Feeling a little Thor

Pedal to the, ahem, metal....

There have been times in the UAE when it didn’t rain for two and a half years. In fact the expression ‘saving for a rainy day’ has become so redundant that most of us spend all our money instead on wine, women (or Chippendales) and racing cars. The latter usually demanding the most cash, naturally. Today however, was a rainy day. A very rainy day, with evil, tainted skies generating daylight the colour of jaundice, calamitous thunderstorms, torrential rain (typical - I only washed my bloody car yesterday!) and an air of foreboding; just one bode away from a cataclysmic fiveboding, and we all know how bad that is.

Consequently those magnificent men in their hovery, inverted egg whisk’oplanes, couldn’t see the ground beneath them and so said they couldn’t fly. Here’s a clue Mr. Pilot – you were standing on it when you said you couldn’t fly. And if the helicopters don’t fly there’s no medical cover and if there’s no medical cover the race is delayed. This may not be popular with the competitors, but it IS good practice, and as a repeat beneficiary of those kind people in the SAR teams, I know it’s the right thing to do.

Here's a photo I prepared earlier.

Thus it was that Ian and Sheila were, along with all the other competitors, told to drive on tarmac to a point about 100kms into the rally stage and wait. And wait. And wait. Until eventually the winds died down, the balloon went up (well, OK, the helicopters), and our heroes were released into the wild yellow yonder and told to make their way to the bivouac. (Quick track, bivouac, give The Dog a home). So off they jolly well sped, with yours truly once again failing to get half his work done because the annoying thing about having live tracking on your computer is that you daren’t look away. You minimise it, ignore it, then after 10 minutes the temptation becomes too great and you start checking their position again. Then that of friends who are racing, then the race leaders, then people who look like they might be stuck, then back to car 222 again, then 242, then bike 27, etc. etc. And then you finally minimise the screen. But only for 10 minutes. Repeat ad nauseum.

That's how that I knew Newtrix were briefly stuck for a few minutes at around 1.30pm, then again for just a couple of minutes at around 2.30pm, but after that it was pedal to the metal and Ian and Sheila were soon leaving a trail of cars in their wake. What I didn’t know of course was that the drop into the first stuck had caused the radiator catch tank to work loose, which would later cause occasional overheating and thus the engine would kick into default “4 cylinder mode”. Now suddenly having 165 horsepower instead of 330 is not what you want when racing in the desert – but it’s better than cooking your engine, so whilst inconvenient, it wasn’t a game changer.



That JCB would have been useful today.



Throughout this time I kept updating poor Richard down in the desert, via SMS. A couple of times he thanked me for the news, but when he replied “Thanks for the updates, even though they give me heart attacks” I decided to keep the news to myself. This evening Ian called me to say that they had also been suffering from intermittent engine ‘çut outs’ and upon investigation tonight by Richard “I’ll check my list and find the cause” Bailey, it was determined that the wing mounted cut out switches were playing up, so he’s spanked them and sent them to bed early. We expect no further problems tomorrow or there’ll be trouble.

With Ian and Sheila cruising down a track at 100kmh and just 6kms from the finish line at about 4.30pm, I sent Richard what I now realise was a stupid text. “Nearly there” I said “put the kettle on”. Oh dear. Kiss of death. Dr. B.S. will not be doing that again. Just minutes from the finish line and with only one more line of dunes to cross, the desert reached up, grabbed the Dog by the tail and hung on to it. Stuck. Really, really stuck, spitting distance from the finish line. Not that there was any spitting to be done, because digging a car out of the sand for 90 minutes, yes folks, one and a half hours, doesn’t leave you with any spit left to waste.



Malcolm & Patrick had a good day and are lying 23rd overall.

 When it became clear that they were struggling I called Richard and Fred, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, could give them I&S’s exact position, and tell them what appeared to be a quick and easy route to the car. I thought if the car was broken in some way we would be much better off getting there in daylight, regardless of the penalties to be incurred for receiving assistance. Trouble is, Google doesn’t update its maps every day (typical – lazy swines) and so when Richard tried to follow my directions he was faced with miles and miles of fencing instead of the open tracks I could see on my screen. Undeterred he headed off into the desert, and I was able to pick out both a gate in the fence, and a circuitous but apparently well traveled path which would get him to within 200 metres of Ian and Sheila. Halfway down this track and with the corrugated road rattling Richard and Fred’s teeth down to their root canals, he then received a message to say that after their energy sapping digging, Ian and Sheila were ‘free at last’ and heading for the finish line.

Ian rang me at around 9.30pm in high spirits, because despite the days woes, the car’s in one piece, the clutch is holding up, they’ve no penalties and they are ready to rock tomorrow from a position of 38th overall. So not a bad day in the desert after all.

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

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.