So many land slides so much dust
Today was a 9:00am start so we didn’t have to rush too much. We had collapsed into bed at 9:30 so woke at 5am.
Tony rotated the tires last night but I could sense his concern and when a few saw them this morning they expressed concern about how bald they were.
The early part of the day was climbing up to a beautiful vista Tony drove slowly well as slow as you can in a challenge. We arrived at control one with plenty of time to spare. The roads were narrow but the views were stunning.
Our second stop was a regulatory. These are tough enough on these potholed roads with buses that don’t give an inch but then add change of speeds in the middle of them. It was disastrous. Everyone had screwed up. Except some super experienced people who made 2 or 3 second errors.
So you went at 40kmph for 5 km then switched to 20kmph.. for .5km then you switched to 40km until the unknown end. It was so hard. We were right on the mark at 5km. Then trying to calculate the change of speed distance and give direction when I have just mastered the simple task was overwhelming. Surprisingly we were only 20 seconds out.
So I think we held our own. On to the next Control. The drive was magnificent. Tony a little more cautious with the tires but we still kept up a good clip. We drove along a ridge for 20 or 25km. Then turned just a few kilometres before the next Control we came upon a few cars out on the ledge. Wondering what had happened Tony pulled over. One of the participants ran over saying there has been a bad accident. I peered out and could see that one of the Old Bentley’s was sitting at an odd angle. I got out but the congestion made it difficult to get at. I figured I wasn’t going to do much at this point and I saw Bill in one of the other Bentley’s pressing cars to move on and stop gawking. Tony pulled forward and just said it’s Lars and Annette they have had an accident. Bill indicated we should probably move on as the medical support was on the way. As we passed I could see Annette, chatting but Lars was clearly injured he seemed to be holding his leg and he was lying on his side but he was talking. We decided it was best to clear the area and wait for news when it was available. So I shouted over, can we do anything? Bill said no.
We drove on to the break which was just down the road.
We stopped and pulled over, we were one of the first teams into the PC. One of the crew members Andy, noticed our tires. He asked if we had replacements. He was concerned ours were just too bald. So again Tony lifted the car and we put our only two new tires on the car up front and now we have two brand new and two from the front. Better than before but still not ideal. Shades of Peking to Paris we changed tires in less than 15 minutes and we were ready for our official start. Tony didn’t get a chance to eat so I fed him a few granola bars and a big bottle of water. It was hot.
We were warned that the road ahead was not in good shape and there would be road construction. I think if we had known what the route was like we might have sought out an alternative. It was hell. There had been massive landslides and one during our drive had just occurred. We can only think it had been due to the recent monsoons.
55km of driving of banging and bashing the car or bouncing out of our seats, the poor car creaking and groaning. 30km took over three hours. Some cars fell by the wayside many struggled constantly bottoming out. The old cars, older than ours fared better as they had massive springs and they sit higher. It wasn’t pretty and we were not happy. Tony and I were almost unrecognizable by the end. Our hair was matted and our skin covered in a think layer of dust and soot. The towels after showering were still dirty. We passed massive bulldozers and cranes on our route. We sat behind cranes while they tried to clear a path for us to drive on.
By the end of the day we wanted out of the car. One of the participants tried to pass us later on and hit a huge puddle on the road while passing. He coated us with mud and water spraying the whole car. We were now caked in it.
This was not the end of day we expected.
Finally at 6pm we pulled into the hotel, looking a bedraggled. Tony rotated the tires again while I checked us in,Aloha on the Ganj Rishikesk’s great claim to fame is it was where the Beatles came during their period with the Yogi’s in India
Mid-day Break …just finished changing the tires got some muched needed rest before traversing the 50km of constrution and fractured roads
Nuts and Bolts:
At the midday break Andy, one of the lead support mechanics had a look at the bald tires and shook his head and convinced me that we should mount the spare tires I have been saving right away. It took a quick 15 minutes to swap the tires and we continued onto one of the riughest segments of road we have yet encountered; 50 kms of serverly broken road and construction. I was grateful that Andy convinced me to put on the fresh rubber.
I also adjusted the front and rear brake drums to tighten up the brake shoe clearances. I topped up the sump oil (so far consumed only 1 litre of oil). The radiator shutters started failing on day one of the rally but I managed to keep them working regardless. But the severe vibrations generated by the twisitng and broken roads rendered the shutter control useless and I was reduced to adopting the same fix I used in the P2P rally…..bungie cords. The fuel vapour lock problem has been very annoying and persistant through out the daily events. I typically run all three pumps and still get misfiring and power loss when standing in traffic or when restarting after a breif break.
