Thursday, April 7, 2011

Short Cut to a Home Run

We made it back to Yas

(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!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Brief, but pants......

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 Chevy LS2 engine with serpentine belt. Ian has seen quite enough of these this week.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.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

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

Ian does his best to minimise wear on the left hand tyres. Photo courtesy Wouter Kingma


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.

Fred, Ian and Sheila, all smiles at the prologue. Probably wind.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 A Nissan Patrol caught in some nasty Ricksandturn 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.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Belts off, briefly undone



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 Stud or blogger - you make the callobjective – 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 Gratuitous image of English archers. It's what those two fingers are for.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 Obviously these are not Ian's briefs because they are Diesel and Ian's a petrol kinda guy.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 13th or 14th overall at the moment. Mark Powell and Evans Quin finished 5th 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.

Robbo comes from a land down underLocal biker and my mate James West is doing very well on his Yamaha bike, lying in 2nd 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 21st 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 7/12ths of a bit **Tad. 11 & 8/19ths of a Smidgen


Sunday, April 3, 2011

Of studs and gesticulation


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…….

Saturday, April 2, 2011

The Prologue




(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".

Friday, April 1, 2011

ADDC2011 Scrutineering



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'.