Arctic 4x4 - The calm before the storm

We arrived in sweden on a plane that had been delayed by a massive snowstorm which had passed over southern Sweden earlier in teh day.  Stockholm is gridlocked in a way we normally are after 1" of snow.  Here however it is about half  a meter!

We have registered and things look ok.  Scrutineering was pretty lax and having a car and being able to find the registration point seemed to be all you needed.  Our car really is the baby with the others seeming to be proper big, high offroaders so I think we will have our work cut out having any success.

We've had one problem already - how do you put stickers on a car when it is cold windy and snowy?  Answer.... cruise around until you find an open warehouse, drive in and do it in the warm!

This one is broken already, but it doesn't seem to be phasing the team from Sweden

Tomorrow is a 900km drive north so we should be pretty tired by the end of that.  follow us in lots of ways including:

http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=241627

and on Redshift radio http://www.redshiftradio.co.uk/ at 7.30pm each day

Snowball Progress

We are making good progress towards our target of raising £500 for the Up and Under Foundation.  We were helped considerably by generous donations from businesses on the High Growth Programme run by Winning Pitch for NWDA. 



Snowballs bound for the Arctic

Details of our journey can be found here. We leave for the start line in Stockholm on 11th Feb.  We will activate the tracking on the 12th.  Details will be available on this site.  If you want to donate on line www.justgiving.com/upandunderfoundation

No Rally This Autumn

OK so its official we will not be racing this autumn.  Sadly the lack of a navigator means that we have cancelled plans to visit the big sandpit until 2011.

With this down time we will be working on the car - the electrics are getting some serious attention and some new lights will be appearing on the front.

There may be an opportunity for a testing trip in late December if anyone is interested.

Helping the Foundation

Meeting remote farmers.

Although a little bit out of our normal operating area The Up and Under rally team assisted the Foundation by delivering a box full of sports kit to younsters in the Missor area of Morocco. The kit was passed on to Mr Baroudi a prominent figure in the area for distribution to those youngsters most likely to benefit. Kit was donated by the South Cheshire Harriers, Crewe Alex, Up and Under Staff and supporters of the Foundation.

Kids always like new stuff.

Handing over kit in Missor

Mr Baroudi, Andy and Rainer (rally organiser)

The finish - at last!

Shrek

Link to a vid of shrek doing what he is designed to do ;o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyZvW5m0RRU&feature=related
Fruit

Tuareg Rally 1st 5 days

After the usual chaos of the boat crossing we were in Africa. Nador is really very similar to a scruffy southern European town gone to seed.


We got our time cards and set off The stage added up to about 400km ending in Missor. It was a mix of navigation stages, where you have a time limit to get to the end, a special, where you are timed, and road sections. The terrain in N morocco is rough and it is an opportunity to find out what is loose on your car, fortunately we went through ok. The final special was cancelled due to a flodded river.


In the evening we handed over a rally box full of trainers to the locals along with a couple of footballs and some sport kit. This will no doubt find good homes amongst the local younsters. If you are passing through look out for the kids in Crewe Alex and Nantwich Town kit

During the night, as we slept in our tent with 20 bikers, the river did its stuff on the local bridge leaving us with the choice of a swim across or a long diversion to reach the days first special stage.

The bridge problems meant that we were 3 hours delayed, the end cut off time to start the final special was moved back by 5 minutes so it was 'get your skates on' time. The first special went well with no dramas. The following nav stage was really rough 50km of tracks that made Cheshire roads look like silk. at the end of the Nav stage we had 1 hour to cover 100km, on road, but with many villages where we had to slow down to 60 or less. If we missed the start of  the special we would get a 2 hour penalty, It was a bit of a rush but we made it with 3 minutes to spare thus being one of only 2 cars to get through. This put us nicely in 1st place as we reached Merzouga.

Stage 3 "Three Ergs", all special for 170km. This was a mixed stage that required raising and lowering of tyre pressures at regular intervals. By now the temperature was feeling more desert than at the much higher Missor and running about in race suits soon got the sweat going.


Another straight forword stage, but wierdly we found a mobile phone lying on a dune in the middle of nowhere. Still in first place and cruising.

The King Stage and for us a day of drama. On this stage we went into the big dunes of Erg Chebbi and they are massive. 2km from the start we crested a dune to find a motorcyclist who had obviously had a big one. We stopped with a couple of others and did all the emergency stuff, marking the location on GPS, calling assistance and rendering first aid. We later found out he was Italian had hurt his back and wouldn't lie still. They don't teach you restraint techniques on any first aid course I haver ever been on. He wanted to move about and we had quite a job keeping him still meanwhile Lorna directed traffic at the top of the dune.

Eventually doctors arrived and we assisted them, the final diagnosis being broken ribs anbd a splattered nose. After pushing the doctor's car we set off again, dead last.

After about 10km we crested a dune and missed a camel by about a metre, lucky break for both of us!


After about 30km, of what is undoubtable buttock clenching driving, I took a left or right decision at the top of a dune, one of thousands, but this one was to end with a bump.


Directly in front of me was a 10 foot wide clump of camel grass, believe me you would rather hit a camel than this stuff, I avoided it to the left before seing, emerging behind it, some rocks so further right I traversed. Traversing is fun on a crag, but in dunes it is one step away from a crash. The downhill wheels dig in and it is easy to roll, As we reached the foot of the dune the car did just that. Slowly and gently, lay down on its right side.

So began a long day in the desert. It was mid day and too hot to dig, so we built a tent and waited. We got word to the Orga but knew they would be busy and we weren't a medical emergency. It was very calm at the bottom of our dune and we napped between waving OK to passing vehicles.

At about 4.30 it was cool enough to dig and dig we did until about 7pm. A collection of bikers from the orga arrive armed with shovels and lashings of good cheer. We did lots of things with jacks that went against HSE guidance, but after 3 hours of graft the car was righted with startlingly little dammage. A quick check over and a fantastic sunset drive out of the dunes flat out to avoid being stuck in the dark. We slept well that night. Overall it was a disappointment to loose 1st place but we had come out of it pretty well.

Friday brought us to the dune race. A mad flat out race around the Big dune at Erg Chebbi. 18km laps, 2 for us 4 for the pros as fast as you dare. This was where we had our now infamous flip and we didn't want any disaters this time. Except for shedding a tyre half way through and having a tough landing or two it was pretty starightforward. Oh and the wing fell off partly caused by yesterdays events and added to by today's.

We have been kept running by a great crew from Rally Raid, headed by Chris who trys to keep Pally and Ian under control. What these guys achieve is incredible. Another Warrior, driven by Izhar, had a big roll and looked quite a wreck on the King Stage, 24 hours later it is ready to race again.

After all these events we were placed third in class. Hopefully we can hold onto this until Spain but time will tell.
Fruit

Sahara Masters - Victory

I am sorry it has taken so long but real world seems to be getting in the way but there was good news in our October outing.

We had an uncharacteristic trouble free win in the K2 class at the recent Sahara Masters Rally. The move from modified Land Rover, Defender to the Desert Warrior XLR kit car proved to be a great success. In the past we had spent more time repairing the Defender than driving it, in this rally it was so different!

The rally held in Tunisia covered a range of piste and dunes and attracted a field of drivers and riders from Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Slovenia, Serbia as well as three Brits.

The longest stage in the rally was a 355km special where the K1 and K2 classes combined. Interestingly the K2 cars beat their big brothers in the pro class by quite a margin.

The car handled like a dream. Paul (at Rally Raid UK) said it would be good in the dunes, but the biggest joy was the way it handles the piste sections, flicking through twisty sections with ease. I suppose the fact that the dune sections were so uneventful as to be forgettable gives credence to Paul’s assertion. The only minor hiccups we had were caused by our mistakes; wrong tyre pressures and forgetting to put the diff lock back in after a road section ;o) Other drivers commented that they were unable to follow our tracks in the sand. I put this down to the engine power and manoeuvrability of the car. Some less generous mentioned my tendency to follow the route for a while then to head of seeking the most fun route, but hey if you can, why not.

Our plan had been to go hard from the start then defend a lead and it worked out very well. The main competition was provided by two significantly modified Pajaeros who kept pressing to the end, but were unable to close the gap we had earlier built up. Andy Tank was very sporting earlier in the rally giving us a tug off a crest, but he was running a car cooled as a result of a couple of relays we donated, so fair’s fair.

Other cars in the race included a Range Rover, a T2 Nissan, a Jeep, a couple of Toyotas and a Disco that had a catalogue of incidents including crashing into the duty free shop in Tunis.

Rally Raid were helpful with preparation of the car and with supply of spares, cheers for the assistance, we look forward to racing with you all in Morocco.

Get lost?!

When Fruit first suggested that I be his navigator for a desert rally I was, I confess, rather worried. Virtually the ONLY thing we ever argue about is navigation! Was this some perverse (and expensive) way of seeking a divorce?! If it was it was not a success as we are now approaching our 18th wedding anniversary (although there is another rally before then).

There are some pretty crucial differences between rally navigation and your day to day, "get me to Lower Thrupwell", map reading. For a start there are no maps (what a great idea). I am not very good with maps - contour lines are just brown squiggly lines to me (apparently some people can tell what the topography will look like from them.... could explain why I was crap at orienteering..!). Rally navigation, however, uses something called Tulip diagrams and 'accurate' distances between points.

Some of the diagrams are a bit of a mystery until you actually get there - but when you arrive all is clear - basically just follow the arrows. It seems to be de rigour among navigators to mark up your road book the night before using lots of highlighter pens. Being new (and, on the quiet, being rather partial to colouring) I did the same - I'm not sure why though. More important for me was to mark 'L' on the left hand turns and 'R' on the right hand ones - as under pressure I don't actually know my left from my right!

You also get a number of gizmos to keep you busy and make you feel important - like a trip meter and a GPS. The trip meter measures the total distance travelled and, by resetting at each instruction, individual intervals, which is great when your meter is calibrated EXACTLY the same as the person who made the road book!

Thus armed you can give your driver clear and easy to follow instructions. In 300m turn left at the T junction......... in 100m turn left .......... NO LEFT! Ahh the route to martial bliss.

26 days and counting

26 days until the start of the race - unfortunately its more like 23 days until Fruit leaves to drive to Spain ....

We started the new car, for now lovingly termed the 'Duck' (for reasons which may become apparent) in September 2008, when we got a Land Rover Discovery to act as the base vehicle. We then went away for a month to Libya in the Rat, which we had rapidly converted from desert racer to desert camper, on the Libya Rally Raid pre-tour (http://www.libya-rally-raid.org/-raid.org/). So nothing much happened until November.





After a bit of a incident in our last Tuareg, when we unexpectedly ended up upside down, we decided that an integral roll cage would be a really good idea and so with some egging on from BD and Paul Round at Rally Raid International 'the Duck' was born.

Fruit, while undetered by most things, doesn't actually know a great deal about cars (other than how to drive one) so he is on a steep learning curve. The Duck is currently being wired and the lights were switched on for the first time yesterday.

We have taken the rally seats from the Rat, but Fruit may be looking at a new one as it is a bit of a squeeze in the cab and, lets face it, any excuse for shopping (it's not a female preserve you know - its just that blokes buy different things).

A month to go

Welcome to the Rally Raiders Blog. A month today (inshallah) March 23rd, we will have finished day 1 of the Tuareg rally in Morocco (http://www.tuareg-rallye.com/).

We have a number - 252 - trouble is we don't yet have a car..!

We are Up and Under rally team (aka Fruit, Lorna and others) and this will be our second Tuareg. The first time, two years ago, saw us zipping through the desert in a 10 year old Land Rover Defender (lovingly known as the Rat).

This time we thought we would go for something designed for the job, with an integral roll cage and all that sort of stuff. Although the Rat had a roll cage it was a bit of an after thought and when given a thorough testing proved to be OK but only just.

Fruit is busy (very) building the new car, with help from Rally Raid International (Dakar veterans) but as you can see it looks as if will go right down to the wire.