The Big 2017 Update - Dubai International Baja

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apres moi, le maelstrom!

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

Nanjgel Garage service crew

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

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

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

Down to the Wire

Well, the Painless Performance wiring loom arrived, and shortly thereafter the repaired Monit tripmeters from New Zealand.  Monit, bless them, had not only replaced the PCBs on each unit, but also clearly given me new cases for them as well.  So the only original bit was the screen – effectively they had saved me about £800.  Any company that serves their customers that well – on 7-year-old equipment – deserves a massive vote of thanks.

And so Jason and I (OK, mainly Jason) set about re-wiring the Beast.  Nanjgel had already modified the rear wings and installed a pair of Hilux rear light clusters, which look really good.  Jason did the clever stuff – like figuring out where all the wires go, and what extra bits we needed.  I fabricated and painted a couple of replacement dash panels to accommodate the new switches and indicators, mounted some relay bases in a weatherproof enclosure and generally shouted encouragement from the touchline. 

The job ended up being rather more of a challenge than Jason had anticipated.  The loom and fuse box is designed around American wiring practice, which (it turns out) is not entirely compatible with non-USA vehicles.  Being unable to persuade the ECU to come to the party cost us a couple of days which we could ill-afford, before Nanjgel’s electrician finally came to the rescue.  However, around midday on Friday we decided it was sufficiently ‘finished’ for the following day’s event, and we blatted off to Siyouh to recce the stages in Sheila’s Prado.

The Mobil 1 Rally is the 4^th round of the Emirates Rally Championship, organised by the EMC.  It comprised two gravel stages, each run three times, in an area where we’d previously competed.  Saturday was almost certainly the hottest and most humid day in the last few weeks, which made the event hard work.  Starting 16^th out of 17 cars, we completed the first two stages around midday, and on returning to service were shocked to discover that we were leading T1, by a massive one second margin from Ali Al Shawi.  (Ali, who was already leading the T1 championship, has spent the summer upgrading his Chevy Silverado to multi-link suspension and pruning back the bodywork to pickup-style to make it even more competitive, was pretty shocked as well.)

Low flying

On the second go-round we extended our lead on SS3, before losing it all on SS4 where he went quicker and I pushed too hard and made a few errors.  So after four stages we were 5 seconds adrift from Al Shawi.  We pulled back a second of that on SS5, and did our fastest lap of SS6 – but it wasn’t enough to catch Al Shawi who was a massive 14 seconds quicker on the final stage.  We ended up 18 seconds behind him, 2^nd in T1 and 6^th overall – which coincides exactly with our overall standings in the championship.  17 cars started, 11 finished.  Shk. Abdullah Al Qassimi won the event in his Ford Fiesta, and Sheila once again took home a ‘special trophy’ for being the top lady finisher!

There is still work to do on the wiring.  Despite the repairs to the Monits, Sheila still found them unreliable, with both the trip meters and timers randomly re-setting.  However, the next couple of events are the opening rounds of the Emirates Desert Championship, which I can manage without a co-driver.  The amount of oil the engine consumes is also a concern – I got through at least half a gallon in two top-ups.

Time for Plan B

Plan A was to get the engine sorted, change the back end to a pickup and get the Beast ready for the next rally (9-10^th May).  Then maybe do the rest of the work (fiberglass front end, rewire, new dashboard) over the summer. 

The cab back panel is in, and a polycarbonate window will go above it.  The rear wings have been cut to size and the brackets to attach them are in progress.  We’re rapidly reaching the point where only the detail work to fit ancilliaries like the jack, sandladders, compressor, air tank etc. remains. 

New tyre rack and suspension turret

However – we have now moved to Plan B.  Mark has convinced me that it makes sense to complete the job by doing the front end while the engine is out.  That means  stripping out all the wiring and ancillaries from under the bonnet, and the dashboard.  Then the front bodywork will go, to be replaced by a tubular structure to support new fiberglass wings, while a new fibreglass  dashboard will complete the interior.  Once that is done, it will visit Nanjgel for a complete inside (white) and outside (Fiji Blue) respray.   Then it’s back to Saluki Motorsports for re-wiring and engine installation.

All this means that we won’t have the Beast back for the May 9-10^th event.  But when we do finally get it back – it will be like a new vehicle!  Then we'll see how close we are to our 2050kg target weight.