hose which failed in Hail? Well, its neighbour has decided to leak in exactly the same place, which is a bit of a coincidence. Inspection shows it has also been cut on the top surface. I’m now convinced that someone sabotaged the car while it was in Hail. If only they’d known how crap our power steering was, they could have saved themselves the trouble…

By now I’m on first name terms with the guys at Advanced Technical and Engineering Services (ATES) in Al Quoz, so they make me up a replacement hose while I wait, and finally everything works.

But why, you might ask, am I doing all this myself? Because, dear reader, a certain VIP visitor has been promised a passenger ride in the Beast the next day!

Pump my Ride

2011-02-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

The interweb is an amazing thing. Once you know what your problem is, there’s bound to be something out there to help you solve it. It would be more useful if it told you all that stuff before the problem occurred, but somehow that never happens. Which brings me to the question of power steering pumps, about which I now know enough to bore you senseless.

Looking back, I find that we’d already replaced the p/s pump once, because it wasn’t giving pressure. We then replaced it just before the rally for the same reason, but the pulley then wasn’t tight on the shaft. (Pressing the pulley onto the shaft, and expecting it to stay there, is one of those really naff American engineering ideas.) Then we replaced the pump again before day 2 and the pulley was welded onto the shaft, and even that didn’t last. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

The reason for these repeated failures is now pretty clear. The p/s pump had a remote reservoir, connected to the pump by a flexible hose. The pressure side of the pump goes to the steering box, the return from there comes back to the tank, from which the pump is sucking fluid. And it sucks big-time. According to my new friends at KRC, this pipe should be able to withstand a vacuum of 28” Hg., and if it’s not, it will collapse under the suction of the pump – especially if there’s a bend in the pipe, which there is. And when that happens, the pump will fail – either the seals will fail, or the pump will stall, in which case something else will give – like the non-existent bond between the shaft and the pulley, for example. Apparently this is the biggest cause of p/s pump failure, but you can eliminate this potential weak spot by using a bolt-on reservoir.

A new GM p/s pump is Dh 1700, without a pulley or a reservoir. An after-market KRC pump with bolt on reservoir and splined pulley is only slightly more. Yes, 17 splines give the pulley something to actually grip onto, and a nut tightened to 46 lb/ft to make sure it damn well stays there. I like the sound of that. So I’ve given the plastic another good spanking and ordered a shiny new pump with all the toys, and eagerly await its arrival. The only downside of this arrangement is that a bolt-on reservoir tends to make the fluid run hotter, but since I will use a slightly larger 6.5” pulley, the pump will run slower and hopefully that won’t be too much of an issue.

No-one has been much help on the ARB front diff problem. I have the part number of the flange which I need to replace, but even appealing direct to ARB hasn’t produced any response. So I guess I’ll run with the standard front diff.

Last weekend I was down in Liwa to run through this years Day 4 route (basically last year’s day 3) for Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, to check that no-one has built any new roads, fences, camel farms or other obstacles in our path. Turns out the only major issue is at the start, where last year’s seldom-used gatch track is now a major construction highway, so they need to change that bit. The worst bit of the route – and of the rally – is the section from Ghayathi Rd back to the Crescent Rd, about 30km of unadulterated hell. Driving it with no vehicle tracks to follow othe took us nearly 2 hours, during which the car wasn’t horizontal for more than about 5 seconds. One bowl follows another, and it’s as a soft as a very soft thing. And in another month’s time it’ll be even worse, and as hot as hell. At 355km, Day 4 looks like being a long, long day, and I foresee many cars being time-barred at PC4. Let’s hope we’re not one of them!

Hail Day 3

2011-02-12T05:29:00.000-08:00

Once again we are up at sparrow-fart to unleash The Beast from its cage that is parc ferme. It's barely light and it's damned cold - a thermometer reads 3 degrees c as we head out through Hail for another 100km-plus liaison to the stage start. The steering is OK-ish - there's a wobble at certain speeds on the road and I suspect the steering damper is on its way out.

On the road, the engine water temperature never exceeds 50 - and that's without using the twin electric fans! So we seem for have overcome that problem at least. At the start we head off for a 212km stage, again new to us all. It promises some rough and rocky sections and I worry about tyre pressures. In the end I stick with 18/19 as the majority of the route is sand.

The route starts off with some wide plains where we can use some of the Beast's speed, but soon we're into twisty, bumpy tracks among small dunes, and areas of sharp stones hidden in the sand. We run wide at one point and I see a nasty rock just too late to avoid - the front right is punctures and the rim is damaged. We swing into action with the trolley jack and rattle gun. We're not exactly F1 standard, but our wheel change is pretty slick, and we head off to the viewing point just ahead where Sheila, Osama and Desert Knights service team await. Then I realise that the rear right is damaged too, and when we stop just past them to change it, they run up to assist in another wheel change. Oh, and the battery clamp has come loose and the battery is just lying there, and the wash-bottle is only held on by one bolt. So we ditch the wash-bottle, refit the battery, bin the damaged wheel and rim and continue. But carefully - because we've now run out of spare wheels.

The steering is a bit stiff but manageable - until we reach 144 kms, when it becomes very heavy. Oh no, not again! We've lost the belt - and the welded-on pulley. This time the pulley is gone for good and we're completely stuffed. We inform control through the Iritrak and wait for the sweep team to arrive.

Their brief is to tow us to the nearest tarmac - but the guys from Jeddah 4x4 go the extra mile - well, actually it's more like an extra 100km. They argue with the police, who finally allow them to tow us to the outskirts to Hail, where we get a recovery truck to deliver us back to Rally Control. (Towing through Hail in the rush hour would have been suicidal!)

So once again we take 8 hours of penalties. But we do have a finish - 29th place (i.e. last), which is better than 5 others who failed to start day 3! The closing ceremony is scheduled for 'sometime after 5pm' and we're determined to get the car over the finish ramp, come what may. It eventually kicks off at 9pm, by which time most of us have lost the will to live, having been hanging around since about 3pm. The engine runs - but with no water pump operating, I don't want it running for any more than a minute or two at a time.

Finally it's our turn, and we park it on the ramp to shake hands with Someone Important - probably the new head of SAMF. We accept our finishers' trophies and suddenly it's all over.

Not our greatest rally, really, but we've had fun. Richard has been an absolute star, learning rally nav and tripmeter-calibration on the job, getting stuck in with some awesome bush-engineering. What can I say about Sheila? She's been running the show, organising food and running around with Osama out on the stages, and out with various other strange men to find parts. Osama, Tariq and all the guys from Desert Knights get a special mention for all their help, as do Jeddah 4x4 Club, whose menbers form the sweep team. Matar Al Mansouri, who stayed late to help us fix our oil pipe, Saeed Al Hameli for the transport, Elie Semaan (the Clerk of the Course) who probably should have given us even more penalties than he did - and so many spectators and competitors who became our friends and saviours over the course of a week in Hail. Many, many thanks to you all - and yes, despite everything, we'll probably be back next year.

The results are here.

Another day, another disaster

2011-02-12T00:11:00.000-08:00

We're up at the crack of dawn for our 100+km liaison to the start of Stage 2, which is completely different from last year's stage. A new railway blocks access to the part of the desert we used in the last two years, so it's terra incognita as far as most competitors are concerned.

We start fairly cautiously, aware of the possibility that we may have more belt-related problems. All goes well for the fisrt 10km - then, yes you guessed it, the belt comes off. And the power steering pulley. A short walk back into the stage and I retrieve both - but how to press the pulley back onto the shaft, to at least get us out of the desesrt? The Sweep Team come, look, and continue, and then the police arrive, look and hang around.

A plan evolves. I drain the p/s reservoir into a handy water bottle (the reservoir conveniently holds 500ml of ATF) and dismantle the pump from the block. Then we sandwich the pulley and the pump between the hydraulic jack and the rear tow-hitch and press it back together. This is not the standard workshop method and in fact knackers the pump (we find later), but we're pretty pleased with our bush engineering. We can't get the pulley on far enough to line up, but with the belt 2/3 on the puiley it's enough to get us out of the desert. We trundle back to the start, nursing the engine at 2200rpm, followed by our police escort.

Our journey back to Hail is slow and uneventful, and we divert to the Sinaiya to find a workshop to solve our problems. It's run by Khalid, and Arnold, a pony-tailed Filipino, is the foreman. They seem happy to stop whatever they are doing to help us out, Arnold sources a new pump and then beats the old pulley back into shape (yes, we knackered that too, and he couldn't find one the same). As well as pressing it back on, Arnold welds it to the shaft for good measure to prevent it slipping off again. We head back to rally control, just in time to put the car into parc ferme. Everyone is happy to see us and offers sympathy and encouragement.

Another 8 hours of penalties are added to our one hour from day 1, but we are assured a start on day 3. We're last (of course) but we're back in the race!

Mushkeela Kabir!

2011-02-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

Oh dear. It was all going so well. We made it over the start ramp, shook hands with Someone Important, and shot off to the start of the Prologue for some more Waiting Around. Then suddenly, it was the turn of number 22 - us.

For the first 30 seconds the car went really well. Then I felt the awful weight on the steering wheel telling me that we had no power steering - i.e. the serpentine belt had come off. Since this meant we also had no alternator or water pump, it seemed wise to stop before the engine cooked itself, or the battery ran flat.

We got off the track, opened the bonnet and sure enough, the belt had gone - but the entire inside of the engine compartment was covered in oil. This doesn't usually happen when the belt goes and clearly Something Bad had happened. Anyway, we had a spare belt, nice spectators helped us fit it, and we set off again. 30 seconds later it happened again, accompanied by copious amounts of smoke. Opened the bonnet again, no belt again, but a small fire was just getting going on the left-hand headers, fueled by the oil which had been spread around. A quick squirt with the hand-held fire-extinguisher put paid to that, but we'd run out of belts. And oil. So we begged a tow off some other nice spectators and got dragged ignominiously into the service park. I was ready to throw in the towel.

It turned out we had two unrelated problems, which seem to have occured more or less simultaneously. The pulley on the power steer pump had moved out of line (away from the block) and the oil return line from the cooler to the pump had sprung a leak. Working feverishly against the clock in the gathering gloom and cold, we pulled off the damaged pipe and Richard blagged a lift from some other nice spectators to the local Sinaiya (car parts souk) where a new one was made up in record time. Meanwhile I pulled off the p/s pump, removed the spacers A2B had put behind it to get the alignment right, and by great good fortune the pulley now lined up correctly.

Sheila meanwhile was attending the Stage Briefing for Day 2 (which we should have been at) and collecting the Day 2 roadbook and the GPS unlock code.

Refitting the oil line proved to be an absolute bitch of a job, because by now it really was damned cold. But you would not believe how many people rallied round to help us. Finally we got it on, filled up with oil (thanks to the Desert Knights rally team) and started the engine. Several litres of oil which had soaked into the wrap of the headers gradually boiled off in clouds of white smoke, while we watched with the firex at the ready. Then I took it for a quick blat round the service park and left it there, just outside the parc ferme (which we should have been inside - but the organisers have let us off that one).

So what of the rally? Well, we'll be starting last (obviously) with a one hour penalty for not completing the prologue within limit time (30 mins). We have over 100km of road liaison to the start of the special stage, which we'll use as a shakedown - if we survive that without further disasters we'll try our luck in the stage.

The people of Hail have been our saviours. The guys who helped put the belt on (and then sought us out to return our tools!), the impromptu recovery crew, Abdullah and Abdullah, our fellow competitors and everyone else who got us through this nightmare - Shukraan Jazilan to you all! You are the best. Almost as good, in fact, as my noble co-driver Richard and Team Manager(ess) Sheila, who have been running around like mad things to get us back on track.

Now let's see what tomorrow will bring...

Quick postscript: the results are here.

Scrutineered

2011-02-08T02:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we nailed into place all the mandatory equipment and stuck the stickers. Apparently we did an adequate job because we passed scrutineering without a hitch. Saudi TV were doing an outside broadcast from there, and decided that we were sufficiently newsworthy to interview.

Today we walked the prologue, which is basically the same as last year. Richard has made notes and we're agreed when and how much he has to communicate about upcoming points of high disaster potential. Sheila has made friends with Osama, who manages the Desert Lions race team, and who has offered to chauffeur her around the stages for the next two days. This does mean that she can't take a lot of spares and kit with her, but at least she'll get to each view point and the finish.

Now we're getting ready to depart the Jebalain for the ceremonial start and prologue, so I'll leave you with a couple of photos of The Beast.

"We could be heroes...

2011-02-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

...just for one day".

But, as my knowledgeable co-driver has pointed out, this is a three day event. So maybe we should avoid the heroics.

Yesterday, we successfully negotiated the UAE/Saudi border without any of the dramas and delays which had attended out previous excursions. In fact we were through both in under half an hour, and arrived in Riyadh in mid afternoon. Today we were re-united with the race car, and settled into our 2-bed apartment at the Jebalain, before heading out to rally HQ at Maghwat for documentation. While waiting for that to start, we were given VIP treatment at the Traditional Souk, where vendors of camel accoutrements, crafts-people and food-stalls vied unsuccessfully for our business. These were indeed 'local shops for local people'.

Back at the Jebalain, we are in the presence of greatness. Nasser Al-Attiyeh's Dakar-winning Toureg shares the same carpark and breathes the same oxygen as my humble Patrol. We are not worthy. The only question appears to be the extent of his winning margin in this event.

Tomorrow we have to install the rally GPS, Iritrak and Sentinel, apply the rally stickers and do some final tidying up before scrutineering at 1330hrs.

Departure of the Beast

2011-02-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's gone. Finally drove it onto the transporter at 6pm on Wednesday after a day of frantic activity, culminating in the last minute discovery that the main fire extinguisher had been fired (by whom and when, I know not) and therefore needed to be refilled and re-armed at a cost of Dh 1000. Ouch. So...I borrowed Jason's instead! I also discovered that I had two square-ish front wheels (courtesy of the DC2010 prang) but no-one had thought to mention this to me. Funnily enough, it drove much better after I'd replaced the wheels with some round-ish ones. Stickers were stuck (rather hurriedly, by that time the transporter was waiting for me), tools and gear were loaded into every nook and cranny of the race car and now it's gone. Should have taken a photo really, but I was too stressed to remember the camera!

Looks like we could be the only Khawajas (white-faces) to participate in the rally. That'll be fun! And it's confirmed that Nasser Al Attiyeh will be competing in the Dakar-winning Toureg, so he's odd-on favourite to spoil Yazeed Al Rajhi's hopes of a hat-trick in the Hail Rally.

Tomorrow at 0730 we head off, hoping to get through the border before prayer-time (1240) and as far as Riyadh for an overnight halt. We plan to reach Hail mid-afternoon Sunday - inchallah!

Stepping back from the edge

2011-02-01T10:09:00.000-08:00

The Beast has spent the day in intensive care at the Al Quoz Hospital for Sick Race-Cars(a.k.a. A2B Garage).

The problem, they discovered, was not the rear diff but the front one. When it had been rebuilt after our 2009 DC disaster, it would appear that the bolts holding the ring-gear to the ARB diff flange were not Loctited in and/or correctly tightened. They chose yesterday to part company with the assembly, and their remains were in the diff housing. Fortunately, the only real damage is to the flange. Unfortunately, this is an ARB part and the ARB dealer here doesn't believe in keeping spares in stock, or even being able to tell you how much they might cost or when they might get here. (Their South African dealer is much more helpful, and will therefore be getting my business.)

However that doesn't solve the problem of having it working right now, so they've borrowed the front diff out of the old race car. This means we won't have a locking front diff lock for Hail, but I can live with that.

The really good news is that the engine temperature didn't get above 85c even in 2nd gear in the dunes - until one of the electric fans packed up, but that too has been fixed. There were a number of other trivial matters to be sorted, and they have been - so once again A2B have scored major points with me. Thanks to Gareth, Jason, Maynard and all the crew there, I was able to drive it back home tonight.

Other than that I've got the ATC carnet and Police permit for the car to visit the Magic Kingdom, and sent out a press release to anyone who might be interested - which will apparently appear in Thursday's Gulf News. All fans who would like their copies autographed should form an orderly queue...

Tomorrow is for cleaning, stickering, fitting shiny new wheels and tyres (same BFG 275/70R16s) and getting it onto the transporter in the evening.

Now, finally, I can believe we're actually going.

Living slightly over the edge

2011-01-31T10:06:00.000-08:00

...staring into the abyss.

Got the car back last night, and spent till 1.00am doing stuff, like improving the jack mount and making the steering wheel point straight ahead when the wheels do. But the serpentine belt (which drives pretty much everything) was knackered so the first job this morning was to find a six-rib belt 2020mm long, how hard can that be? Well, it took all morning but eventually I returned triumphant to fit the belt and finally take the car out for a blat (oops, I mean shakedown). This was around 2.00pm.

All started well. The water temperature, even in some tricky 2nd-gear dunes, was getting only up to 85c and everything felt good. Then the 16" fan stopped working and the temp started to rise. I nursed it back out of the dunes and onto a gatch track - when suddenly the rear end made a very unhealthy noise and I ground to a halt. (That was the car's rear end, by the way, not mine. Just thought I should make that clear.) After some phone calls to Gareth, I decided to remove the rear prop shaft (in the middle of a sandstorm) and see if that made any difference, which it didn't. 'It's the diff', says Gareth. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, Gareth and Katrina dragged my trailer out into the desert behind his F150 and, after a few dramas, stucks, and a shredded trailer tyre, got the Patrol back to the blacktop where it was picked up by a recovery truck about 8.00pm this evening.

So now we only have to:
- sort out the diff
- sort out the fan
- make various lights and the firex system work
- weld a 24mm 1/2" drive socket onto the nut which holds the jack down (to create my patented quick-release mechanism, using the rattle-gun)
- apply all the stickers (did I mention they arrived - and half of them were wrong? Don't ask..)
- get the carnet from ATC and the police permission for the car to go to Saudi
- pay Saeed for the transport
- change the wheels and tyres
- fix a leaking spare tyre
- fix the new air tank valve which leaks
- and shakedown the finished product? Yeah, right...in my dreams.

By my calculations we (i.e. mainly Gareth) have about 40 hours to achieve these miracles. So no pressure, then.

On the plus side, Mark and Fadi have given up the unequal struggle with Saudi beaurocracy to get visas, and will now concentrate on the DC. So that's two cars we won't be behind in Hail.

The other day, I put out a call to Al Thika Packaging's service engineers, asking if anyone was interested in joining us for the DC adventure. This involves long hours of boredom whilst camping in the desert, interspersed with periods of panic-stricken activity which can go on all night, whilst being sand-blasted and periodically deafened by the testing of other competitors' vehicles. So far only one engineer has decided that he's sufficiently desperate to escape from fixing packaging machines for a week to volunteer. So - welcome to the crew, Fred Santiago! Fred normally services our customers' machines in Oman, and clearly has no idea whatsoever what he's let himself in for. Maybe I should keep it that way...

Stay tuned for the next nail-biting instalment of 'The Race to Hail'.

Living on the edge

2011-01-29T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well, Saturday came and went, A2B didn't get the power steer pump back till just short of closing time, and then found that the damned machine shop had pressed the pulley on too far - meaning it's out of line with the fanbelt. Brilliant - they only had to copy the position of the old one, but clearly that was beyond their wit. So rather than send it back to the idiots at the machine shop, Gareth is going to make up some shims to space it off the engine block and bring it back to alignment. However, they have managed to complete a list of other jobs, like making a new mounting for the trolley jack, and lock-wiring the hub bolts, so the pump is the last item. Potentially, some time tomorrow (now our weekend is over) I might have it. I'll just have to bunk off work to do a shakedown.

Meanwhile, I can leave you with some links to videos featuring NewTrix Racing!

This one shows us on the prologue for the Hail Baja 2010, at about 3min 30.

Yet another link to the same event, showing the start of Day 1, again we're about 3min 30 into the video.

Finally, this one shows us starting Day 2 at about 7min 50.

This one contains some in-car footage from DC 2010, and was kindly edited by Rick Carless, my Technical Manager. Watching this is about as close as I can get to driving a rally car at the moment, which is a bit sad!

Further news of the Hail Rally is that the Toyota Team are planning to run two Toyota FJs, including the V8-engined prototype which Abdullah Bakhashab (absent from the 2011 crew) piloted last year. They've asked for help in shipping 1200L of AvGas from Dubai to Hail - yet another team with problems!

Rumour has it that Nasser Al Attiyeh, fresh from victory in the Dakar, may compete in one of the VW Touregs. Yazeed Al Rajhi will be trying for 3rd straight victory in the event, driving an Overdrive Nissan Navara.

In the continuing absence of any worthwhile website from the Hail Rally organisers, you may be able to find updates at Neil Perkins' NDP Publicity website.

Still no car - AAARGH!

2011-01-28T01:12:00.000-08:00

Well it's good news/bad news back at A2B garage. The best bit of good news is that they reckon they've found the cause of the overheating headers and the backfiring - seems that the camshaft position sensor was never connected. And I mean NEVER, as in it wasn't connected for Hail 2010 or DC2010! So that fact that we did as well as we did is a minor miracle. Funnily enough, Gareth reports that it 'runs much better' now it's connected - there's a surprise! Could this have been contributing to our earlier overheating problems?? I suspect so.

Bad news is that the new power steer pump wasn't a simple drop-in replacement, the fittings are wrong and the pulley needs a spcial tool to press onto the pump - so it didn't get finished yesterday. Now we're shooting for a shakedown on Saturday afternoon. Nothing beats the excitement of leaving it all till the last minute, does it?

There are still various tidying-up jobs to finish off but, if it runs tomorrow, I'll feel a whole lot happier. And by Sunday, all three of us will have Saudi visas in our passports, which is another step closer to Hail.

Some consolation is the fact that most of my fellow-competitors from the UAE are in at least as bad a state as us. Mabbsy's FJ is still not finished, Team Saluki have visa problems, and work is still in progress on the two Predator Buggies Mark and Fadi Melky plan to drive. His old Honda-powered Fast & Speed buggy has been re-engined with a Nissan 4L V6, and now belongs to Nazer Shanfari, but so far it's not been tested.

My old friend Saeed Al Hameli has decided to rent a complete car transporter, so I've bought a slot on that. I've decided that Dh4500 to save towing the race car 3500km is money well spent, although it does mean that the car has to be ready to pick up Wednesday evening, rather than next Saturday - which is when we plan to head off in Sheila's Prado.

Weather in Hail is a chilly 8 deg.c. at night and only 22 at midday, so I think we'll be needing the thermal underwear more than the sunscreen. At least the engine has no excuse to overheat this time!

Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll!

2011-01-18T04:06:00.000-08:00

Is it really that long since I last updated the blog? Has anything worthy of note happened in the interim? Are we going to be rallying this year?

I am happy to give you the answers to these pressing questions, which are yes, yes, and inshallah.

Well, the clutch got reassembled, but when road testing it made a horrid noise, so we had to drop the gearbox again and take it out, check it, not find anything wrong, carefully re-assemble it and it worked OK. Big sigh of relief – until it went out on the road with its new radiator. It returned from a quick trip to the traffic lights and back with the headers glowing red-hot, which is generally considered to be a Bad Thing. My first guess – subsequently borne out by my mate Kolby at Turnkey Engines – was an overly lean mixture. The big question is - why? We haven’t messed with the ECU or anything else, so maybe we’re short on fuel pressure, or the airflow sensor is under-reporting the amount of air going in. Or something.

Anyway, we needed to get the paintwork sorted and the dent in the rear door fixed, so as soon as it comes come out of the paintshop, we can concentrate on the mixture problem. Fortunately Mark Adams, Saluki Motorsport’s chief tuning guru, is about to arrive from UK, and we may need to call on his expertise. And time is running out.

And so to Hail. While marshalling at the Yas Marina F1, I had a fortuitous meeting with Richard Phillipson (photo attached), who has rallied extensively in saloon cars throughout Europe. I mentioned that I was looking for a co-driver for Hail, and (mad fool that he is) he immediately volunteered! Together we took on the job of course opening for the Dubai International Rally in the ‘00’ car last month, and managed to get through two days without coming to blows, so it’s settled. We plan to leave Dubai on 5th Feb, 8th Feb is the prologue, and the main event is Feb 9th-10th. Since the Saudis still refuse to allow Sheila to compete, the event is not part of the 2011 FIA Cross-Country World Championship, but it is still an FIA event. Sheila will once again be our indispensible Team Manager.

Now, if only we had a car…

Two steps forward, one step back..

2010-08-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

So, dear readers, you may rightly wonder why such an aeon has elapsed since my last foray into the blogosphere. It’s not so much that nothing has actually happened – it’s just that a blow-by-blow account of the rather turgid pace of progress would have sent the average reader into a coma. However, let me briefly reveal the ‘two steps forward, one step back’ kind of progress we have made.

Having taken off the bent front axle and stripped its (functioning) innards out, it went to Trinity Engineering, whom I was unreliably informed were able to straighten the bent axle casing. Well, it turns out they weren’t willing to take the chance of knackering the axle casing further with their 200-ton press, which is a bit daft as it’s clearly knackered already. So the only alternative was to throw some more cash at the problem and buy a new axle casing – which then of course had to be reinforced, hopefully to a higher standard than the old one.

Then the engine and gearbox were to be re-assembled with the new clutch and thrust bearing. First job is to get the old thrust bearing out of the adaptor plate casting, which sits between the engine and gearbox. Four bolts hold the thrust bearing assembly into the ‘spider’ of the adaptor, and once removed, the adaptor plate casting promptly disintegrated. Bugger! Turns out it was only the bolts that were holding it together. This is another part of the Marks 4WD conversion kit from Australia, so guess what? Give the credit card another good spanking and get a new adaptor plate. Of course, if I’d known it was going to fall apart, I could have got it at the same time as the clutch. Such is life.

Are there any more repairs in store that can go disastrously and expensively wrong? I wouldn’t bet against it. Can Gareth, for example, reinforce the chassis without setting the entire vehicle on fire? Well, actually yes he did, but you get my point.

What we need now is a new radiator, because those of you who have been paying attention will know that cooling is a Big Issue. So I’d been recommended to get an original aluminium V8 Cruiser radiator, but that would have plastic tanks, which would have to be replaced with aluminium for strength, and then we’d have to fabricate a shroud to house the fans, and mountings to attach it to the Patrol. So rather than faff around with that, why not get a proper custom-made race radiator that can solve the problem once and for all? Then we can get a double pass unit with the inlet and outlet on the same end of the rad, such that our hose runs to and from the engine are minimized, which is a Good Thing.

Have you ever read BillaVista’s tech pages on Pirate 4x4? He does go on a bit, so probably best if you put the coffee on first, but you get the feeling that he knows whereof he speaks. And he speaks highly of Griffin Radiators in the USA, and by chance has fitted one of their custom rads to his project off-road vehicle – which just happens to have the same LS2 engine from Turnkey that lurks under The Beast’s bonnet. (The only difference is that he probably got his rad for free, in exchange for giving it a massive thumbs-up. But I digress.) So I dropped them a line, together with a drawing of what I wanted, and they came back by return with a four-figure price. Ouch. I thought it was expensive – until I got another offer from a UK supplier which worked out at nearly double the money. In the immortal words of Griffin’s Benji ‘If this doesn't do it, there's nothing else on the planet that will!’ Time to give the plastic another spanking, I think…

So once we get this rad in, and all the other tedious but necessary jobs are done (like making sure the exhaust doesn’t fall off, and the engine mounts stay where they belong), we’ll be able to take it for a blat – sorry, ‘shakedown’. And assuming it all works as planned, then I need to find a cheap but relatively competent paint shop to remove the massive dent the bastard Frenchies put in my rear doors, and re-spray all the bits that we’ve replaced. In all probability, they won’t do it for free, either.

Then it’ll be ready to race, won’t it? Well, actually, no. Because the FIA, in their infinite wisdom, have decided once again to change the mandatory inlet restrictor size from 2011 from 37mm to 35mm. So I’ll have to get a new one made, and I know from experience that no-one in the UAE can make one the way I want it, so I’ll have to get it made elsewhere.

Somewhere in the distance I hear the sound of a credit card being spanked to death…

On the mend

2010-06-20T03:27:00.000-07:00

Polimar have worked their magic on the Car-o-Liner. We needed a new radiator panel, wing and headlight, and a new bumper and its support frame to complete the rebuild of the front end, but as good as their word, they’ve brought the entire chassis back to the shape Nissan intended.

Having separated the engine from the gearbox, the reason for the reluctant gear-changing became apparent. The diaphragm spring has about a dozen ‘fingers’ which disengage the clutch when pushed in by the release bearing. Or at least it would, except that most of these ‘fingers’ were lying in the bottom of the bell-housing, and the release bearing was shot. Unfortunately, Marks 4WD (who supplied the original conversion parts) are unable now to supply an identical 12” clutch, unless I’m prepared to wait a few months and accept buying it with a new flywheel – which I don’t need! So I’ve had to opt for the same design of 11” clutch, with the same clamping force, which will hopefully do the same job.

The car is now back at A2B for the engine, gearbox and new clutch to be fitted. Their job list comprises:
• remove and straighten the front axle
• drill out and replace the hub bolts
• cut the new wing for the snorkel to be re-fitted
• fit the bonnet fan
• improve the engine mountings

With the engine and axle out, it’s the ideal opportunity to make any modifications that can improve reliability, and Gareth has carte-blanche to use his initiative in that area. We’re hoping to have the work finished by the end of the month, assuming Trinity Engineering can succeed in straightening the axle. Then we can move on to testing, and some further work on the cooling system.

And so begins the task..

2010-04-27T00:03:00.000-07:00

42mm, Mr Goat? Nowhere near.
62mm, David? Getting better..
130mm, Ian? Very close, but since I told you the answer it doesn't qualify as a guess. (And anyway, you've had a ride in the Beast already!)

The worst dimension is 132mm, just over 5" in old money. This is the vertical outage on the front left chassis rail. If you combine this with 65mm lateral outage and 23mm longitudinal outage, it's actually 149mm away from where it should be!
So, since I don't allow anonymous people in my car, I pronounce David the winner. Now, if only I knew which David that was...but don't worry, I have plenty of time to find out - the car won't be doing passsenger rides any time soon!

Polimar have confirmed that they can re-align the chassis to 'factory spec' and repair the bodywork, but they need the engine out first. So the Beast is back at A2B, where they will pull out the engine and gearbox complete. (The gears were becoming increasingly hard to engage as the DC progressed, so we need to find out what's going on inside the bell-housing anyway.) Once that's done, I can trailer it back to Polimar for them to work their magic. Then it will be back to A2B for a long list of mechanical jobs.

I've ended up with almost 10 hours of high-quality in-car video from the DC. Now I need to view it all and find the interesting bits, and hopefully have it edited into something watchable!

Going to Car-O-Liner in my mind

2010-04-13T03:37:00.000-07:00

It’s taken a while to get round to an update. Unfortunately, my ghost-writing colleague was so completely worn-out and knackered by his narrative efforts that he had to immediately rush off on holiday to India as soon as I got back from the DC. This left me, worn-out and knackered as I am from our rallying, to do some actual work in the office. Sadly, this has taken priority over blogging.

Anyway… 2nd April saw me heading back to White Sands Grocery with the trailer on tow, while Streaky and Dave Pryce headed out from Pryce Mansion in the leafy suburbs of Abu Dhabi. In accordance with my cunning plan, they reached the dead Patrol a lot earlier than me, and did all the donkey work. They winched the truck out of the hole, winched the steering rod into some semblance of straightness and (surprisingly) drove it back to the gatch track, where I only had to load it on the trailer. Job done, and many thanks to the two of them.

Back in Dubai, we realized that we had an impressive list of mechanical jobs to do. Front hub bolts to be drilled out and replaced, gearbox to be removed (sounds like a ton of sand in the clutch), front axle to be straightened, further work on the cooling and so on. And on. But before we get to that, we need to rectify the damage, which turned out to be much more than superficial. With the wings off, we could see that the chassis was bent, so I contacted Mr Sacco Dermoussissian at Polimar. Polimar have the Car-o-Liner, a piece of Swedish magic which makes a 3D map of the damaged chassis and compares it to the record in its 10,000-plus car database of what the chassis should look like. Each of the 60 datum points should be within 3mm of the original, and the data shows exactly what has to be pulled, pushed or massaged to achieve factory-perfect alignment.

So now we have a competition. Using your skill, judgement and the above photos, guess the maximum misalignment of the chassis in any direction. All I can tell you is that the left hand chassis rail is bent up, and both are bent to the right, and anything in excess of 9mm is sufficient to fail registration at Dubai Police (who also have a Car-o-Liner). The nearest guess wins a passenger ride in the Beast once it’s back in one piece!

It ain't over yet!

2010-04-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

Well, first I must congratulate my ghost-writing friend Mr Ansell for his enormously creative and entertaining account of each days events, generally based on our five-minute phone call at the end of each day. All you have read is true - only the facts have been altered to make it more interesting.

The Beast is still in the desert, somewhere out near White Sands Grocery. (I won't give the exact location in case someone gets there before us and nicks it, although they'll have a tough job moving it!) So what needs doing? The tie-bar is so completely bent that moving the steering wheel only bends it more, without moving the wheels, so we need a big lump hammer to break the taper joints before we can replace it. The front LH wheel is off the rim, not a major problem. One of the main engine oil pipes is crushed against the clutch master cylinder, but not leaking - so we need to fix that before we run the engine, to avoid oil starvation. The engine runs but the throttle is sticking. The whole of the front LH area is stoved in, bonnet/wing/lights etc well knackered. Whether there is anough clearance for the front LH wheel to turn, we will only find out once the field repairs are accomplished. Oh, and we're down to three out of six bolts holding the RH hub in place - if they go, we're down the 2WD. The rest have sheared off one by one over the last 2 days.

The good news (yes, there is some!) is that despite all the penalties we got for yesterday's misadventure - about 18 hours by my reckoning - we managed a 10th place finish and have the trophies to prove it! Fadi Melky and Mario Mitri got the 6th place we were hoping for, along with the 3rd-in-Gulf prize, which would have been ours as well if the dice had rolled the other way. I'd set a top-ten finish as my aim, so I should be happy with that - but it's hard when it could have been so much better.

I now realise that we have the speed and the suspension to take on the best in the world - works teams excepted! We pulled 170kph (GPS reading) on the gatch track at the start of Day 5, and climbing through the dunes no-one could catch us. When we crashed out, we had only Novitsky (top seed and eventual winner in the BMW X3) ahead of us, having passed everyone else. With a bit more work on the cooling, we'll be set for next season.

Major thanks are due to Rick Carless and Cesar Marquez, our untiring service crew who battled (and bodged!) for 5 days to keep us running - without their hard work and late nights we'd never have made it. Words cannot express our gratitude, they are the real stars of the team.

Anyway, I have to go - there's a Beast in the desert that needs my help.

BUGGER!!

2010-04-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

For once I’m afraid the witty comments and music hall gags escape me. Today started out full of promise, with Ian and Sheila lying in 6th place overall and 3rd in the T1 category. And as they set off on this, the last day of the 2010 Desert Challenge, they stormed through the field, soon dispatching one competitor after another on the early stage gatch track and dunes.

Eventually they caught up with friends Fadi and Mario in the “Strange Rover” and knowing Fadi is an excellent dune driver, Ian decided wisely to protect his race position and simply follow Fadi through the rough patches of desert.

Unfortunately, at some point, Ian drifted just a few feet to the side of Fadi’s own route. Maybe the width of a car or two but not more, yet in the desert, at race speeds, these things can make a huge difference. Fadi crossed a dune crest perfectly safely yet as the front of Ian and Sheila’s vehicle broke over the top just to the right of Fadi’s line, it slammed into rising terrain on the other side with such force that it broke the front suspension. With the vehicle crippled, the heart-broken pair knew their race was over. They were just 100kms from the finish of a 2,500 kilometre race and, having started later than Fadi, were incredibly, running in second place on the stage. Only the works BMW driven by a professional race driver was faster.

To add insult to injury, just a few minutes later one of the Abu Dhabi based Fitech cars came over the same dune, smacked into the back of Ian’s Patrol and incredibly, then drove off without stopping to see if anyone had been hurt or what damage had been done. So, to the French driver of the offending car, I take great pleasure in reminding you that if it wasn’t for Britain you’d be called Fritz, speaking German and eating sauerkraut right now. Ever heard of Trafalgar? Remember Agincourt? We whipped your boys there too. So we happily raise two fingers at you, in the traditional English archers salute. Read ‘em and weep.

Anyway, moving on…..

Ian and Sheila traveled back in a support car to the Yas Marina circuit for the race finish, then Ian and Rick returned to the race car to try, without success tonight, to recover it from the desert. Our good friend Streaky is currently driving a borrowed monstrous Ford F350 truck which is probably the most suitably equipped rig in the area to drag the Patrol to the side of the road, so tomorrow he’s offered to help recover it. Rick must hot foot it back to Dubai tonight because he’s on a plane home to Manchester about now – thanks Rick for your sterling support. What are you doing about this time next year mate?

Also thanks to Cesar who ably assisted Rick, Ian and Sheila. Sorry Cesar but it’s back to reality on Sunday – we’ve got an installation for you at Dubai Investment Park.

Aaaah. There’s always next year……………….!

Fadi went on to finish second on the stage I believe and second highest placed gulf team. A prize that might well have been Ian and Sheila’s but for lady ‘luck’.

Malcolm Anderson and Mark Schofield finished just outside the top 10 but Malcolm drove incredibly well today, covering over 100 kilometres in a 20 year old Range Rover with a broken diff and consequently without front wheel drive. Well done mate!

Sorry but as yet the official results are not on the race website so I can’t be sure how Team FJ got on.

Congratulations too to my friend, bike rider James West. After shattering his leg in last year’s race then suffering all sorts of complications with the recovery, James rode the race of his life this week and finished second overall, giving KTM bikes a 1-2 finish with Marc Coma taking the victory. A works ride for James can’t be that far away surely…….are you listening KTM???

Right, I’m so exhausted I’m now taking two weeks holiday to travel around India. Assuming I’m not eaten by tigers in Ranthambhore, in the words of Arnie. “I’ll be back”. Do you think I'll spot any cheese eating surrender monkeys while I'm there? Je ne sais pas.

Meanwhile ‘normal service will be resumed’ with Ian’s first post race post (ooh, I like that, first post race post. Sounds good) in the next 72 hours I’d imagine, when he and Sheila have slept off their exhaustion.

WELL DONE to the pair of you.

Patrol holes and a Saluki at the vet's....

2010-03-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks but it’s going to be a quick update tonight because I’ve just got in late from Abu Dhabi and I’m dog tired. I’ll try to add more information tomorrow.
Ian and Sheila started the day in 5th overall and were running well until somewhere between PC3 and PC4. Driving on white sand at around mid-day when the sun’s overhead and there are no shadows to define the terrain, Ian came over a crest only to drop the vehicle into what he described as a “perfect Patrol sized hole”. With the front of the car pointing skywards over the next crest but the back doors jammed on the sand behind, it took them 10 minutes just to dig behind the back doors enough to open them to get the sand ladders and shovel out.

Fortunately they had just passed some spectators who turned out to be of the friendly, helpful variety, who drove over and gave Ian and Sheila a helping hand to extract the car. Delayed for a while and with the tyres now down at around 12psi, they then sped off. Ian was thinking to himself “I must stop and reinflate the tyres or I’ll pop one off the rim" but then when he was caught by a couple of other cars and dueling with them in the dunes, guess what? Yep, the tyre popped off. So at that point, after changing one, he thought it best to air up again.....

Eventually they crossed the line in just over six and a half hours and in 6th place. Our friend Fadi Melky finished in in third in 6 hours and 6 minutes. See, I told you yesterday he wouldn’t give up easily! Newtrix will start tomorrow, the final day of the rally, from a position of 6th overall, and 3rd in T1 class.

Other local team news

A bad day for Team Saluki. Running in second place on the day, Mark and Paul were again flying through the stage, but today took that concept just a little too literally. They were still at full throttle when they reached a steep drop off which neither crew member noticed in time. The car dropped onto its nose, very hard and at high speed, then rolled and ended up on its side. Mark and Paul were medivaced to Madinat Zayed Hospital for precautionary checks but I’m pleased to say suffered only cuts and bruises. I asked Mark how he was and he said “I’m fine but the car’s………..”. Well actually, on second thoughts, I won’t tell you what he said. There might be children reading!

Fadi & Mario – had a great day, third place on the stage today, good job guys.

Malcolm and Mark; I heard they’d broken a differential but still they finished 10th overall on the day. That old Rangie seems to be hanging in there.

David & Xavier. Haven’t spoken to them but they finished with several hours penalties so I guess didn’t reach all the PCs.

Fingers crossed that everyone gets to the finish line safely tomorrow.

Right, I’ll take a bow now. Or is that a bow wow? Maybe a dognap?

Tracks, tracking and track rods

2010-03-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

STOP PRESS

As of 11.45pm local UAE time the official race website results show Ian and Sheila placed FIFTH overall in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge 2010 and SECOND in the T1, modified 4x4 category. And since this is the first event of the 2010 Cross Country World Cup, that means that an 'old dog' and his young friend are currently, officially, the second best specialist 4x4 drivers in the world. So no pressure tomorrow then.

The trouble with having live tracking of the race on your PC is that it’s difficult to get any work done. When I checked at around mid-day today Ian and Sheila were FLYING round the stage – they were in third place for well over two hours, which was exciting, so I kept checking. Then the signal from the car disappeared! I thought the worst, even thinking at one point that if they were upside down, the GPS aerial would be covered and that this might be the problem. I rang Rick and he hadn’t seen them pass, and I started to worry. So I checked more and more often, despite being rudely interrupted by customers and staff on more than one occasion. Have they no sense of priority!

Eventually the satellite tracking showed me that Newtrix were in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which I must admit surprised me, and I calculated that they’d been traveling at approximately 2,000 kilometres per hour. Or Mach 1.5. Now that’s impressive. I was concerned that at those speeds Ian might have had the usual engine problems but apparently not – 15 minutes later I checked back in and they’d returned to Liwa. Given that most of the competitors covered just 380 kms today whilst Ian and Sheila appear to have covered close to four thousand, I think they’ve earned a drink. God only knows when they stopped to refuel. I’ll have another word with Sheila about calibrating the trip meter more carefully though. To be honest, she really should have noticed that degree of error.

Anyway once normal tracking service had been resumed, it seemed clear to me that something was afoot. It turned out to be the fleshy, toey thing on the end of my leg. Not only that, but Ian had slowed down. And that’s not an expression with which I’m particularly familiar. By now Team Saluki and a couple of the other front runners had clearly retired for the day so I knew if their Dognesses could cross the finish line, they’d be in a good position for tomorrow’s race.

Another call to Rick confirmed my fears, they’d see the race car go past but a bent tie rod meant that the front wheels were pointing in different directions, causing major drag on Ian’s strength, to keep it moving straight ahead, on the power steering pump, the tyre walls and almost certainly, Ian’s patience. He drove the last three hours of the race like this, finishing after a grueling seven and a half hours behind the wheel, and tells me he’s unlikely to go to the gym tonight. No need really.

And here’s another wonderful benefit of satellite tracking. Early in the day Rick called me to say “are you near a computer, can you tell me where they are? Bear in mind that Rick was at the time located around 600kms from my office and staring at a fairly large sand pit in which he was trying to observe a single car. Silly Boy. A quick check on the system told me that Ian and Sheila had passed the point where Rick was stood about an hour earlier. Upon relaying this information Rick was heard to say “Christ, I’d better go or we’ll never catch them back up” and since he was driving a similar car to Ian’s but on flat tarmac, that gives you some idea how fast Ian was driving.

Ian told me this evening that Sheila has now definitely got the hang of cutting corners at waypoints. By turning at the moment the GPS picks up a waypoint signal and tells the co-driver it's been 'collected', which is typically around 250m before reaching the exact point itself, Sheila is able to give Ian advanced notice of 'short cuts' which means not having to slow down, taking wider turns much faster. This can add up to several minutes saved by the end of the day. "Way to go Sheila" Of course she had a good tutor. Modesty forbids me from mentioning his full name. Tim something or other.

The photos above, of Ian and Sheila racing on Day 1 (note - no chicken wire grille)were kindly supplied by The Right Honourable Mr. Craig McAteer, who writes and takes photos for a Dubai based rally team named after a dog. Hang on a minute.......Deja Vu all over again.

Other local team news:

Desert FJ never started the day – they damaged the front diff in yesterday’s heavy landing (a.k.a. ‘crash’) and since they drive the only FJ Cruiser in the country fitted with a manual gearbox, the available diffs are the wrong spec so they drove to the start line, turned round and came back. Failing to start would mean exclusion from the race. They incur maximum penalties this way but can still race tomorrow if they succeed in repairing the car

Team Saluki were on a mission in the morning, driving even faster than Newtrix (only just). But 3kms after the service point the steering pump pulley shattered, leaving them with no way of running the water pump or alternator. Having no cooling and no battery is a bad situation to be in, so they made the smart decision to return to the service point, then to the bivouac on tarmac, thus avoiding getting stuck in the desert. Smart move, no matter how galling it is to pull out of the race day halfway through

Fadi Melki is apparently still struggling through the desert as I write this. I don’t know what the problem is but Fadi is not the sort to ever give up (frankly, no-one who races in the desert would last long if they gave up easily) so I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow.

Malcolm and Mark’s “Ansell Chassis Racer” completed the stage in a grueling NINE hours. I know from personal experience how hard it is to keep up the momentum driving an old Classic Rangie in the desert and I don’t doubt that they’ll be shattered. But they made it – a creditable achievement on such a grueling stage.

Emile and Patrick pulled out of the day’s stage at PC2 with mechanical problems and I had a call from Patrick, whom I “taught the DC ropes” to along with Sheila and Mark, asking for my advice about race regulations as they drove back.

Isn’t technology wonderful – enjoying satellite tracking and offering regulations advice whilst 600 kms from the race in air conditioned comfort. And I get to have a proper shower and sleep in my own bed. THIS is the way to do the Desert Challenge!

Woooooooooooff, I’m outta here

Dune Roamin'

2010-03-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Having spoken to Ian a few minutes ago, I’m happy to say that he’s in MUCH better spirits than he was yesterday. The modifications to the bonnet (there’s that word again) combined with the goat deflecting chicken wire (no animals were hurt in the making of today’s rally stage) have helped reduce the engine bay temperature, leading to far fewer occasions when the ECU picked up the ball, cut out 4 cylinders and refused to play.

Unfortunately on one of the few occasions when it DID decide to pack up, even though the car was on level ground at the time, Ian described the sand there as being “as soft as silt”. At least, I think that’s what he said - there was a bit of a crackle on the line at the time. Consequently the car immediately sank into the ‘soft silt’, necessitating the use of sand ladders under the front wheels, and a further reduction in tyre pressures. This cost Ian and Sheila 5 to 10 minutes delay but Ian felt the car drove a lot better from then on thanks to the lower pressures, so they soon made up the lost time, and then some.

Sheila unfortunately was feeling a bit under the weather for much of the first half of the day. Speaking from personal experience I know that the particular dunes they were driving early on had a strange effect on my stomach too when I was co-driving. There must be something about the pitch of the dunes in that section because it was from the same area that I was airlifted out in 2006 due to dehydration as a result of constant vomiting. Sorry but that’s the glamorous life of a co-driver for you. Sheila too ‘fed the fish’ a few times today but being a great trooper (as opposed to a State Trooper – different hats) she Percy Veered. No giving up and taking a helicopter ride for her, oh no. I shall never be able to look her in the eye again. I out wimped her.

At one point Ian stopped the car next to long time friend and off roading companion Alan Passmore in one of the Sweep cars, hoping that he might have a medic on board. You’d have thought that with his wife in the car feeling unwell, Ian would be able to resist chatting up the nurses for just ONE morning, but apparently not! Unfortunately there was no pretty nurse on board, but John Tan, bless his little cotton socks, was carrying some travel sickness tablets (he’d obviously traveled with Alan before) and he was able to administer life saving medication to Sheila. Rumours that John was in fact wearing a nurse’s uniform at the time remain unconfirmed at this juncture. That’ll be Dh 500 then John - Thanks.

So with no further ado, Newtrix bid Alan and his Ward Sister adieu, and sped off again. Soon they were in faster sections with some steep climbs and Ian had time to enjoy the massive torque of the 5.7 litre V8 Chevrolet engine pulling the Patrol along at full speed. When you consider the amount of money he’s spent on an engine rebuild and additional components for the block, if he ever tries to tell you that torque is cheap, don’t believe a word of it.

At the service point they stopped to fix a broken exhaust hanger which was causing the rear exhaust can to thrash around violently under the vehicle. After waiting for hours in the glaring sunshine, Rick was delighted to be able crawl under the shade of the car, cover himself in dust and oil, burn his hands on the exhaust pipe and wish Ian and Sheila “a pleasant onward journey”. What a nice bloke. Did he get a tip? Did he heck.

And so their Dognesses pounded on through the desert, occasionally overtaking vehicles which one might have reasonably expected to able to run faster than Newtrix, but with Ian’s ebullient attitude and incomparable driving skills matched only by Sheila’s faultless navigation, they strove forth in search of glory. Damn. This is good stuff!

However their goal of racing across the finish at PC 5 was not to be – for safety’s sake the organisers will sometimes insist that cars which reach earlier PCs after a certain time limit, must return directly to the bivouac by a more direct route, usually on a combination of gatch and tarmac roads. It means that tired drivers do not end up lost in the middle of no-where late into the evening, thus reducing the load on the Sweep and Rescue teams. Unfortunately Ian and Sheila, along with the vast majority of the field, were subject to such instructions at PC4, meaning that they drove back to the bivouac under the veil of receiving maximum penalties on the day. At the time of writing this blog I know that many drivers who were ‘time barred’ today feel that they have been dealt a rough hand in view of the fact that crews who arrived at PC4 in say, 5 hours, will receive the same ‘maximum’ time (typically 9 hours) on their time sheets as those who made it to PC4 in 7 hours for example. This has been put to the FIA adjudicators and it may be that tomorrow we receive some good news in that respect. Fingers crossed.

So a good day for all – smiles all round.

News on other local racers: Team Saluki put on an impressive display today and are currently in second place overall. Their highest ever race position. Mabrook guys. Dave Mabbs managed to somehow plant the FJ Cruiser on its nose so heavily that he rearranged every component on the front end of the vehicle yet amazingly, not damage the radiator. So whilst he drove it back to the bivouac, it’s currently undergoing major rhinoplasty. Nurse, more swabs please. Where is John Tan when you need him?

Emile and Patrick in Emile’s hand crafted err, vehicle, managed to pitch pole it onto the roof. No-one was hurt thankfully, but by pulling the vehicle onto its side using an on board winch, they flattened the battery so were unable to winch it onto its wheels. It has now been recovered and is back at base camp. Malcolm and Mark in their “Ansell chassis Dune Raider” had another strong day and are running well. I’ll take credit for that thanks.

Until tomorrow. “Walkies”

It's been a wrrruuuufff day...

2010-03-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

Day 1 and Newtrix Racing expanded from two desert bound members to six, two of whom were heroic in their endeavours, two of whom were frustrated racers, and Rick and Cesar were just stuck. This then, is the story of too much heat, too few cylinders, and no volts whatsoever.

Starting in fourth place on Day 1 brought with it the responsibility of working with many of the world’s media, all desperate for an update on Ian’s relationship with Kate Winslet (he doesn’t know her) and Sheila’s with Tiger Woods (she's never met him) before the dandy duo blatted off into the wild yellow yonder in a trail of dust. Fortunately, the organisers had given Sheila some coordinates for yonder, cutting out much of the guess work. Unfortunately, yonder proved to be quite a long way away through nasty sand dunes (in the ‘Desert Challenge’ – who’d have thunk it?) and after just a few kilometres (that’s the equivalent of a few miles for those of you who drive imperially) the first disaster of the day struck when a tyre was ripped from its rim. This tends to happen when the tyres have been deflated in order to maximise grip in the sand dunes, but on a firmer ‘gatch’ track, the load on the tyre’s sidewall means that occasionally it’s pulled sideways off the rim, usually when cornering. A few minutes of slick teamwork had the car jacked up and the tyre reseated, so Ian and Sheila were hot under the flea collar but on their way.

However, their short lived rapid progress was then halted when they got caught in a ‘nasty stuck’. The more experienced off roading readers will know that there are two kinds of stuck. Those from which you are able to remove yourself within 4 minutes through judicious use of forward and reverse gears, and which are referred to as ‘not very stucks’ . Then there are those which require extensive digging, driving, digging, swearing, digging, dehydrating, swearing, digging and praying. Those are referred to as ‘nasty stucks’ and it was one of those which reached out and caught Newtrix by the paws. A long time later, today’s superheros, John ‘Commander’ Mitchell Ross and Steve “Self Loading Freight" Dessurne of the forward Sweep Team stumbled across our tired and emotional couple and towed them free of the sand, for which Ian and Sheila were ‘two cold cans each tonight’ grateful.

Forced to make up for lost time, our intrepid racers sped off into the rolling dunescapes, but after battling against the forces of nature, friction and gravity for a while, the ongoing problem of an overheating engine raised its ugly and thermally challenged head. Now on the Chevrolet LS engine, as fitted to Ian’s Patrol, when its ECU (Engine Crippling Unit) detects the strange odour of over-ripened exhaust headers, there is unfortunately a ‘safety feature’ which switches off four of the engine’s eight cylinders, which is all very well when you are driving on tarmac in your Corvette, but a right royal pain in the rectum when you are climbing the near vertical side of a sand dune in a Nissan Patrol. Consequently Ian was forced repeatedly to stop the car, switch off the engine and wait for it to cool down, before restarting it and driving on again. Having repeated this exercise a half a dozen times, unfortunately the battery became terminally ill. Battery. Terminal. Get it! (Thanks, I’m here every Sunday, the bar closes at midnight.) Bereft of volts, it sparked no more. In fact, this battery wouldn’t woosh if you put 40,000 volts through it. Mind you, they would have come in handy.

So parked at the side of the road and with apparently no way of starting the engine, Ian and Sheila called for help. Quick as a flash, Rick and Cesar sped into action, leapt into their support 4x4, raced off into the desert. And got stuck. You know, one of those nasty stucks you’ve heard about. So whilst Cannon and Ball attempted to dig themselves free, Batman and Robin, in the shape of JMR and Steve, once again came to the rescue of his and her Dogness. One illicit exchange of battery juices later and Newtrix were on their way. Again. So that’s half a dozen cold cans each owed now.

Rick and Cesar eventually freed themselves (with a spot of assistance from some friendly passers by) and drove back to the finish to await the Patrol. But of course, there’s more.

Once again it overheated, once again Ian had to stop, once again it wouldn’t restart and once again, our caped crusaders, Sweep Team One, Messrs Mitchell Ross and Dessurne, swooped in from upon high, gave the Patrol a kick up the jacking points, and off it jolly well dashed. With Ian and Sheila chasing it furiously. Having regained control, they then shot off to the finish where they made it with just five minutes to spare before they’d have been penalised by several hours for not finishing within limit time. So that’s a case of beer each now owed to the soon to be inebriated super heroes.

Tonight the guys are trying to get more air to flow through the radiators by removing the pretty but restrictive grille and replacing it with chicken wire. Yes chicken wire. Air will go through it, but hopefully twigs, stones, camel droppings and small goats will not. Suitable for kids of all ages. Small goats. Kids. (Thanks, I’m here every Sunday, the bar closes at midnight.)

Then they are raising the bonnet by a few millimetres (bits of inches) which will hopefully allow more heat to dissipate. Now there’s a word I don’t use very often. Bonnet.

In other news, Mark Powell and Paul Richards of Team Saluki are in 4th place, Dave Mabbs and Xavier Caminada (Desert FJ) are about 18th I think (no updates currently on the race website) and Malcolm Anderson and Mark Schofield, in a race car built on the chassis of a Range Rover I wrote off 4 years ago(!!), are roughly 15th.

For live updates each day you can follow Newtrix Racing here.

Tomorrow, "Things can only get better".

Go fourth and qualify...

2010-03-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

Just so you know, the Newtrix page has been blog-napped. A certain Mr. Tim Ansell, whose decline into notoriety began when he first accepted Ian Barker’s job offer over a pizza in Tehran High Street, has taken over the page for the duration of the Desert Challenge. This is simply because internet connections can be hard to come by in the desert, and since Newtrix does not as yet take its own team of PR luvvies with access to the media centre’s Broadband LAN WAP Bluetooth dongles darling, he (I) will be putting pen to pixel for the benefit of Newtrix Racing, from the comfort of a single malt whisky soaked desk in air conditioned Dubai. Slainté

And it gives me great pleasure on this, my first Faux Dog Blog, to tell you that the Barkers ‘kicked bottom’ this afternoon at the prologue. Having eventually found my way to the derelict, well hidden and un-advertised building site the organisers deemed a fit location to hold the “Super Special” (what’s so special about a heavily camoflauged sand pit?) I and all the competitors were at least suitably impressed with the layout of the stage, which allowed two cars / bikes / quads to run simultaneously on the same ‘circuit’, in a similar manner to many of the WRC’s Super Specials. Since it was over 40 degrees out there and I was stood in the middle of said sand pit with two heavy cameras slung round my neck, I for one was very happy that it meant the duration of the running of the prologue could be considerably reduced.

Where the routes crossed, a large bridge / jump had been built and I’m happy to say that like most competitors, Ian decided that discretion was more important than a sports page lead photo (I rather suspect Sheila may have had some say in this :-) and he took the jump cautiously, with the Patrol’s wheels leaving Mother Earth only briefly. Even so, I’ll bet he still got a flea in his ear for that. (It’s great being able to write Ian’s blog knowing he gets to read it and say “ooh that bugger Ansell….!”) Hee hee.

Anyway, as an (almost) independent witness I can honestly say that Ian did not APPEAR to be driving the stage particularly manically, in his own words, he was simply concentrating on “keeping it tidy” which was not easy given the amount of dust in the air and litter on the ground. But I digress.

He did indeed “keep it tidy” and by doing so, was able to keep his pedal to the proverbial metal, with the result that he finished the stage with the fourth fastest time of all the auto competitors. Oh yes, FOURTH fastest overall. Which means he beat Dave “To hell with the suspension, gearbox, engine and environment, I’m going to cane this thing into oblivion to get a fast finish” Mabbs in his FJ Cruiser, Mark “I’ll take it easy in the prologue thanks, it’s a five day race you know” Powell in the always sexy looking Saluki buggy, Raed “It doesn’t matter if I break it, quite frankly, I can afford to” Baker and a host of other local and international competitors. The Boy’s done well. And so did the Girl. As everyone knows, in rallying it’s co-drivers who do all the work and make the decisions, drivers just claim all the glory. So well done Shelia. Now take your hands off the roll cage please…

There’s a link here to the Special Stage results in case you don’t believe me (having seen some of the stuff I’ve published in the past, I can understand if you don’t believe me) and above, a selection of incredibly good photos taken by a photographer whom Ian will I’m sure go on to describe as “possibly the most important photographer to emerge from Arabian Ranches in the new Millenium”. At least he will if he wants any more free photos from me of the Patrol.

Finally we welcome back to Dubai / Liwa a man who needs no introduction, so he’s not getting one. Rick Carless, Team Newtrix Racing’s Technical Support Manager. Chief Bottle Washer and G.D.B. I mean, would you trust your rally vehicle to a bloke called “Carless”. For heavens sake. Joining Rick is Cesar “Ian I really should be at work in Al Thika you know” Marquez, whom Ian has once again purloined temporarily from the staff at our office. We’ll cope, we always do. THANKS GUYS. And remember, righty tighty, lefty loosey.

Until tomorrow………………………..Woof, I’m outa here!

And keep the damn Patrol running all day tomorrow, no ‘issues’ please folks.

One week to go…

2010-03-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

…so it’s manic as usual. Had The Beast out last weekend with the reinforced wings and the new fans, and the Camaro water pump – the original one was leaking. It was running too hot – however, I hadn’t used Water Wetter in the radiator. This is pretty amazing stuff which reduces the water temperature significantly (10c or so) because it improves the transfer of heat from the water to the radiator. And unlike most of the snake-oil remedies – it actually does what it says on the tin (OK- bottle). So why didn’t I use it? Well, because I was pretty sure the rad would have to come out again, and I didn’t want to waste a bottle of the stuff. Then I found that the connection to one of the fans was loose as well, so the jury is still out on whether I have enough cooling. Weather forecast shows a maximum of 38c in Liwa next week, which is damn hot, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Gareth at A2B has got The Beast back to sort out a few minor problems, and discovered that the annoying whine from under the hood is the alternator bearings on their way out. So we’ll put a new one in and (when we have time) re-con the old one as a spare – no point in trying to ignore it and hoping for the best.

Arabian Automobiles, the Nissan distributor, has very kindly come to the party with a consignment of expensive spares on sale-or-return. So we’ll have spare front and rear diffs, full set of spare half-shafts, spare front hub – basically everything we broke last year and then some.

Al Thika’s trusty VW Transporter is once again being pressed into service as the support truck, and I’ve replaced a dodgy section of the deck with a shiny new section of ¾” ply. I’ve decided that, for once, it would be nice if we could actually find the tools and parts we need, so I’ve splashed out on a proper tool chest with drawers. Trouble is, I can’t lift it once it’s filled with tools, so we’ll have to load it on the truck and then put the gear in. Once it’s there, it stays there.

Today, we’re in the Gulf News – fame at last! Shame they can’t write for toffee, but that’s PR agencies for you.

According the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge website, there are 40 cars, 4 trucks and 75 bikes/quads on the entry list this year – but no works teams, which is good for us privateers. We’re number 224 (24th), which reflects our poor showing in the 2009 event, Dave Mabbs is at 204 and Team Saluki are 209. Novitsky in the BMW X3 is top seed, and the only other female competitor in the autos is our old friend Andrea Meyer, co-driving a T4 truck.

Now I need to go and finish refurbishing the support truck...

3 weeks to the Desert Challenge

2010-03-07T00:19:00.000-08:00

Since the demise of Carwise, I’ve been doing more of the work on the race car myself. This weekend I pulled out the radiator and fan-box assembly, replaced the fans with the 16” units, re-sealed the fan-box to the radiator and refitted it. The top hose was also replaced with one that gives a better routing as well. It would have been nice to do some real ‘hot-weather’ testing of the new system, but the weather didn’t co-operate. At 23c it was hardly a test, but I took it out for a blat anyway.

Anyway I did some other jobs that needed doing – replaced the temporary exhaust hanger with something more robust, fitted new mudflaps, and repaired the plastic rear bumper. I then decided to remove the front wheel arch liners which had come loose, with a view to replacing them.

Unfortunately this revealed some extensive damage to the inner wings. The inner wing includes a welded section running across the top of the arch, diagonally braced to a vertical member behind the arch. Where the vertical and horizontal members meet is ‘the weakest link’, and repeated hard landings cause the horizontal member to bend, ripping the inner wing and breaking the weld to the diagonal brace. This is a common problem in rally Patrols, and one theory is that the front body mounts may be too soft (and/or too short), allowing the front end of the bodyshell to flex downwards relative to the passenger compartment. We had the same problem on the old T2 Patrol, exacerbated there by the weight of the battery which hangs off the inner wing. (Since the new Patrol has the battery relocated to the back, at least this is not contributing to the problem.)

So it’s booked into A2B Garage later this week for some reconstructive surgery and reinforcement. Let’s see what solution they can come up with.

With only 3 weeks left to the ADDC I could have done without this...

Hail Baja - Epilogue

2010-02-27T10:01:00.000-08:00

So – now that the dust has settled, where does that leave us? 27 vehicles passed scrutineering, and we came 15th overall out of 16 finishers, which isn’t that great. But had we avoided the problems of day one, and kept up the same pace as we achieved on day 2, we’d have been around 5th overall. If only…

Overheating was still a problem on day 2, and although I could keep up with Dave Mabbs for a while, eventually I’d be forced to slow down when the temperature hit 115c. So after some discussions with Peter at Pacet (the fan manufacturer) we’re going for their 16” Profans in place of the 13” units, which were sized to suit the old Patrol-shaped radiator. If there’s space, we’ll also use one of their PowerVent bonnet fans to help extract the hot air from the engine compartment.

New bonnet pins have been fitted and I’m looking for a couple of high-mounted brake lights – it would be nice to get another pair like the existing ones and mount them in the rear doors.

The bad news is that Carwise – the garage that’s looked after my cars – is closing down at the end of February. Fortunately, Rick is staying in Dubai, and will have no problem finding another garage to work for. Since he knows the car better than anyone, it probably makes sense to use whichever garage he ends up at to provide service for the Desert Challenge. The DC is now only 4 weeks away and the clock is ticking.

An interesting conversation took place at Hail with an FIA representative. I was asked why Sheila was not competing, to which I replied that we'd applied and been turned down (again). This came as a surprise to him as (a) SAMF had signed a letter to the FIA confirming that women competitors would be allowed, and (b) SAMF had subsequently told the FIA that no women had applied! I suspect that the FIA may not be too happy to learn that the the Saudis have been economical with the truth.

Here are a few pics of us at the Hail Baja taken by Mohd Al Sultan. Click on the thumbnails to get the larger version.

Hail Baja Day 2

2010-02-18T05:46:00.001-08:00

Todays route featured a lot of quick sand tracks and plains, punctuated by some tricky dune sections. Overall, it's a lot fater than yesterday which is to our advantage in view of our cooling issues.

We're 19th to start and we're flying. We overtake the car ahead in the first couple of km, he's clearly over estimated his tyre pressures and gets caught out on the first soft bit. I'm running 18psi, having decided to err on the side of caution, and just hope the tyres will put up with the fast sections at that pressure. We overtake another car, and another - no sign of anyone coming at us from behind.

Temp problems still dog us, but they are manageable. Mabbsy catches us but doesn't really ever get away from us. We both pass the ailing Patrol of Bil Hili (car #1!) on a fast plain where we reach 150kph.

Suddenly the finish is in sight - 188km in 2hrs 48mins! A bonnet pin shears off within sight of the finish leaving the bonnet flapping - thank God it didn't happen before!

We're 8th on the day - another 8 mins faster asnd we'd have been 3rd. Sounds academic, but it would have been possible if we hadn't needed to slow down so often to cool the engine. Overall we're 15th, not bad considering what a crap first day we'd had, and Dave Mabbs is one place behind us.

We're happy with that!

Hail Baja Day 1

2010-02-17T12:45:00.000-08:00

I'll make this quick as I have to get to bed.

The engine started overheating early on. The fans were OK but the top hose had chafed and was leaking, so I cut-and-shut it using a couple of spare jubilee clips and a double-ended joiner - but it didn't hold. After the third failed bodge, the service crew from another team gave us a hose which worked, the sweep team doinated extra water and we were again on our way - but much delayed.

Came aross Mabbsy with a leaking rad, stopped but couldn't help and anyway Streaky was almost there. We passed him a couple of km later. We had the option to bail out at the next 'rescue' point, but we were now going well so decided to try and make the 200km to the service point, knowing that if we got that far we would be time-barred, but permitted restart tomorrow.

We made it - but the engine temp was close to the 115c limit and went into cripple-mode a couple of times, necessitating us to take a brief 'time-out' to cool it. We also threw a tyre and got stuck once, and suffered the indignity of being towed out by a police Cruiser! Oh, and the exhaust hanger broke, which I jury-rigged with some binding wire.

Having reached the service point, we exited on a gatch track and aired up. Just 200m from the road, the power steering packed up, a sure sign that the belt had gone. It had - but so had the idler pulley, and while we had a new belt it wasn't much use without the pulley. So we ended up being towed 250km back to Hail by the sweep team's V8 Land Cruiser.

Streaky and I set to work, the main job being to fit the new idler, which fortunately was in the service vehicle. The rest of the bodged repairs will have to suffice for tomorrow.

After this stage, Yazeed Al Rajhi leads in the Mitsubishi Racing Lancer, by a narrow margin from Bakhashab in the V8 engnied FJ Cruiser, with Raed Baker third in the Mitsubishi L200 pickup.

Now - bed.

The Prologue

2010-02-17T12:42:00.000-08:00

(Can't help thinking of Frankie Howerd when I use those two words.)

The Jabalain continues to plumb new depths of inefficiency. Breakfast, promised from 0600hrs, is still conspicuous by its absence at 0700hrs, but fortunately our Team Manager has Plan B in hand. Our wardrobe clearly has more food in it than the hotel kitchen, and we breakfast much better than yesterday. (The Jabalain has some impressive brass signs reading 'Arson Emergency Exit'. If there is an alternative egress in the event of accidental fires, we haven't found it.)

But I digress. By 0800 we are back at Maghwat, because that’s when the prologue road book is supposed to be issued. It finally makes an appearance at 0945, and we set off to walk the 6.2km route.

We’re not the quickest on the prologue – 5min 39secs gives us 15th place, 10 seconds slower than 7th-placed Mabbs. But the engine is getting very hot. We divert to fuel up before returning to service, where we find one of the fans is not getting a supply. Streaky and I rig up an alternative feed and the problem is solved, and the car goes into Parc Ferme for the night.

Monday

2010-02-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

I'm up bright and early to I get on with some car-cleaning and rally-stickering. Breakfast at the Jabelain is not a culinary tour-de-force, with its cold scambled egg and congealing Arabic slop competing for top honours in the World's Worst Breakfast category. The fact that this establishment boasts exactly no stars is clearly no oversight.

After this uninspiring interlude, I carry on with the car while Sheila and Ian set out on a hunt for suitably-rated 12" tyres, and pick up the GPS, Sentinel and Iritrack from Rally Control. Once fitted, we proceed to Scrutineering for our 1450hrs appointment.

Oh joy. The Toyota Service Centre is heaving with locals and their (alleged) rally cars, and chaos is in full swing. They can't fill in their scrutineering forms properly, and half of their mandatory equipment is either missing or out of date. The schedule has clearly gone out of the window some hours ago, and we finally get through about 1800hrs. We escape with only a minor admonition for the absence of high-mounted stop-lights, to be corrrected before the DC.

We decide to celebrate at a nearby Indian Restaurant, a strange place spotted by Ian. Inside are many colourful murals, fake timber beams, and in interesting menu. It features many previously unheard-of culinary delights, including 'Chicken Jal Freddie', 'American Jobsi', and my personal favourite, 'Chicken Masala Amputation'. (Quite why images of 'Nightmare on Elm Street' run through my mind I am unsure.) However the meal is excellent, and almost as enjoyable as reading the menu.

Sunday

2010-02-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

We only lose one more tyre en route to Hail, and I decide to drive the race car the remaining 120km. By 1600hrs we reach Hail's answer to Fawlty Towers - the apalling Jebelain Hotel. They aren't expecting us till Tuesday, and they aren't expecting the four of us to need more than one room. We blag the available room and head out to Maghwat Conference Centre, a.k.a. Rally HQ. After completing our documentation and picking up the rally stickers, and Dr Saleh of SAMF sorts out our hotel problems. By the time we get back to the hotel, we're ready to hit the sack.

On the road again

2010-02-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

Saturday
Our convoy of five vehicles - two of them on trailers - sets off from Seih Sheib ADNOC at 0715. By midday we're at the Saudi border and our problems begin. Of the six of us, it transpires that only one has a 'road' visa, and that's me. All the rest are 'air' visas. After a two and a half hour wait and various phone calls, they eventually allow us to enter the magic kingdom.

The short-cut to Riyadh via Haradh and Kharj takes its toll on our trailer. First a tyre delaminates, and we fit the (only) spare. Then I hit something in the dark in Kharj and knacker another tyre and bend the rim. The only available 12" tyre is Kharj is unsuitable, but we buy it anyway, and after attacking the damaged rim with a sledgehammer it is persuaded to fit. But we have little faith in it, and decide to keep it as a spare. That means re-fitting the wheel with the delaminated tyre and praying a lot. Somehow it gets us to Riyadh, where Team FJ have already located a couple of halfway decent 12" tyres for us. The next morning, we fit them and set off again.

The Final (Final) Shakedown

2010-02-09T04:37:00.000-08:00

So we're back into dunes this morning, just me and Sheila, to test the revised set-up in the same area that did the damage last time. The on-road temperature never gets above 80c and even on the sand tracks we're not above 90c - so far so good. But the real test is in the big dunes.

There, I manage to get the temperature up to 100c - but not the disasterous 115c of last week. Now 100c is a bit warm, but as soon as I'm on the track beyond, it's down to 90c again.

So what does this mean? Well, the ambient is similar to what we an expect in Hail - mid 20s - and the terrain in Hail is not as extreme as my test area (based on my recollections of last year's route). So I feel reasonably confident that this set-up is good enough to cope with conditions there. However, adding another 15c onto the ambient will probably cause a similar increase in the water temperature, so we will need to upgrade the fans before we attempt the Desert Challenge.

So Mr Pacet can expect to earn some more from me very soon - and if you know anyone who needs a pair of very slightly used 13" fans, let me know!

The Final Shakedown (not)

2010-02-06T07:44:00.000-08:00

The fans have arrived, been fitted, been tested in the workshop and on the road and the results look good - they are holding the water temperature at 80-85c. So Friday morning we're back out in the sand to see how the new set-up works in the dunes.

Well, it doesn't. As soon as we hit an HP (off-piste) section , where we're typically in first/second gear and pulling some 4000rpm without a lot of forward speed, the engine overheats. At one stage it reaches the absolute limit of 115c, at which the ECU calls 'time out' and shuts down 4 cylinders. We finish the stage but, considering it's a grey and cool February morning, and we're not actually doing race speed, we're clearly onto a loser. When the DC starts at the end of March, ambient temperature will be around 15c higher than it is now.

So this morning the car's back with Rick at Carwise, and we decide to vent the bonnet and install a bigger radiator. The one we choose is a triple-row after-market unit designed for a Land Cruiser V8. It sits above the chassis rails, unlike the narrower Patrol unit which drops down between them. The change in dimensions will enable us to fit twin 16" Pacet fans, so a new fan-box is being fabricated to accommodate these. But for a first test we'll retain the 13" units we have already. Monday I'll be on the phone to my friend at Pacet, to see how quickly they can ship out a pair of 16" fans.

Saturday morning, ready or not, we leave for Hail.
So no pressure, then....

Water Pump Update

2010-01-26T01:54:00.000-08:00

Rick pulled the water pump, and the bearing - although not seized - is shot. We looked at the one off the old engine, and that's the same, plus it's leaking through the seal. Between them they've only done about 9000km - which is singularly unimpressive.

I've looked into electric pumps. A so-called 'high performance' electric water pump is available as a bolt-on replacement for the standard mechanical one, but it only shifts 55 galls/min. This compares with 85g/min on a stock mechanical unit, and 100g/min on the high-flow one. Of course the electric will pump 55g/min at any revs, whereas mechanical ones are rated at around 3000rpm, so the electric probably has the edge at idle. However, at (say) 4500rpm a mechanical one is pumping three times what the electric can manage, so it's pretty clear to me that electric is not a viable option for our sort of usage.

Word from the Autodrome is that they had the same problems with mechanical water pumps on the V8 Luminas - one actually exploded (the pump, not the Lumina)! So now they've gone over to the pump used on the Corvette which has double bearings, and this appears to be reliable. So that's what we're getting.

Rick has fabricated a fan box to fit to the radiator, and the fans (ordered yesterday) are being collected from the Pacet factory today. How's that for customer service? Now I just have to hope TNT don't lose them....

Shakedown Blues

2010-01-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

So, the washers are in, the front axle is once more complete, so it’s time for a blat! Except that us rally types don’t just go for a blat – we go for a ‘shakedown’. Now in other circles, a ‘shakedown’ has a different connotation, involving extracting money from people by dubious means. We do that in rallying, too, but we call it ‘sponsorship’.

The purpose of a shakedown is to test the car in a semi-race scenario, and iron out those annoying gremlins which might just stop us from finishing a rally. And if something falls off or breaks, we can grit our teeth and sound happy about it, because it’s ‘better to happen now than in the rally’. However, equally important in this case was to give Ian Rodgers an opportunity to get to grips with the vehicle, and to show me that he could navigate.

So I spent Friday fabricating a mounting in the rear door for my new toy from the States, a 24v rattle-gun, and another for the hydraulic jack. Oh, and trying to find someone to run as chase car with me, because if something does go horribly wrong it’s good to have someone in the vicinity to bail you out. Failing to find anyone else both (a) free and (b) willing, I persuaded Sheila to be our support crew.

Saturday dawned. Well, I suppose it did, but it’s hard to be sure when the country is covered in a thick grey duvet of fog. By 8.30 we were on our way, peering through the gloom and dodging the heavies down the truck road leading to the Abu Dhabi-Al Ain road. Here starts the old SS6 of the Desert Challenge –a 166km route ending just outside Dubai, and therefore not used since the DC became an exclusively Abu Dhabi affair. Soon after 9.30 the fog had thinned enough for us to get moving, and Ian managed the tricky navigation around the farms and tracks pretty well, considering he’d never done the stage before. The car was pulling strongly, the engine temperature was fine, and as the sun gained strength the new roof-vents brought a cooling breeze into the cockpit.

50km into the stage, on a rather flat section with no real challenges, the steering became suddenly heavy and it was obvious that we’d lost power steering. Knowing that the belt that drives the power steering also does some other more mission-critical jobs, like powering the water pump, fan and alternator, it seemed a good idea to stop before anything bad happened. But a quick glance under the hood showed that something bad had, in fact, already occurred. The serpentine belt was off, but the fan and its pulley were also lying in the bottom of the fan shroud. The massive shaft – ¾” I guess – which should connect it to the water pump had snapped like a twig. ‘Oh, bugger’, I said. I may have said it more than once.

Sheila was waiting for us to come through Nahel Town, some 50km from an underpass which was our nearest road access. She negotiated the 10km of tracks and low dunes between that point and our location, and we soon had the race car hooked up to our faithful road-going Patrol. So now I had to tow the race car out, while Ian drove it without much in the way of brakes or steering. After a couple of minor dramas we reached the underpass and – having enough problems already – we decided not to risk the attention of the law by towing it back to Dubai.

That meant 150km back to Dubai, pick up the trailer, back to the underpass, load up the race car and back again to Dubai. By which time it was dark, we’d covered well over 600km and we were knackered.

So, with only three weeks before the ‘Highway to Hail’, we have a broken car. Again. Now the questions are, what caused the problem, and how can we avoid a repeat? Should we change to an electric fan and/or even an electric water pump? The recommendation from Kolby at Turnkey Engines in the States was always to go for twin electric fans of 1600-1800cfm each, whereas the gurus at Marks 4x4 in Oz said to stick with the mechanical fan. However, it looks as though the heavy load on the shaft from the fan may be at least a contributory factor – although until we dismantle the water pump we won’t know if the pump bearing has seized.

After further discussions with Rick at Carwise, we’ve decided to go for the electric fan option. We can fit twin 13” high-performance Pacet Pro-Fans into the available radiator area, which each shift close to 2000cfm, and we need Kolby to ship us another high-output water pump. Hopefully within this week these two items will be winging their way towards Dubai – TNT permitting.

But let’s look on the bright side – it’s ‘better to happen now than in the rally’. There, I said it – through gritted teeth.

A New Year's Resolution

2010-01-12T02:57:00.000-08:00

I've resolved to get the damn race car back on four wheels. However, six washers have stood between me and accomplishment of this dream since early November.

The washers are for the ARB front diff lock, which is made in Australia. Four of them are hardened conical washers, unique to ARB. Their agents here neither had the parts in stock nor showed any inclination to obtain them, so I contacted a mate in Sydney, Jon Harbour. He duly ordered them from his local ARB dealer (who had to order them from the factory) and two weeks later they were collected by TNT for shipment to Dubai. TNT then promptly lost them.

So I mailed Jon and asked him to repeat the order, and sure enough, two weeks later another set were with him. By that time, his planned visit to Dubai was only a few days away, and rather than give TNT another opportunity to lose them, we decided he should hand-carry them.
Well, you know how it is when you’re going on holiday, you always remember something that you should have packed, just after the plane takes off. In this case, it was the bag of washers, which were left sitting on his hall table in Sydney. They sat there undisturbed as Christmas came and went and the New Year was celebrated, until finally Jon bade his farewells to Dubai. By 7th January, the washers were once again on the move and, miracle of miracles, TNT delivered them in record time.

So now the front axle is being re-assembled by Rick at Carwise, and I should be able to get the car back at any moment. Friday is taken up with the Gulf New Fun Drive, for which we are Rear Sweep, but maybe Saturday we can take the Beast out for a blat.

The Saudi Hail Baja 2010 looms ever closer. Once again the Saudis have refused to allow Sheila to compete, so Ian Rodgers will fill the co-pilot’s seat for this event. Ian navigated for Ramesh Pereira in his ill-fated Patrol, which burnt to a crisp during the 2009 DC. Our two-day road-trip (a.k.a. ‘The Highway to Hail’) starts on 13th February.

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to sell my old T2 Patrol which came 2nd in class at the 2009 Hail Baja. I have a customer who plans to compete in it at Hail, but as yet no actual money – and the clock is ticking. Watch this space.

Almost back racing

2009-11-09T04:58:00.000-08:00

Work has proceeded on The Beast at Carwise over the summer. The accident damage is fixed, the new engine is in, the ally radiator is back in, the oil pipework is now 5/8” diameter and as a consequence the oil temperature (which we can now measure!) is consistently 10-15 deg lower than the water temperature, which is comforting.

We’ve done a few shakedown runs, the most eventful of which was a run down towards Hameem along Desert Challenge Day 1 route. Fortunately Alan Passmore was with us, because we suddenly experienced severe overheating in the dune section. Investigation showed the brackets which support the a/c compressor (which was retained only as an adjustment pulley) had bent, allowing the serpentine belt to fall off. Unable to fix it, we came back to Dubai with Alan, returning next day to fit the repaired brackets. But the drama continued – despite re-tensioning the belt, it was slipping, and the rad was boiling. Eventually, after replacing the belt, I was able to drive it back to Dubai. As a result, the a/c compressor has now been replaced with a spring-loaded Corvette pulley, which maintains the belt in correct tension, and in better contact with the water pump pulley.

Further shakedowns have led to the discovery of wear in the front diff, caused by partial engagement of the ARB locker, due in turn to a sticky solenoid valve. Fortunately the wear is only on the thrust washers, replacements of which are awaited from ARB.

The latest improvement has been the installation of some really good adjustable roof vents, from Autopro Motorsports in the USA. Two forward facing vents and one rearward one now provide excellent airflow through the cockpit, making a huge difference to our comfort level!

The bad news is that the auto section of the November 13th ‘Desert X’ has been cancelled due to ‘lack of entries’ – the day after the entry forms were sent out! We are not amused. Hopefully the remaining legs of ‘Desert X’ will go ahead as planned.

We also have dates now for the international rallies, which we plan to contest again. The total schedule looks like this:

11th December 2009 Desert X
8th - 9th January 2010 Desert X Double Header
12th - 13th February 2010 Desert X Double Header
16th - 18th February 2010 Hail Baja (Saudi Arabia)
27th March - 1st April 2010 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge
16th April 2010 Desert X

The Dust Has Settled

2009-07-05T02:41:00.001-07:00

Well, the dust has well and truly settled on the Desert Challenge and I’ve only just got round to updating the blog.

Chicherit and Thorner in the X3 finally won by a huge margin, but Glen Reid and Paul Richards in the Saluki gave them a good run for their money on the last day, and were leading through PC2 before losing time with a stuck. The three T2 Patrols of local drivers Al Heli, Al Heraiz and Al Shawi were 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and Dave Mabbs took 5th in the FJ. Despite missing Day 2, Team Saluki took a creditable 10th place.

News from the NewTrix garage is not good. The engine had broken two con-rods and needs a complete replacement short block, which has been sourced from the original supplier, Turnkey Engines in California. Talking with them, it’s clear that the oil pipework from the pump, through the external filter and cooler, was much too small in diameter and routed too close to the exhaust. So despite the water temperature remaining OK, the oil was getting way too hot and the flow rate was insufficient to keep the engine lubricated. Fortunately, this can be easily remedied, but it’s an expensive way to find out! In addition, the front diff is shot, so we’ve decided to re-fit the original 4.33 diffs instead of the higher ratio after-market units. I don’t think this will significantly affect our acceleration, but it will keep our revs a bit lower. We’re also installing an oil temperature gauge, and repositioning the oil cooler to give improved airflow through it.

The rear doors and front wing were heavily damaged by the 3-car pile-up, and the impact even bent the rear chassis rail. Rather than replace the doors, Carwise opted to dent them out and they are now re-painted. Most of the major work is now completed, and we’re looking forward to getting the Beast back on the road and doing some shake-down runs.

We managed to get two half-page articles in the Xpress newspaper, in addition to which we were asked to help out with a video shoot just before the start of the DC. The resulting one-hour video of the rally, produced by Talkabout Media, used this footage to bracket the commercial breaks. It was aired during June and July on ART Prime Sports and Showsports, and includes our 3-car pile-up as well as Ramesh’s disasterous fire.

On the rally front, we have an exciting season in prospect. The ATC-UAE recently announced a new cross-country rally/baja series which they call ‘Desert X’. This will comprise six events, each of about 200km, and will include both autos and motos. The first event is already planned for 2nd October, and the new format has been well received by bikers and drivers alike. In addition, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge will again take place during the last week in March, and the Hail Baja plans to be back in the FIA Baja Championship in 2010 – presumably subject to their allowing female competitors! A further cross-country event from Riyadh to Jeddah is reportedly being planned, but no details have emerged to date.

Above are a few photos of the DC, taken by Tim Ansell.

Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge

2009-03-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Day 1

Sunday’s prologue ended with us in 18th place (not 14th as we’d thought) which put us one place behind the only T4 truck – an Italian team in the Iveco. Dad and Jane came with us to the ceremonial start, where Dave Pryce assumed chauffeur duty for the day. Getting to the stage start on time almost defeated us – a truck had jackknifed on the Musaffah Road and we were minutes away from missing our time control slot. However, we need not have worried as the start was delayed.

The first section consisted of graded tracks leading to the Deadcoach Gatch, a 25km long dusty track with little possibility of overtaking. As it turned out, the Iveco was way too fast for us to catch on the flat, but as soon as we left the track for some dunes, we passed it easily. As the stage continued, we passed another seven vehicles, making us (briefly) 10th overall! Then, just before PC2, disaster struck. After a slightly heavy landing, we lost 4WD and had to face the prospect of either calling in for service at PC2 or trying to complete the stage in 2WD. Knowing that it was likely to be a long job to fix, we opted to continue – and paid the price, getting horribly stuck in some soft dunes some 70km from the finish. Fortunately, the sweep team came to the rescue, not once but twice, and we arrived at the finish 11 minutes inside our 6-hour limit time to find that the finish team had disappeared! I made a quick call to rally control to inform them that we should be credited with a finish, and after the long final road stage was able to confirm our position with Jum Ali Khan and Ronan Morgan, giving us 19th place overall – one place lower than our start.

The service crew worked tirelessly to solve the problem, replacing a broken right hub and a left half-shaft, which we fortunately had in the service truck.

Day 2 is traditionally the hardest of the lot, and this was no exception. The route started on the Madinat Zayed Road, and headed west to the Ghyathi Road. We were only 5km into the stage we came over a crest, and smacked into Manfrinato’s Patrol, at the bottom of a narrow valley between two dunes. Seconds later, Mike ‘Ziggy’ Ziegler came over the same dune and car 214 became the meat in a three-car sandwich! There was no way to disentangle the vehicles without outside assistance, and once again the Sweep Team came to the rescue. Nigel McReynolds did a sterling job with his winch, and eventually all three cars were on their way, having lost a full hour. The drama continued as we managed to get stuck 20km further on, to be rescued by Ziggy, whom we’d just overtaken. After that, we were going well, but the initial hour’s stoppage meant that we were time-barred at PC2. Despondent, we aired up the tyres for the trip back to the bivouac, and decided to call in at PC4 (on the Crescent Road) and get our card stamped in the hope that it might reduce our penalties. For once, luck was on our side, because the section from PC4 to the finish was still open! So we quickly aired down again, put on our helmets and proceeded to complete the stage, which gave us a 14th place for day 2, and 12th overall.

However, the front axle was making some very unhappy noises when in 4WD, and wed spent quite some time running in 2WD to try and avoid further damage. Again the mechanics, Tony and Ray, worked to try and identify the problem, but couldn’t find a definite cause. They also removed the A/C condenser to help the cooling of the radiator, since we clearly had insufficient cooling power to handle both.

Day 3 started close to Day 2 start and followed a similar route. As soon as we started, we found that the noise from the front axle was getting worse. We had no choice but to use 4WD, so we decided to carry on and hope for the best. A tyre off the rim stopped us for about 15 minutes while we changed the wheel, but other than that we were going well. After PC 1 we headed west of the Ghyathi, and reached the mid point of the section when the 4WD noise became much worse. We’d just changed to 2WD when disaster struck once again – something let go inside the engine and we were dead. A quick look underneath told us that something had beaten its way through the sump, and all the oil was gone. Clearly our race was over.

So we called rally control on the Iritrack and they immediately sent us a helicopter to take us out of the desert. Since we had almost no mobile signal there, it was difficult to co-ordinate a recovery plan and getting us back to our service team at PC2 was the sensible thing to do. From there, Sheila took the pickup with the mechanics back to the bivouac, and myself, Rick, Tim and Abi drove back up the road to the underpass where we’d crossed the Ghyathi. We had two cars, both Patrols, to recover the race car. We entered the desert at 1315hrs and took only 45 minutes to reach the car, which Rick drove while I towed. Fortuanetly the section from there on was largely rolling dunes without many steep dunes, and by choosing our route carefully we were able to make good speed. A couple of difficult climbs halted us briefly, and we were forced to deploy our winch to pull the race car up. Finally, at 1815hrs, we exited the desert near PC2 and started back towards Moreeb.

But the drama was not yet over. As Tim trailed us back, driving Abi’s Patrol, the front left wheel fell off and skittered away into the night, while Tim fought to control the vehicle. We realized something was wrong and pulled over a kilometer or so later. Then the Iveco service truck came upon the stricken vehicle, and their mechanics helped to jack the car up and fit the spare wheel. After leaving our race car at the Liwa Guest House, we arrived back for a late dinner at the bivouac. Although we’d retired, we still gained 18th place on the day!

So our race is over. Informed opinion is that our oil pump may have broken up, so there is some hope that the engine itself may be intact. It had not gone over-temperature, nor had we revved it over the limit of 5800rpm. Only a full strip-down will tell the full story. The front axle clearly has a problem, probably in the diff. And there is a large amount of body damage to repair – including 2 new rear doors.

So what of our other friends who are competing? Ramesh and Ian, in another V8 engined Patrol, suffered a disastrous fire on day 2 which completely burnt out the car. Team FJ rolled their car on Day 3, but continued and are currently running 7th. Team Saluki took the start on day 2 and immediately returned to the bivouac, unable to find parts to repair their clutch master cylinder. This gave them a huge penalty, but Glen drove a blinding third stage to finsh 3rd on the day. He then topped this by finishing 2nd on day 4, so they are still in the race. Fadi Melki, driving solo in his Range Rover, came in 8th today and continues to do well. But Chicherit and Thorner in the BMW X3 are unstoppable, having won every stage, and Bilhili in his T2 Patrol lies in 2nd place overall. With one day remaining, it’s a game of attrition, and everything is still to play for.

Abu Dhabi DC - Prologue

2009-03-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

We've managed to get two local publications to decide we're interesting enough to write about this week. First we got almost a full page in the Xpress (Dubai weekly freebie), and then a short piece with photo in Abu Dhabi Magazine. We're only apprentice media whores, but we try!

The last days have been spent to-ing and fro-ing to Abu Dhabi - Fri for documentation, Sat for scrutineering (passed with flying colours) and today (Sun) for the prologue. We are car 214, seeded 14th and that was exactly where we came in the prologue - run over a 2.1km stretch of reclaimed land near the Abu Dhabi Intl Marine Club which contained more scrap metal than Steptoes yard. How no-one got punctured on all the re-bar sticking out of the ground is a minor miracle.

So tomorrow we're back to Abu Dhabi once again for the ceremonial start at Emirates Palace. We have to be in Parc Ferme between 0730-0830, so it's yet another 0600 start - the traffic down on the island is murder in the mornings. Dave Pryce has kindly 'volunteered' to chauffeur my aged parents around on Monday, so they get to see at least one day of the event. Rick is down in the bivouac setting up our camp, and Cesar plus two mechanics on loan from Glen Reid's Icon garage should turn up at our house after we've left, to collect the pick-up and its cargo of tools and spares. We'll see them at the start, then they and Rick should be at the service point later on. This is all very well in theory - but the VW pickup is sounding a bit tired, and Cesar is as sick as a dog, so anything could happen.

Hopefully, Tim will be able to update this from the media centre in the bivouac, so watch this space!

The Beast is Unleashed!

2009-03-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

Finally on Friday we were able to take The Beast out for a long-overdue shakedown, and Malcolm Anderson kindly agreed to run as ‘chase car’ for us. Although it wasn’t the hottest of days, we needed to test out the new cooling system so we repeatedly ran the car up and down Fossil Rock – high revs and low forward speed usually show up a problem. The results were encouraging – we couldn’t get the water temperature over 100°c, and as soon as we returned from the top, the gauge dropped to 85. So we appear to be well within the 115°c limit at which the ECU goes into ‘safe mode’.

I was also able to explore its performance and handling, which are simply awesome. Ohlins shocks - twin at the front and singles at the rear – do their job admirably. I thought the old car was pretty good, but this is on a whole different level – the steering is light and responsive, it flies level over the jumps and soaks up even hard landings. And as for the performance – well, the only limiting factor is going to be the size of my reproductory equipment! Peak torque arrives at 2500rpm, and it responds to the throttle in any gear, at seemingly any speed.

Back at the garage, we’ve rearranged the cockpit, moving the seat positions and fabricating a new co-driver’s panel in matt-black chequer-plate to house the ERTF GPS bracket and two Monit trip computers. A nine-litre water cooler stands against the bulkhead, replacing the manual firex which is now between the seats, and we’ve plumbed in the air-tank for the diff-locks. Now we anxiously await a new viscous fan coupling, a special unit which is on its way from Australia, and will hopefully arrive by Sunday!

The support crew is now finalized. Rick Carless (who helped out in the Liwa a few weeks back) is arriving on Saturday from the UK. Cesar is driving the service truck and two of Glen’s mechanics at Icon who helped build The Beast are spannering. Dave Pryce is running my parents around on Monday, so they’ll get to see some of the action.

At this point, careful planning and preparation descends into the usual last minute panic, as we try to fathom the logistics of ‘what goes where and when and with whom’. By Monday we’ll know what (if anything) we’ve forgotten. And maybe this year (with some help from Tim!) we’ll be able to update the blog from the bivouac.

Wish us luck!

The Devil Tempted Me!

2009-03-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

Down at the NewTrix Garage, we’ve been having a bit of a clear-out. First I swapped my FJ Cruiser for Glen Reid’s 2003 Nissan Patrol 4.8, complete with brand new engine, winch and all the toys. Then I sold my 1991 GQ LWB Patrol (the Blue Goddess), my off-road steed for the past 14 years. That all made perfect sense. Then the devil tempted me.

Glen decided to sell his race car. It’s a 2008 Nissan Patrol with a race-prepped six litre LS2 Corvette V8 under the hood, which develops a stonking 510 bhp unrestricted and 300bhp with the FIA restrictor. It had only done two events, the 2008 DC and the RAK rally last month. It has all the toys – ARB difflocks all round, new tank, seats, belts – everything. And the price was…well, a lot less than it cost him to build it last year.

I can resist almost anything except temptation. I took it for a test drive and felt the power, the enormous torque, the thunder of the big V8…and I couldn’t help myself. I bought it, and now I just need someone to buy the old Patrol so I can afford to pay for it! Fortunately, with the 2009 DC just round the corner, there are several people interested.

‘The Beast’ (as it will henceforth be known) is in the workshop at present, the original build was completed in a hurry and the cooling in particular was never quite right. So a new 4-core radiator has gone in with an improved cowl, we’re fitting an airtank to enable the difflocks to work without constantly switching the compressor on and off, and we should be out this coming weekend for a shakedown. So NewTrix Racing steps up to T1 with the Big Boys, and I just hope I’m sufficiently brave to use that additional power to get a good result in the DC.

‘Expect the Unexpected’ in Liwa

Bayer AgroChemicals are running an on-going sales contest, with annual prizes for the top performing teams worldwide. This year their prize was as trip to the UAE. But, true to their slogan ‘Expect the Unexpected’, they were kept in the dark as to the event schedule. In the end, they were dropped in Liwa, close to the Moreeb DC bivouac, and after a walk and a camel ride, arrived at their desert camp. The following morning, three rally cars turned up to provide them with the thrill of a passenger ride through the dunes of the Empty Quarter! Mark Powell had been contracted by the organizers to arrange this, and the additional vehicles were provided by Ali Al Shawi and myself, both in our T2 Patrols.

The previous day we’d arrived to set up a course, but only had a chance to make a couple of circuits before we had to vacate the area to avoid giving the game away. The 15km circuit was sufficiently challenging to keep us on our toes, and after some 6 passenger rides we were exhausted! Fortunately I’d taken the car down on the trailer, and Rick Carless – a visitor from UK whose assistance I had co-opted – ended up driving back while I slept!

The best news was that it paid, so another slice of cash could go towards the DC entry fund.

Continental Wealth Management

Our friends at Continental Wealth Management (CWM) have been sponsoring NewTrix Racing since the middle of last year. They are a specialist investment broker based in Spain, and I feared that the current financial crisis would have hit them hard. But on the contrary, their business has gone from strength to strength because, as managing director Darren Kirby explained ‘Nobody goes to the doctor when they’re well!’ Poor returns in other areas have persuaded many clients to review their portfolios, and CWM has proved that even in recession there are profitable opportunities for savvy investors.

So we are delighted to confirm that CWM will continue their sponsorship through 2009, and their branding will be prominent on ‘The Beast’. Future plans for CWM include overseas branches, and expansion into the Gulf region is a definite possibility.

Hail Baja - Day 3

2009-02-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

Well, to answer the questions:

(a) No, we didn’t make up any time on Al Shawi
(b) Yes, there was breakfast
(c) No, we didn’t have brakes
(d) And yes, the engine was fine.

The stage was only 200km, compared to the previous day’s 300km, so we decided to lighten the car as much as possible. We filled only ¾ of a tank to complete the outward liaison and the stage, and we removed the sand ladders - the mounting had broken and having seen the terrain, we couldn’t imagine needing them. Then I found that the air-line gauge had broken off, meaning the air-line was useless, so we ditched that and the air tank! As a result, we were flying from the start on some good sand tracks, slaloming through the bushes as though we were in WRC. The brake fix clearly hadn’t worked, so once again I was relying solely on 2nd gear engine braking. We passed a number of cars before getting a puncture in the right rear, which took us far too long to change – we have to re-work the layout to make the spare wheels more accessible. The route was an interesting mix of good sand tracks, with some steep climbs and one horrid stony subkha, before it opened out towards the end into a fast flat plain. The final dune section to the finish was full of spectators, including (surprisingly) a number of local women.

Once again, everyone wanted to have their photos taken with us, while we aired up the tyres and took a quick coffee with Sheila and Hamdan before the long road stage back to Rally HQ. At the end, despite our puncture, we retained our 10th place overall and 2nd in T2, the final results being:

1st T1: Yazeed Al Rajhi/Matthieu Baumel (Nissan Navara)
2nd T1: Mark Powell/Paul Richards (Honda Buggy)
3rd T1: Miroslav Zapletal/Tomas Ourednicek (Mitsubishi Pajero)

1st T2: Ali Al Shawi/Ahmed Malik (Patrol 4800)
2nd T2: Ian Barker/Lee Marshall (Patrol 4800)
3rd T2: Mubarak Al Shamri/Nasser Al Shamri (Mitsubishi Pajero)

At the finish podium, my main concern was to actually stop the car on the podium, without running over anyone important. Prince Saud, the governor of Hail region, made the presentations and we headed back to the hotel. Two days and 1700km later, we were home.

We are delighted with the result. Without the tyre problems we might have done better – we dropped a further 18 minutes on Al Shawi due to the puncture, but that’s rallying for you.

Now we have only 7 weeks to get ready for the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge!

Hail Baja - Day 2

2009-01-28T10:50:00.000-08:00

Hail Baja – Day 2

The day’s drama started when, despite promises from the hotel management that breakfast would be served at 5am, none appeared. Seemingly no-one had told the kitchen, but fortunately we had planned for such eventualities and headed back to our room for an impromptu meal.

After reaching the Maghwat parc ferme and tracking down Sheila’s driver, we headed for the nearest petrol station to fill the race car before heading to the start, some 60km away. Our interpretation of the road book was that there would be firm bumpy tracks, so we only let the tyres down to 18/20psi. But within the first kilometer of the 300km stage it was clear that we had badly underestimated the terrain, and had to waste valuable time deflating to 15psi.

Then we discovered that we had no brakes, which came as a surprise as they’d worked fine on the prologue. Then, after about 50km, the fuel pump packed up, and after a few nervous minutes diagnosing the problem, we switched to the reserve pump and carried on.

But despite this, we managed to overtake quite a few vehicles both moving and broken down, and when we reached service at 200km we felt reasonably pleased with our progress. Sadly one of the cars we passed was Dave Mabbs’ FJ, out with a blown engine at the 150km point. At service we topped up with brake fluid, which promptly fell out of the broken flexible hose to the front right wheel – looks like we twatted a rock on the prologue and broke the union at the diff end. It being reinforced hose, we had no quick fix to hand and only a 20min service time, so we grabbed a bite to eat and carried on.

The terrain is quite different from Liwa, with more vegetation and generally firmer sand, but no huge desert dunes to speak of. The Patrol was running well, and Lee was doing a sterling job on the navigation, not greatly helped by a roadbook which contradicted the GPS data at every turn! At his instigation, we took several hors-piste detours off the track, enabling us to hit every one of the 128 waypoints. So in the final third of the stage, now with a lighter fuel load, we turned up the wick a bit and went for it. We still got caught by Hamad Al Thani from Qatar, running a much quicker T1 Patrol, but made a fast run through to the finish.

After the road liaison and refuel, we had only 3 hours to fix the car before it went into parc ferme again. Sheila and Hamad went in search of parts while I stripped out the damaged pipe, enabling Lee to take it as a sample. By the time they arrived it was late, dark and cold, and we only just managed to finish the repair, bleed the brakes and refit the wheel in time.

By counting the vehicles we passed (and were passed by) we guessed that we might be around 13th. However, it turns out that we are lying 10th overall, and 2nd in T2 class by a mere 6 minutes – less than the time we spent deflating the tyres! Team Saluki are 2nd overall, behind Yazeed Al Rajhi in a South African-built Nissan Navara, and seem to have finally laid their engine demons to rest.

Tomorrow we have it all to play for – can we make up six minutes on Ali Al Shawi’s brand new T2 Patrol? Will there be breakfast? Will we have brakes? Will our engine rebel against the relentless thrashing I’ve been giving it? By this time tomorrow, dear readers, these and many other questions will be answered.

(Pix: The Gates of Mordor, and leaving service)

Hail Baja Prologue

2009-01-27T11:19:00.000-08:00

Six kilometres seems a lot for a prologue, in fact in a local EMSF rally it would almost qualify as a stage. We were given two hours to walk the route in the morning, and we needed it! It was very close to the Meghwat Rally Control and ran through a local park close to the mountains, and through a shallow wadi.

Lee did a great job of pace notes and although not fantastically quick, we made no real errors and came through (by our count) in 6mins 17 secs. So weren't best pleased to find that the timekeepers had given us 7mins 32 secs, putting us in 27th place out of 30, and promptly lodged a written complaint at rally control.

After the dust had settled and the drivers briefing was over, the timing gear was re-checked and our time was changed to 6mins 15.5 secs, bringing us up to 21st overall and 7th on T2 which isn't too bad.

Everyone here - local competitors, organisers, media, spectators - have been absolutely great. There was a huge turnout at the prologue and everyone wanted to have their photo taken with the khawajas!

Tomorrow is a 6am start, so we're up at 4.30 and the hotel has laid on breakfast at 5am specially for the rally crew, which is nice.

Next year they plan to extend it to 4 days and rename it the Arabian Desert Challenge - talk about throwing down the gauntlet!

Sheila - as Hail sees her.

2009-01-26T11:17:00.000-08:00

With the benefit of hindsight, the Prado was probably not the ideal choice for towing a three and a half ton load 1700km. But it was either that or the Patrol, which is now in its 18th year and clearly past its prime. Even with its supercharger, we struggled to top 120kph on the flat, and any sort of incline or headwind knocked us back to around 90. But after the long haul up from Dubai to Riyadh, we reached the Al Janadriah Hotel in Hail at around 2.30pm Sunday, and had time to visit rally control and complete some of the formalities.

Most of the UAE entrants are housed at the Janadriah – Team FJ, Team Saluki, Nabeel Al Shamsi, Abdullah Al Heraiz with his beautifully prepared Patrol, as well as Miroslav Zapletal’s Czech team, fresh from their successful completion of the Dakar. Despite its removal from the FIA Baja Championship, the event has over 30 entrants, a third of whom are competing in our T2 class. Prize money is not yet confirmed, but rumoured to be over SR100,000 (₤20k). A small share of that would make our journey worthwhile!

Sheila seems to be able to get away with wearing jeans and sweater, with her head covered in an Arabic shayla or headscarf. Western women are still a rarity in Hail, almost a century after Gertrude Bell’s visit, so her appearance in any garb will hardly go unnoticed. Since she is unable to drive in Saudi, we have managed to retain a driver called Hamdan. He will take Sheila in the Prado, with its cargo of tools and spares, to and from the service point each day.

Hail is noticeably cooler than Riyadh, which was much colder than Dubai. At over 1000m altitude, its sere air dries lips and skin continually. As night falls, the mercury dips to around freezing and our rooms need heating. Hail is ringed by a mountain range which appears to have been transplanted from a ‘Lord of the Rings’ set. There’s even a wall between two mountains with a huge gateway – surely the entrance to Mordor! The city boasts interesting road features, too. The interchange behind Sheila we have christened ‘Blackbladder Roundabout’.

We’ve installed the GPS, Iritrack and Sentinel equipment, applied our lucky number 13 rally stickers, and successfully completed scrutineering, so we are all set for tomorrow’s prologue.

We got ourselves a convoy!

2009-01-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

I drove the Prado with the race car on the new trailer for the first time yesterday, and a bowel-loosening experience it was. Having three and a half tons hanging off the towbar doesn't do a lot for the handling of our 1800kg Prado, the acceleration is non-existent, and it has the braking distance of a supertanker. So tomorrow's road trip is going to be an interesting one. All three teams - us, Team Saluki and Team FJ - have decided to meet up at 0630hrs Saturday and proceed in convoy. This may hopefully mean that we only have to explain once to the Saudi customs what we're up to.

Above are a couple of shots taken by Tim Ansell - a sunny day in RAK and a rather gray and rainy day in Dubai.

We've spent all day packing and making last minute preparations, removing the RAK rally stickers and replacing Sheila's name on the doors with Lee's. Now I'm going to bed.

1800km each way? We must be mad!

A Samuel Becket Day

2009-01-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

In the play ‘Waiting for Godot’, nothing very much happens. And it carries on not happening for quite a long time. Samuel Becket’s play could well have been set in the visa section of the Saudi Consulate in Dubai, where I spent most of today.

Yesterday, we had our visa applications typed. But, for reasons best known to the Consulate, you have to wait till the next day to apply for your visas. So today, our P.R.O. took all three visa applications to the Consulate – where he was denied admission. According to the notice outside, with effect from 25th January, visa applications must be submitted in person or via one of their authorized service providers. Pointing out the fact that this is only the 19th January did not seem to impress them at all. So Sheila, Lee and myself had to drop everything to trek down to the Consulate, arriving around 10am.

There we met James Thomas of Team Saluki, who had already had the visa stamped into his passport the previous day. But there was a problem. The visa stated (in Arabic) ‘by air’, whereas, like us, Team Saluki are trailering their race car through the road border at Silla. So we queued, and waited. And waited. Time in the visa section passes slowly. Paint drying would be the cause of almost unbearable excitement. But eventually we reached the counter, where the official informed us that our visas would only be granted for air travel. We pointed out that this restriction would prevent us from participating in their prestigious international motorsport event, so what were they going to do about it? After some discussion, we were asked to return at 1.30pm to meet the consul and explain our problem to his excellency.

It being already noon, we decided to indulge in another extended period of waiting, and at 1.30pm we were waiting outside for the doors to open – after which we enjoyed another hour of waiting to be served, while the will to live slowly ebbed away. Finally, and without meeting said consul, we were informed that our visas would be processed for road travel, and James’s would be amended. But, since the bank counter only opens in the morning, they couldn’t accept our application as we couldn’t pay…so we should come back again tomorrow, between 9am and noon. And then, of course, come back again in the afternoon after 1.30pm (OK let’s be realistic, 2.30pm) to collect the visas.

However, after the frustration of wasted hours in the Saudi Consulate, things could only get better, and they did. Gareth turned up from his base in darkest Ras Al Khaimah with our trailer! Unfortunately, this silver lining had its own cloud – our towball is 2” diameter, whereas the hitch is 50mm. The 0.8mm difference is just enough to stop it fitting, so tomorrow the towball takes a turn on the lathe of our local machine shop. Oh, and we can’t get a 7-pin socket for the trailer lights here – but after a quick call to Team Saluki’s Mark Powell, their tuning guru Mark Adams has been dragooned into bringing one out from the UK tomorrow.

Team FJ’s Dave Mabbs will be up at the Consulate tomorrow – but we’ve made sure he knows how to avoid the road-trip issue. Because, although there’s rivalry, there’s also a great deal of camaraderie between the three UAE teams heading for Hail.

Hail, Dakar and Ras Al Khaimah

2009-01-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

HAIL BAJA UPDATE

Last week I picked up the 2009 international rally licences from ATC for Sheila, Lee and myself, as well as the carnets-de-passage for Sheila’s Prado and the race car. These are now required for the border crossing to Saudi Arabia, unlike previous years when a simple police permit sufficed. The visa authorisations for Lee and myself also came through, and finally today Sheila’s came through as well. So these are going into the Saudi Consulate tomorrow for stamping.

On the car front, the inbuilt QuickAir 3 compressor started making a horrible noise when we were inflating the tyres at the end of the UAEDC. I pulled it out and stripped it down, to find that the main motor shaft, about 13mm diameter, had sheared off next to the bearing! So rather than try to repair it, I have decided to install a dive cylinder and regulator. This gives us compressed air at 200bar, and will provide more than enough air than we can expect to need even for the Challenge. (Of course, having made that decision, I was then unexpectedly able to find a replacement motor for the QuickAir – typical!) So our local dive shop, Scuba Dubai, have done a great job testing the tank and installing the fittings we need.

Lee and I have done a shake-down in the car over part of the 2008 DC route, and he’s got to grips with the Terratrip and the road book. Rally gear to fit him is being begged and borrowed from various sources. Our shiny new Ifor Williams car-trailer is in the port, and Gareth will hopefully arrive with it on Monday. I need to fit a new stereo into the Prado as I fear we may run out of conversation before the 3600km trip is over, and Saudi radio is unlikely to provide any relief from the tedium!

HAPPENS-TO-THE-BEST-OF-US DEPARTMENT

Nice quote from Giniel de Villers, the South African winner of the 2009 Dakar in a VW Toureg:

"20km from the end of the stage, I crossed a sand dune and I really had bad luck waiting for me on the other side. We were in the wrong place and ditched right into a hole. I lost 20 minutes trying to get out. The front of the car is a bit bruised but the car is so sturdy... it’s incredible. I hurt my back more than I hurt the car. There was nothing I could do to avoid it. It was just bad luck. Of course, I am a bit disappointed because we have lost even more time. We just have a lot of bad luck. This is really not our Dakar!"

So next time it happens to you, console yourself with the thought that even the professionals get it wrong sometimes!

“This really is not our Dakar!” You reckon? Perhaps, reading that again from his top step of the Dakar podium, he might reflect that he was being unduly hard on himself that day!

RAK RALLY

Finally, the last event in the 2008 UAE Cross-Country Championship was held this weekend in Ras Al Khaimah. We were seeded 8th out of 12 competitors, only nine of whom showed up for the spectator prologue stage on Friday. One of them managed spectacularly to break the front drive shaft of his V8 Patrol by landing it nose first after a jump, whereas we managed a fairly tidy attempt at the twisty circuit and ended up 5th.

That left eight of us to contest three stages over some 100km on Saturday. Recent rainfall meant that the sand was firm, and we were happy to get 6th place behind the more powerful T1 vehicles – our main concern being not to break anything before Hail!

Raed Baker won the event in his tasty Mitsubishi L200 pickup, all space-frame and carbon-fibre, followed by Bin Humaidan in his V8 Toyota-engined GQ Patrol, with Glen Reid 3rd in his V8 GM-powered GU Patrol.

Hail Baja beckons!

2009-01-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

On 2nd January, the SAMF issued the following press release:

SAUDI AND GCC ENTRANTS PREPARE FOR PUNISHING HA’IL SAUDI BAJA

2009 Ha’il Baja will not count for FIA Baja championship points

RIYADH (Saudi Arabia): A host of Saudi Arabian drivers have entered the forthcoming Ha’il Saudi Baja, which takes place in the north-central region of the Kingdom on January 26th-29th. The entry will be dominated by drivers from the host nation and other GCC countries this year.

The event is being organised by the Saudi Arabian Motor Federation under the patronage of HRH Prince Saud Bin Abdul Mohsen Bin Abdul Aziz, Governor of Ha’il, President of the Supreme Commission for Ha’il Development and the Head of the Supreme Commission of the Ha’il Rally.

The FIA, motor sport’s governing body, have also confirmed that the 2009 Ha'il event will not count for FIA Baja championship points because of the restriction on female competitors taking part in a motor sport event in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This means that competitors taking part in the FIA Baja series will have to wait until the Northern Forest Rally in Russia to kick-start their points-scoring campaign at the end of February.

"This decision by the FIA is regrettable, but totally out of our hands," insisted Mishaal Al-Sudairy, chairman of the organising committee. "However, we will continue to advance and improve our event which crosses some of the most challenging terrain in the world, with a view to re-entering the FIA series in 2010. We have good support from local drivers and several teams from other GCC countries have expressed their desire to compete in Ha’il.

“We received terrific feedback from several of the world’s top teams last year when we were a round of the FIA Baja series for the first time and that gives us great confidence going forward into 2010 and beyond. We have the scope in Saudi Arabia to run some of the most difficult and admired cross-country events in the world and this small set-back will not sway us from planning our future path in off-road rallying.”

What this means is that SAMF has informed the FIA that they will not allow Sheila’s participation, and the FIA has removed the event from the Baja Championship – which is what they said they would do. So if any of our readers were hoping to score Championship points at Hail, I’m sorry.

I had already started canvassing for a substitute (male) co-driver, and after numerous rejections, and with time running out, today finally Lee Marshall said he’d do it. Lee (pictured here driving the ‘toast-rack’) and I were partners on the Sweep Team for the 2006 UAE Desert Challenge, and we hit it off immediately. Now the strength of that friendship is about to be tested! Lee has plenty of off-roading experience although he’s never competed in motorsport, and he’s a keen cyclist and triathlete (i.e. a lot fitter than me) so he definitely gets the first turn on the shovel if we have to dig!

So our revised entry is going in to SAMF today, and hopefully the required visit visas won’t take too long to come through – we have exactly 20 days to get ready for our planned departure on 24th January. We’re also trying for a visa for Sheila as support crew – we’ll see what happens. So far they have 14 entries (of which only two are T2) and the details are here.

Our ‘to-do’ list is now more administrative than technical, although the QuickAir 3 compressor on the race car has died so I am getting a dive tank fitted instead, for which I need a regulator. The Prado needs a road pass for Saudi as well as a new CD player (it’s a long drive), the race car needs its annual test, and Lee needs a rally licence.

But at least I have a co-driver – welcome to NewTrix Racing, Lee!

Pre-Xmas Shakedown

2008-12-21T03:49:00.000-08:00

OK, I stand corrected. I should have finished reading 'Daughter of the Desert' before making references to Gertrude Bell, who was in fact the second (not first) European woman to visit Hail. In 1913 she was effectively imprisoned there whilst the Rashid clan indulged in their favourite pastime, viz. plotting against and murdering each other. Small wonder that she favoured the Sauds as a more suitable tribe to rule the nascent Kingdom.

The question is, how do they feel about women now? The Saudi Motorsport Federation have to make a simple but unpalatable decision: allow Sheila to compete as my co-driver, or have the event excluded from the FIA calendar. The ball is in their court, and we await developments.

Meanwhile, I took the race car out for what us rallyists call a 'shakedown' - basically an excuse to go out for a blat in the desert. I was accompanied by Nick Edwards, who has left his job as a rally driving instructor at Silverstone to take up work at the Dubai Autodrome, and hopefully to advance his rally driving career. We drove a couple of stages of the 1000 Dunes Rally, then the first two stages of the recent Dubai International Rally, to give him an idea about the terrain of local events, then back home across country near Al Maha Resort. We were fortunate to meet some Emiratis who were training their falcons for another 'big race' - the Abu Dhabi Falcon 400m! Our passing alarmed some gazelle, which bounded off across the dunes - it's always good to see wildlife. As regards the car, there are a couple of minor issues to sort out, but the it's pretty much ready for the Hail Baja.

Having worked out how much it would cost to fly there and send the race car by truck, I decided it made more sense to spend a bit extra and buy a decent trailer from Ifor Williams in the UK. It will be in a container which arrives in Dubai on 10th January - inshallah. Then we'll use Sheila's Supercharged Prado to tow the Patrol on its trailer the 1800km to Hail over two days. As an added adventure, we hope to make a side-trip after the rally to Madain Saleh, 400km west of Hail, to visit the spectacular Nabataean tombs.

For now, nothing much to do but wait and see. Once I have news from Hail, you'll be the first to know!

In the footsteps of Gertrude Bell

2008-12-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Since the Challenge, the race car has resided at Carwise, where Rick has been rebuilding the damaged right wing. After a lot of welding and reinforcement, the battery is now supported from the chassis rail on a resilient mount, so that the cantilever load on the inner wing is removed. This should prevent any recurrence of bodywork failure in this area. The mudflaps have been replaced with lighter, more flexible material which should be less susceptible to damage, and an improved mounting for the Maxtrax has been installed. Finally, the spare wheel mounts have been modified to allow easier access for the wider 285 section tyres.

We had expected to compete in the final round of the local UAE 4x4 rally series in Ras Al Khaimah in November, but the event was postponed at the last minute. A subsequent meeting at ATC (apex motorsport body and FIA delegate) with EMSF (local rally organiser) revealed that EMSF was in financial difficulties. Mohd Bin Sulayem now has the unenviable task in the present economic climate of asking the Dubai government for extra cash to fund the organisation. A more cost-effective format for rallies was proposed by John Spiller, which met with general approval, and the drivers lobbied for a calendar of 6 local events instead of the current 3. Adding to this the UAEDC and the Saudi Hail Baja, we would potentially have one event per month through the winter season, providing far greater exposure for the sponsors on whom the sport largely depends. The future of saloon car rallies, however, is in the balance – poor attendance has made them unviable, and none of the saloon car drivers attended the meeting. So far nothing further has been announced and the entire local rally scene remains in limbo.

The 3rd edition of the Hail Baja has now been announced, and will run from 26th-29th January 2009. Last year the event became part of the FIA International Cross Country Baja Championship, but we were informed that no women would be allowed to compete – in contravention of stated FIA policy. Since we weren’t ready anyway, the issue was moot, but this year we have decided to enter and see what happens. Good news was provided indirectly by Derek Ledger, the FIA regional representative for the Middle East, who advised that a female co-driver would be accepted as long as they didn’t drive on the public roads. So hopefully, we’ll be competing in this event, which comprises a short prologue and two legs of 200 and 265km – rather like a mini-UAEDC. Many potential competitors will be otherwise engaged on the Dakar, and other local entrants have decided they can’t spare the time and/or the cash to do it. Our friends Team Saluki (Mark Powell) and Spirit of the Desert (Fadi Melki) are planning to compete, and we’ll maybe share transport costs.

Hail is a provincial centre some 700km north of Riyadh, and almost 1800km from Dubai. Mainly agricultural, the Baja is clearly a major event there and last year’s were given a very warm welcome, with huge crowds turning out to support the rally. A female co-driver will definitely be a first, in this deeply conservative heartland of a traditional Islamic kingdom.

So who was Gertrude Bell? She was a Victorian lady, brought up to a life of privilege as the daughter of a steel magnate. Intelligent and rebellious, she spent much of her life exploring the then Ottoman Empire, the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, and became deeply involved in the complex politics of the region, along with her contemporary, T.E. Lawrence. She was almost certainly the first western woman to visit the location of our next rally – Hail.

31st October - UAEDC Day 5

2008-11-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

The final day is split into two special stages, with a road liaison between. And whereas we have had generous limit times on the preceding days, the timings on Day 5 are tight because we have to get to the ceremonial finish to meet the TV schedule. The other problem is that the service point at SS5 finish is a huge distance away by tarmac, so we have planned an off-road route, which means we can’t take the 2WD pick-up. Instead, Gip will take Maurice in his FJ, and hope to get through in time, while Cesar loads up the pick-up and heads for SS6 finish.

SS5 starts with some nasty drops, one of which I manage to miscalculate, and we land hard. There’s no obvious damage, but shortly after the flexible inner wheel arch comes loose on the font right, and starts to flap around – the tyre must have touched it in our hard landing. I decide to ignore it, then seconds later the engine dies completely. No electrics – nothing. I leap out, look under the hood, nothing obviously wrong, the battery is still in place and connected. I’m in a state of panic, what the hell can be wrong? Suddenly I realize that the only thing that can kill the car this way is one of the three emergency cut-off switches - and the wheel arch liner has flapped around and hit the one on the right wing! I rip the liner off completely, re-set the switch, and sure enough the engine fires up – hurrah! I’ve lost 5 minutes, and that’s a lot on a short stage. We reach the finish without any further dramas, and Gip arrives as we’re airing up the tyres. Maurice only has time for a quick check before we’re off on the road stage to the start of SS6, which we make with only minutes to spare.

We’ve practiced SS6 a few times and feel confident that we know the route, and we make good time, continually dicing with Fadi in his gold coloured Range Rover. Finally we are into the last dune section, with many tricky low dunes, still on Fadi’s tail. We’re OK for time. Then – disaster! I high-centre the Patrol on the crest of a dune, a beginner’s error. Out with the sand ladders, do some digging – but two diagonal wheels are spinning. Out with the jack, I lift up the front right and now the rear left has some purchase on the MaxTrax. The two remaining MaxTrax go under the front right, back-to-back, lifting the wheel another 3” or so, and after dropping the wheel onto them they provide enough traction on that corner to get us moving. We have 12 minutes left on our 3-hour limit time to do 12km, but now we’re out of the dunes and into a stretch of awful tussocky dunes, littered with shrubs and impossible to drive fast. The car bangs and crashes around, we haven’t taken the time to secure the sand ladders and shovel, Sheila is shouting at me to slow down and I ignore her, the red mist is upon me and all I want to do is get to the finish within 3 hours. We emerge from the dunes and spot the line of red cones leading to a left turn between some bushes, which guides us into the finish. I slide through the turn, but it’s sharper than the drawing they gave us, and we’re outside the cones again as we exit, but now I can see the flags, I weave back onto the track and suddenly we’re there. But have we made it? HAVE WE MADE IT??

The card is stamped, the finish time is recorded, but I can’t bear to look. Sheila tells me it says 2 hours 55 minutes – we’ve made it! I fall out of the car high on adrenaline and exhausted at the same time, people are congratulating us, everything becomes a blur. It’s over. After five days of excitement and disappointment, the highs and lows of rallying, it’s over. It's all over.

Later that evening, after the cermonial finish and the prize-giving dinner, we find that we are 14th overall.

Not bad for a first attempt by a bunch of amateurs!

30th October - UAEDC Day 4

2008-11-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Day 4 start is only a 5 minute drive from the bivouac. The route heads west, then south through some huge dunes with many difficult slip-faces and bowls. I’ve driven this stage several times and relish the challenge! We start overtaking people even before we hit the southerly leg, and then suddenly we’re into a scene of carnage – competitors vehicles everywhere, some stuck, some uncertain how to proceed. I plough in, down to a soft bowl, realize that I can’t go forwards, so make a U-turn to try and escape parallel to my entry. But I’ve lost all my momentum, and our escape attempt stalls. I hit reverse, planning to get some altitude to gain momentum for another attempt. But as I reverse, I feel the tyres start to grip – so I floor the throttle and the car shoots up the dune in reverse! Reaching the top, I calmly turn the car round and carry on, leaving a dozen drivers watching in open-mouthed astonishment at this audacious manoeuvre. As we exit the high dunes and reach the subkha to head east, I still can’t believe what I’ve done. We’ve passed almost half the field in the space of 15km.

From this point on it seems we can’t put a foot wrong. We cross each succeeding dune ridge with ease, and although some of the cars we’ve passed end up re-passing us, most of them come to grief later on, and we pass them a second time. The blue Bowler Wildcat comes past like I’m standing still, and disappears into the distance, so we’re not going to catch him. Then I see another Patrol stuck ahead of us, so I back off and reverse to find a way past him. BANG! Oh shit, where did that Pajero come from?? I’ve reversed into a car I had no idea was there. It looks like only the bumper is damaged, we shout apologies through the open door, but I don’t want to waste time getting into a post mortem right now so we head off. I feel guilty, but hey, this is rallying and dinging a bumper is hardly a hanging offence.

To the east of the Crescent now and we’re into some horribly soft white dunes, and the blinding sunlight reflects off them, giving no sense of perspective. It’s too easy to make a nasty mistake, but taking it carefully in 1st gear, our Coopers pull us through without a problem. Then it’s into some easier plains, with only occasional dune ridges, before we end up reprising the closing stage of day 1. And on the last dune of the day, there is the blue Bowler – they’ve had a stuck and are just putting the sand ladders away. I power past them, determined not to let them overtake us in the final 5km before the finish!

We know we’ve had a good day, we’ve passed so many cars and not had a single stuck. It‘s only later that we find out how good – 13th on the day! It is to be our best result of the week.

More rips are appearing in the front cross member, and Maurice and Cesar are kept busy fabricating more ironmongery to hold it together. It only has to hold for one more day..

29th October - UAEDC Day 3

2008-11-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

Day 3 promises to be a re-run of Day 2, following a largely similar route westwards from the Madinat Zayed Road to the Ghyathi Road. But it proves to be nowhere near as difficult and the only problem is a significant steering vibration which gets worse at high speeds. I guess that it might be the steering damper, and at the first PC pass a message to our crew to get a replacement. Arriving at PC2 Service, we find that Gip has had to go as far as Madinat Zayed to find one, and is still on his way back, so we abandon the plan to replace it at service. Our mechanics look under the hood and find that their hard work re-inforcing the inner wing has been completely undone by the desert – the brackets they’ve installed are broken! They set to fabricating a new bracket from the remains of the old one, while I wait impatiently. Finally they are through and we head off again, having lost a few places in the delay.

The route once again follows much of day 2 and we cross the Liwa Crescent road with another Patrol, 238, hot on our heels. As we head along a gatch track towards the next waypoint, Sheila is watching for the GPS to indicate that we’re within 200m of it, at which point the program will index to the following waypoint. ‘Got it!’ she shouts, ‘now go left!’. Which I do – but we haven’t actually reached the waypoint and we’re now heading across country over some very rough terrain. Suddenly, we find our route to the next point blocked by the local rubbish tip! I swerve to the right, along a dune, but the damned tip is still ahead of me and I can’t avoid it. I stop the car on the downslope, and in front of me is a mess of construction debris, concrete, tarmac, branches, old washing machines, and wooden crates. It’s not pretty and there’s no easy escape. I lower the tyres to 8psi and try to remove some of the rubbish so I can turn the car round, but once it moves I’m firmly stuck at the base of the dune.

We’re stuffed. It’s ‘phone a friend’ time. I get the our exact location from the GPS and text it to anyone who might be in the area – and minutes later our old friend Mike Smith from the sweep team calls me. He and Nobby are coming down the Ghyathi Road and will be with us shortly, the bike-recovery pickup which they were escorting has broken its chassis and is now hors de combat! Sure enough they arrive and Nobby positions his Jeep to winch us out. Sadly we are trapped by an unyielding piece of concrete and I can only watch as Dh640-worth of 3-day-old tyre is ripped to shreds. After re-positioning a couple of times, we’re finally free of the tip and we set about replacing the wheel with our one remaining Cooper STT.

The sun is getting lower in the sky as we head out through some rough subkhas towards the Moreeb Road, which we have to cross before looping back round to enter the bivouac from the east. By the time we reach the road, the sun has almost gone, and Ron Thompson (the chief marshal) tells us this last 12km is the most difficult stage of the day, and are we sure we want to do it in the gathering gloom? I tell him that we haven’t gone through hell to give up now, and we set off across the road into the high dunes beyond. It’s a tough stage, and we need the headlights from the start. But somehow we manage to get through it without a stuck, and arrive at the finish in total darkness. We’re only 22nd, but it could have been much worse if not for Mike and Nobby.

Back at the bivouac once again our mechanics open the bonnet, to find that their latest bodge has held together! They set about improving it further with some more ironmongery. The cause of our wheel wobble is soon apparent – not as I’d thought the steering damper. We’d simply lost all the balance weights from our front left wheel – coincidentally the wheel we’d just replaced. The other damage is of a rather more personal nature. Both my heels are blistered and raw from continual brake/accelerator/clutch action, and my bum is a painful red mass of blisters. The seat is only an inch or so above the floor, which in turn is another inch above the exhaust and my arse is getting barbequed. So after a shower I head off to the medical tent, where I am shown the correct military technique for dressing heels with a gaffer-tape bandage, and given some steroid cream for my nether portions. Neil, the chief M.O., gives me some gel cooling pads which can be frozen, and they are exactly the right size to fit under my seat pad! These will provide considerable relief from the heat over the next 2 days.
After a final check on the car, and a discussion with Ian and Gip to agree who goes where for Day 4, we head for bed.

28th October – UAEDC Day 2

2008-11-02T05:38:00.001-08:00

Days 2, 3 and 4 are rated as the most difficult of the event. Our start on day 2 is inauspicious – only a few km from the start I manage to drop the Patrol into a Patrol-sized hole, and can only watch as all the remaining autos pass us by. From our 15th place start, we’re now flat last, and still trying to dig the truck out of its hole. Finally, with the sand ladders in place and the tyres down to 12psi, she comes free – just as the sweep team arrive! Sadly one of my new MaxTrax has buried itself in the dune and we don’t have time to hunt for it, so I ask John Mitchell-Ross to waypoint the spot, so that we can come back another day and recover it. We carry on, but the stress of the recovery has taken its toll on Sheila and she requires a quick chunder-stop soon after. This rather sets the tone for the day, and we manage to get stuck again at a point where several cars are already stuck and a sweep team is sorting it out. Thankfully John Tan gives our recovery priority and we’re out quickly, only to get stuck a few hundred meters ahead – I’ve accidentally put the transfer box from 4-low to 2-high instead of 4-high! But now it’s stalled and although the starter turns it’s not catching. I check the fuses controlling the ECU, pulling each one out, and they look fine. But when I replace them, the car fires up – it’s a miracle! Our final stuck is on a soft side-slope above a farm fence, where I manage to stall the engine, and I have to leave the engine to cool before the starter will turn over. More time is wasted getting the sand ladders out and deflating the tyres to 8psi, but finally I manage to reverse it through a barbed-wire fence, with one tyre off the rim. Replacing the wheel and disentangling the barbed wire takes more time, and when we finally reach PC4 we’re told that the final stage has been closed 15 minutes previously. We are despondent as we head home on the tarmac, we are the 21st vehicle to arrive and the first to be time-barred, and we make the mistake of not visiting the finish to get our card stamped. This omission will cost us some 5 hours of penalties – had we done so, we’d have ‘completed’ in limit time and got only 15-minute penalties for each of the missed waypoints in the final stage. It’s a mistake to learn from.

Back at the bivouac, it’s time for more repairs to the inner wing, as well as replacement of the steering tie-rod. We end up as 27th on the day, it’s a disappointing end to a difficult day – but we’re still in the race.

27th October – UAEDC Day 1

2008-11-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

5.30am and we’re up and away, headed out through the early morning traffic to the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi for the ceremonial start. Our cars have to be in position between 7.30 and 8.30am, and while we await our turn to start we suit up. We avail ourselves of the hotel facilities, drawing strange looks from the smartly attired patrons of this exclusive 5-star establishment. Finally we’re away on a short road stage to the outskirts of the city, where the special stage starts. Cesar and Maurice have picked up the heavily loaded VW from our house, and await us at the start. Ian and Gip and the trailer were down at the bivouac the previous day setting up, and they plan to meet up with the service crew at the Service Point, halfway through the day’s stage.

I check the car again, deflate the tyres to 18psi, Sheila reviews her road book and we chat to the various competitors we know – Fadi, Glen, Mabbsy, Mark, Malcolm, and Luc and Luc, a Belgian pair that have been doing the Challenge since forever. It’s a time to renew old friendships and forge new ones – you never know when you’ll need a friend in the desert. There are three vehicles behind us which should be much quicker than us – Mabbsy’s FJ, Mark’s Team Saluki Buggy and a mammoth Kamaz 4911 truck. At some point they will surely get past us, and we just want it to be as painless as possible. Having a turbo-diesel pantechnicon inches away from my exhaust, driven by three homicidal vodka-fuelled Russians, is a bowel-loosening experience which I can do without.

As we line up at the start it’s a bizarre feeling to be on the ‘other side’ from the marshals with whom we’re worked over the years. They are all friends, and they wish us good luck as the seconds tick by towards our start. 3….2….1….and we’re off, the straight-six 4.8 making a lovely sound. We settle into what has been billed as an easy first day, plenty of gatch and sand tracks with a few dune sections. We get passed by Team FJ and Team Saluki , but we in turn pass Wolfgang’s Pajero within the first few km. Arriving at PC1, the Saluki is stuck in some soft sand, clearly unable to re-start from the passage control. We can’t believe our luck! There’s no need to stop at service, the Patrol is running sweetly, and we push on through the stage. Towards the end, we pass a few more autos in the soft HP section, and feel happy with our day’s work at the finish. Back at the bivouac, I’m astonished to find that we’re 15th overall – how did that happen? The Saluki is still out in the desert with engine problems, and sadly Tim has been medevac-ed out with a back injury from a hard landing in the FJ. Neither vehicle will feature in the remaining four days of rallying.

The mechanics set to work changing the oil for fully-synthetic, and discover that the front right inner wing is cracking up, allowing the battery tray to tilt alarmingly towards the alternator. They effect the first of what will be numerous repairs to this area. We commandeer a tent, attend the drivers' briefing, have dinner, and Sheila works on the next day's roadbook. Our inflatable mattress beckons and we sleep soundly. One down, four to go...

The Big Day approaches

2008-11-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

24th October

Friday was documentation day, when all teams collect their rally documents and equipment from rally HQ at Mina Seyahi. We decided to go down early, and were through by 10am, having signed for our rented GPS, Iritrak and Sentinel equipment, and taken our rally stickers and service road book. We met up with an old friend Alan ‘Robbo’ Roberts from Australia, taking time out from his epic England-to-Australia bike ride to take part in the Challenge. (Check out his amazing exploits at http://hardwayhome.blogspot.com) Everything had to be fitted in time for Saturday’s scrutineering, so that took up the rest of the day. Our car number was 237, seeded 37th out of 40 cars, with another 3 trucks making a total of 43 autos.

25th October

Our scrutineering appointment was at 4.30pm, when our vehicle and all the equipment is checked to ensure compliance with FIA regulations. This is always a nervous time, but finally our Patrol was declared OK to race. The one thing we’d missed was to order a push-button switch for the Sentinel system – this is a car-to-car warning system, enabling competitors to warn another vehicle that they wish to overtake, or to warn that they are stuck in a dangerous position on rally route. Fortunately I had enough tools with me to wire up the new switch temporarily so that the system could be tested.

26th October

Prologue day! But first we had to pack up the service truck and the trailer, so Ian and Gip were kept busy sorting out what needed to be on which vehicle, while I uploaded waypoints from the service book to the GPS units, and Sheila took the dogs to the kennel. We have three support vehicles – Gip’s FJ with the trailer, Ian driving Sheila’s Prado, and the VW service truck.

There had been some speculation about the venue for this spectator stage which would determine the start order for the event proper. Last year’s venue was now a building site, and other alternatives had been considered and rejected. Finally we ended up using the Jebel Ali MotoCross circuit, a tight and twisty circuit which obviously suited the motos much better than the autos. The prologue was run in reverse seeding order, meaning we would be one of the first autos to tackle it. Walking the route we knew we’d struggle with our wide turning circle, and we were right – it was a bit of a disaster! Our only consolation was that we’d made up 4 places on our seeding, and the highly-favoured Team FJ and Team Saluki had fared even worse – they’d be starting behind us!

But as we got back to the race car after watching the rest of the competitors tackle the stage, we found that the front two tyres were completely flat – they’d obviously come off the bead as we’d gone round, and now refused to seal. We had to change both of them for our spares, and I knew that I’d made a mistake relying on cross-ply block tread tyres without tubes, as Saeed had always used. We had to change tyre strategy, it was already nearly 7pm, and we had to be in Abu Dhabi by 8.30am tomorrow. And the traffic coming back from Jebel Ali was stationary – how could we possibly get new tyres and have them fitted in time?

As I inched towards Dubai through a constipated mass of vehicles, Sheila got on the phone. I needed six new Cooper STT tyres, 285x75 R16, and tomorrow was no good. The Cooper importer is Renaissance Trading, who had always been very helpful in the past. But Jimmy, the manager, said he had them in his warehouse in Sharjah which was closed, and anyway his driver was off sick, and where would we find to fit them at this time of night? Come back tomorrow. But Sheila persisted, explaining why we had to have them tonight. Finally Jimmy rang back. He had five tyres in the showroom, and his second driver was prepared to come in specially and deliver them it we’d pay him something extra. So we agreed that he’d deliver them to a tyre fitting place in Jumeirah by 8.30pm where we’d meet him, and we continued to battle our way through the glacial traffic towards Dubai. I dropped Sheila off at home before continuing to Jumeirah, and met Jimmy’s driver. It was 8.30pm, but although City Tyres closed at 9.00pm they weren’t interested in doing any more work that day. So off we headed to Satwa, where Abdullah from King of Tyres was only too happy to fit and balance them. I reached home at 10.30pm, where Sheila had pretty much finished our packing so that we could set out early for the ceremonial start at Abu Dhabi the following morning. Sleep was elusive, my nerves were shot with the last minute tyre panic and I worried about 101 things that could go wrong with the truck during the race.

22nd October 2008 - Meet the Team

2008-10-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

So let me introduce to you
The act you've known for all these years....

Top left: Cesar Marquez, engineer with Al Thika Packaging, who’ll be driving the VW service truck each day and assisting Maurice to keep our wheels rolling by working all hours. Claims to be looking forward to the experience (which means he has no idea what he’s let himself in for).

Bottom left: Maurecio (Maurice) De La Vega, mechanic with Carwise garage, who has been working on the race car for the past 9 months. Well, not the whole 9 months obviously – it just seems that way. That's probably why he looks so miserable.

Top right: Charles ‘Gip’ Kemp, who is taking time off from his day job supplying equipment to the oil industry. Comes from Idaho, lives in Sri Lanka, and works for a UAE/Oman based company. Gip has promised to wear clothes ‘most of the time’ to avoid frightening the local population, and will be driving his blue FJ Cruiser. Claims to know one end of a spanner from the other, and may be forced to prove it.

Bottom right: Ian Cooper, a director of Cracknell, the world’s largest landscape architects, will be the main contact point for the team. Ian plans to enhance the bivouac with some hard landscaping in natural stone, carefully selected low-maintenance planting and possibly a small water feature. (Since this photo was taken, Ian’s hairdresser has unfortunately exhausted all local supplies of Grecian 2000.)

2008-10-20T04:31:00.001-07:00

20th October 2008

2008-10-20T04:31:00.000-07:00

Thursday we decided to take Cesar – our driver/mechanic – out to show him some of the strategic locations for the Desert Challenge, based on previous years’ routes. Having never visited Liwa, it’s important that he can find the bivouac and service points each day! We covered 840km in 10 hours, and logged some useful tracks on my GPS, which he will have in the service truck. Traffic delays on the way down there have made us consider spending the Sunday night in a hotel in Abu Dhabi – it’s either that or a very early start from Dubai.

The race car is back. Carwise have found the problem with the air compressor – the tube which connects to the pressure gauge in the cockpit keeps breaking, so we’ll manage without the gauge. The seat frame has been lowered, to give me a bit more headroom clearance from the rollcage, and a footrest has been fitted. The castor correction on the front axle has also been reduced. Originally there was no compensation for the lifted suspension, and keeping is straight required constant steering corrections, which was very tiring. After we fitted the castor correction bushes, it was fine on the road but it needed too much steering effort off-road. So now we’ve compromised somewhere in between. The HANS (head and neck restraint) devices have arrived, so we also need to try these for the first time.

Friday afternoon was spend shopping for various odd and sods which we need, like a strobe torch (which I know we’ll never use, but must have) and zip-ties and gaffer tape – the two most important things any rally team needs. At the end of the rally, you can always tell the pro teams from the amateurs – the amateurs have their cars held together with grey gaffer tape, whereas the works cars are held together with colour-coordinated gaffer tape. Maybe I should re-spray the car grey…

Another off-road test on Saturday morning allowed us to get stuck (again) and self-recover using our new MaxTrax – 16 minutes this time instead of 34 minutes, so that’s over 50% improvement! Maybe I should try not getting stuck at all… The steering was fine, but the seat position wasn’t, so Saturday afternoon was spent repositioning the seat – not easy, as there is so little clearance to adjust it relative to the rollcage and the bulkhead. Finally, after drilling some new holes in the seat frame, I’m happy with it. HANS is designed to prevent whiplash injuries by preventing your head from being jerked forward in the event of an accident. Great idea, but they are hugely inconvenient, expensive, and don’t seem to provide sufficient restraint to make them effective. But it’s an FIA requirement, so I might as well stop whingeing.

Team T-shirts are arriving today, I’m awaiting the quote for the stickers, and yesterday night I borrowed Gip’s FJ (with tow hitch) and drove over to Sharjah to pick up a trailer which Sanjay (another ME4x4 mate) has kindly lent us for the duration. Gip will take that down on Sunday, loaded with stuff needed at the bivouac. Dave Aldis has lent me another GPS, so Ian Cooper will have one in his car as well. Begging and borrowing is working OK – we haven’t had to resort to stealing (yet).

5 days to go. Mabbsy’s FJ still isn’t registered, and Glen seized his gearbox in his V8 Patrol first time out at the weekend. Maybe we’re not doing so badly after all…….

13th October 2008

2008-10-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

Friday I put the new Continental Wealth Management logos on the truck – a nerve-racking affair as I have only one set and one chance to get it right. Saturday we were out again in the race car, complete with our fireproof underwear and race suits, to have another crack at doing a rally stage. Dave Aldis and Natalie kindly agreed to be our ‘sweep team’ for the event and by 0830hrs we were on the stage. Once again, we needed to cover the 166km in 3 hours to meet limit time, and we very nearly made it. If I hadn’t manage to perch it on top of a dune about 15km from the finish and spent 34 minutes digging it out, we’d have been home with 17 minutes to spare – but as it was we were 17 minutes over, which would have meant a 2 hour penalty. And trust me, I’m getting too old to be doing that much digging. Oh, and when we’d finished one of the tyres was shot, and the compressor had stopped working. Deep joy.

So Sunday I went out with the idea of buying a winch, which together with a sand anchor (which Dave offered to lend me) would enable us to self-recover. But a winch is not without disadvantages. There’s at least an extra 50 kg dragging the front suspension down, plus the weight of the sand anchor, plus the worry that the current it draws can flatten the battery or worse, damage the alternator – a worry that can only be removed by fitting a 2nd battery. More weight, more cost. So I discussed the matter with Chris Cargill over at Icon and he suggested that I try his MaxTrax sand ladders. Having seen and used various types I was skeptical – most are too heavy or too difficult to use, or just plain useless in deep sand. But the video was pretty convincing, they were a whole lot cheaper and lighter than a winch, so I bought a set. If we’re lucky, they’ll do the job when we need them. If we’re really lucky, we won’t need them. Now I need to mount them such that they are quick and easy to deploy – add that to the ‘to-do’ list.

Lists are proliferating. Lists of jobs for Carwise to do (yes, it’s back in the shop again), lists of lubes and fluids (maybe someone like Total will sponsor these?), lists of parts to get from Nissan (maybe on consignment?), lists of stuff to go down to the bivouac the day of the prologue (26th), lists of stuff to go on the service truck, more stickers to get made, t-shirts to get printed, and lists of miscellaneous odds and sods we need to buy from here and there. So many lists, so little time.

The rally has finally taken over our lives. Each year, both Tim and I have been involved in the UAEDC, but for the first time we’re both competing. Increasing amounts of ‘work-time’ are being devoted to sorting out our respective rally vehicles, while the business is fighting back with equally urgent demands on our time. With only 12 days to go before the prologue, the heat is on.

October 8 2008

2008-10-08T03:46:00.000-07:00

The UAE Desert Challenge prologue starts in 18 days time, and there are still so many jobs to do and things to buy.

HANS (head and neck restraint systems) are mandatory this year, and they are a lot cheaper in USA than elsewhere. Fortunately, my business partner Tim Ansell is co-driving for Dave Mabbs (Team FJ) and they are bringing in a load of gear from the States and have kindly offered to include our HANS in their consignment – currently winging its way across the Atlantic.

The fire extinguishers are being tested and re-certified. New logos for Continental Wealth Management are ready to be applied. I’ve modified a 2-gallon water cooler to provide a drinking water supply to us while we’re racing, and the lid is big enough that we can dump a bag of ice in there each day. The weather is cooling down, but it’s still in the mid-30s so we’ll be drinking plenty! Sheila is busy sewing on new Velcro strips to anchor the seat squabs, bless her. And we’ve bought two new awnings - one for the service crew to use at each day’s service point, and another to stay at the bivouac.

At least we are further ahead than some of our fellow competitors. Dave Mabbs’ recently acquired FJ is still not ready – so many things have had to be changed to meet FIA regulations (rather than the SCORE regs under which it previously raced in USA) and also to suit the conditions of the Desert Challenge. And Glen’s new V8-powered Patrol is still not ready

Apparently the major works teams will not be participating in this year’s Challenge, but nevertheless 40+ cars and 80+ bikes have registered to compete. There’s plenty of local interest including Fadi Melky, Team FJ, Team Saluki, and Glen Reid, so all the old rivalries are set be re-ignited!

September 2008

2008-10-08T03:05:00.000-07:00

Now the team for the Desert Challenge is starting to come together. One of my engineers at Al Thika, Cesar Marquez, has agreed to join our support crew as the truck driver, Carwise’s mechanic Maurice is with us, and I’ve hijacked the company’s VW Transporter for the duration. Gip Kemp, an American friend of ours and long-time off-roading buddy, is going to help set up our camp and provide an additional ‘safety net’ while we’re racing. Finally, neighbour and long-time friend Ian Cooper has agreed to help alongside Gip. We have a team!

The rollcage mods are finished and we were itching to have another practice in the race car, so we decided to run a stage of last year’s Challenge under something close to race conditions. We’d have had 3 hours to complete the 160km stage, but most important was for Sheila to practice using the Terratrip (high-tech odometer) and the road book. She’d be using the ERTF GPS for the rally, but you can’t get hold of one of those in advance, so we’d use our trusty Garmin 278. And with Gip bringing up the rear in his FJ Cruiser, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, plenty, actually. Large parts of the route were virgin sand – completely unlike what we could expect in the event proper, when the leading vehicles would for sure give us a hand by leaving some tracks – hopefully in the right direction. And yes, we made a few navigational errors, which I compounded by getting stuck once in soft sand and having a completely unnecessary puncture. All in all we had a thorough workout, digging ourselves out and then jacking up the car to change a wheel – good practice for the event. Had we avoided these stoppages, we’d have been pretty much on target for a finish within the 3 hour limit time. And that’s important – go over limit time by a minute and you get a 2-hour penalty, which will put a big dent in your chances. Overall we felt pretty pleased with the result.

One of the things I decided during the trip would be useful was a digital compass. the rally road-book provides compass headings on each tulip diagram, and often it's a whole lot easier just to follow that heading. With help from a friend in USA I was able to source one, and have fitted that on a bracket. The two spare tyres are secured with heavy duty ratchet straps which are cumbersome to handle. Now the straps are permanently secured at one end, making them much easier to deal with. The mandatory high level brake light had disintegrated, so that has also been replaced by a more robust unit.

Things are gradually being ticked off the 'to-do' list.

August 2008

2008-10-08T03:02:00.000-07:00

New fuel lines are fitted, along with various other minor improvements, and I have the Patrol back this weekend for a shake-down. The roll cage modifications are all agreed, we just have to find the right material (38mm OD seamless carbon-steel tube). I’ve decided to install a 5 gallon air tank in the back to give me a reserve of compressed air, I have the pressure switch and installation parts – just need to buy the tank. This weekend we’re planning to take it out for a blat to see how the cooling stands up.

And we’ve finally settled on a team name – we are NewTrix Racing. I’ve been known as ‘Ian the Dog’ since forever – so now I’m an Old Dog, and these are definitely New Tricks.

Who let the dogs out?

July 2008

2008-10-08T02:59:00.000-07:00

By the time our Patrol was back on the road, summer had well and truly arrived. But I needed to test it properly, and that meant heading down to Liwa with friends from ME4x4, our local off-road club. Mike, Ruba, Alan and I headed south for a weekend’s shakedown in the deep desert. It was a tough weekend in 45°c temperatures, and the engine was running slightly hot – but it ran sweet as a nut. I was able to test different tyre pressures on our block-tread Dunlops and was agreeably surprised to find how well they performed at low pressure. I found I could out-climb Mike’s powerhouse V8 Land Cruiser!

A few days after my return, I planned to take the car over to Ivan’s garage for a preliminary unofficial scrutineering check. I knew the roll cage no longer met the 2008 standards, and I needed his advice on how it could be modified. However, long before I got that far, an overwhelming smell of petrol pervaded the cockpit and I had to stop and investigate. The rear end was literally awash with petrol! One of the reinforced fuel lines had split, and fuel was pouring out under 30psi pressure from the fuel pump. Miraculously, it had survived Liwa without a problem, but failed after sitting in my driveway for a week.

After Carwise had replaced all the fuel lines and fitted two heavy duty fans on the radiator, I took it over to Ivan. He didn’t know the answer about the roll cage but promised to confer with the FIA and let me know. He also pointed out a couple of other minor issues which needed attention, but nothing major.

The next weekend we erected our new shed, destined to be the repository for all rally-related stuff – axles, wheels and tyres currently cluttering up the garage. Previously owned by Mark Powell, we sweated extensively to install it on a concrete base. With the floor painted, it just needs some electrics and a gateway in the front wall to give access to the garage.

June 2008

2008-10-08T02:53:00.000-07:00

We were joined in Dubai by my step-daughter Luisa and her husband Darren Kirby, on holiday from their home in Spain where they were in the throes of establishing a wealth management brokerage. They both had a great time sightseeing and we took them out in the desert for a day to give them an idea about what we do. When they saw the race car languishing in the garage, Darren asked how much it would cost to sponsor us. After discussing with his partners, we ended up with a new sponsor for the driver’s side of the car – Continental Wealth Management! Their contribution would help plug the gap in our finances caused by the engine blow-out.

March 2008

2008-10-08T02:48:00.000-07:00

Our first race had been run on fairly firm ground, a result of the winter rains. Two months later, the 1000 Dunes would be tougher. It’s the longest rally of the local series, with 10 stages spread over two days, plus the prologue, and the sand was very soft.

The prologue went OK, we were in 11th place just behind Fadi Melky in his Range Rover. Soon after the start, I noticed that the engine temperature had risen alarmingly and I backed off the throttle to cool the engine. We were struggling in the soft sand. At the end of SS2 I reduced the tyre pressures, but it was not enough, we were still running hot. Halfway through SS4 the engine note changed, and I thought we’d holed the exhaust. Shortly after, the engine packed up completely and as I got out I could see the tell-tale trail of oil on the sand behind us. Our race was well and truly over, and eventually our impromptu ‘service crew’ turned up and towed the vehicle out to the road, to await recovery back to Dubai.

The failure was about as bad as it could be. A piston had made a bid for freedom through the cylinder wall, and the crank was bent by 20°. The block could be repaired, but the crank would need replacing and the cost of a new short engine was going to be prohibitive. So in the end we bought a used engine from a fellow rally driver, Glen Reid, who was in the process of building a new rally car. The engine had been looked after and was in good condition, but nevertheless Carwise rebuilt it completely with new bearings, rings and valves. There’s no point in taking short-cuts when you’re doing a heart-transplant.

The needle on the spend-o-meter was rising inexorably...

February 2008

2008-10-08T02:44:00.000-07:00

Buying a race car is the easy bit. Once you’ve got it, the reality of having a high-maintenance mistress bites hard – in the wallet. Stuff wears out a whole lot faster when you’re pushing it to the limit, and there are always improvements to be made. Just the mandatory clothing and helmets will set you back around Dh20k. So unless you have very deep pockets, you need to find sponsors to help foot the bill. After our first race we had some live race photos, as well as a couple of trophies to show for it, and I hastily put together a prospectus and sent it off to all our suppliers – more in hope than expectation.

I’m one of the partners in Al Thika Packaging. Our business is the distribution and servicing of packaging equipment and associated equipment. To my great surprise, two of our suppliers came up trumps. Robopac from Italy supply the stretch-wrap machines we sell for pallet wrapping, and they were quick to make a contribution. Soon after, Meijer Special Equipment from the Netherlands came to the party. They make forklift attachments, including their unique RollerForks for handling unpalletised loads, and agreed to sponsor one side of the car. We thought that would give us enough cash to pay for the rest of the season and the entry costs for the UAE Desert Challenge. Little did we know how optimistic this was to prove!

January 2008 - first rally

2008-09-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

Carwise sorted out the immediate problems – the cut-down exhaust was replaced with a single silencer box to add some much-needed back pressure, the injectors were cleaned and the clutch cylinder resealed. We bought helmets, boots, socks, gloves, fireproof underwear, we borrowed race suits, we paid for our National Class rally licences, and we were ready for our first event!

The Umm Al Quwain Rally was the first in the annual 3-race series organized by Emirates Motor Sport Federation. There were 2 stages, each run 3 times, plus the prologue. This suited us, as Sheila only had to make pace notes for two different routes – and we had to agree how each hazard was to be described. It was a steep learning curve for both of us.

The prologue was on Friday afternoon and consisted of a short spectator stage just off the Corniche in Umm Al Quwain - lots of tight turns and a dramatic jump in front of the grandstand. We ended up 12th fastest out of 15, so at least we weren't last.

SS3 had a tight left-hander soon after the start, which became heavily rutted. I took it too fast, and a tyre caught in the rut and came off the rim. We quickly deployed the jack and replaced the wheel with a spare, and carried on. At the service halt we reflated the spare and continued through the next two stages. During the second service stop we noticed that one wheel nut had come off, and quickly borrowed a replacement from a friend and checked that all were tight.

Now only the last two stages remained, and we felt confident of a good finish. On the final stage we were lying 10th, in line for a Dh 5000 prize, when disaster struck - the front left wheel came off! All the wheel nuts had stripped their threads and disappeared into the sand. I dug down to get the jack into position, hoisted the car up, refitted the wheel, stole some wheel nuts from the remaining three wheels and we continued at low speed, determined to get to the finish. Then the same wheel fell off again, and in a much more difficult terrain, and despite our frantic efforts to jack it up and we knew we were out of time.

The only consolation was that we won the National Class, a kind of ‘best-of-the-rest’ prize for non-finishers. Nice, but the cash would have been nicer. So, amid the gathering evening gloom we headed off to Umm Al Quwain town to buy some wheel nuts to get us home. Before the next race, I vowed to fit longer wheel studs to accommodate our thick alloy wheels – the original studs were designed for thinner steel wheels. You live and learn.

In the beginning......

2008-09-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Where does the story begin?

I suppose you could say it began at the 2007 UAE Desert Challenge, when I casually asked Saeed Al Hameli if he’d consider renting out his Nissan Patrol to be for next year’s Challenge. He was at the time hiring it out to Andrea Mayer, a German professional rally driver whom we had met years before.

Maybe the seeds were sown when I first met Mark Powell of Team Saluki, during my first outing with our local off-road club ME4x4 in 2000. Or maybe it was 1991, when we first moved to Dubai and caught the off-roading bug with Club HAGAR (an acronym for 'Has Anybody Got A Rope').

Or was it in the ‘50s, when I can clearly remember as a young boy, seeing a Land Rover and thinking ‘when I grow up, I want to drive one of those!’ But even then, I realised that models come and go, and resigned myself to the expectation that by that time, vehicles like the Land Rover would be long since obsolete. (As with so many things, I was completely wrong about that.)

Sheila and I had been involved with UAEDC since 2001. We deciding that knowing what the rally was all about would be useful, if we were to help support Team Saluki in the following year’s event, so we volunteered as marshals. We ended up running Time Control for the starts each day, and by the end of the week we understood the lie of the land and the process of the rally. In the following years, we alternated between providing rally support to Team Saluki and various marshalling duties, culminating in being part of the elite Sweep Team for 2006 and 2007.

The Sweep Team is responsible for picking up competitors left out in the desert due to vehicular malfunction, accident or exhaustion. They trail the rally route and frequently assist competitors to recover their vehicles, although this is not strictly within their remit. By day 2 of 2007 UAEDC, we’d already assisted one particular Pajero driver several times. His recently acquired steed was under-performing, and he was not a happy camper. He eventually came to rest, stuck at the foot of a steep dune section, unable to make the ascent. After several more tries, he decided that his rally was over and prepared to abandon the Pajero – which would almost certainly mean he was out of the rally, since he was unlikely to get it recovered in time for the next day’s start. So I asked him if I could give it a try – after all, there was nothing to lose, and he readily agreed. I tried, but the clutch was clearly shot. I let the tyres down to 7psi, and after a struggle, managed to climb the dune. So I ended up driving the Pajero 70km out of the desert, while Sheila chauffeured the ex-driver in my Nissan Patrol. I don’t know what hurt him most – the fact that I could drive his gutless wonder and he couldn’t, or the fact that he was being driven out by a mere woman in a 16-year-old Patrol. Anyway, he got it back to the bivouac that night and at the end of the rally was a classified finisher.

After that experience, I was more than ever convinced that we could compete. We’d been driving Desert Challenge routes for years, both on club trips and on Sweep Team. All we needed was a vehicle that was well equipped and affordable, and Saeed’s 4.8 Patrol fitted the bill – and he wanted to sell it.

After the rally dust had settled, I took the Patrol for a 3-day test through the Liwa - the UAE's corner of the Empty Quarter, where the UAEDC is run. It wasn’t perfect – the power was down – but it had fantastic suspension and would go anywhere. We haggled, and eventually I bought it, complete with various spares, including wheels and axles.

We had a rally car!