The sheer hell of this desert ordeal The long hard road to Timbuktu · 2020. 1. 27. · Desert rat:...

Range Rover TRW 425R 1Range Rover TRW 425R 1

Stories of an intriguing Range Roverprepared by Janspeed Engineering

First all-British entry to finish the awesomeRallye Paris-Dakar

across the Sahara desert and west Africa

Sahara: the supreme testThe sheer hell of this desert ordealThe long hard road to Timbuktu

Dust, sweat and bloody-minded determinationLe rallye des masos!

Just deserts: a severe test of willpower and staminaDesert rat: how to prepare for the last great adventure

2 Range Rover TRW 425R

Range Rover TRW 425R 3

Half way - Timbuktu: it seems to go on for ever... 4

Les actualités: Howard and Miles readying for the start... 10

Driver’s-eye views: hot pictures... 14

The sheer hell of this desert ordeal: just how tough it can be... 16

Just deserts: a severe test of willpower and stamina... 18

It didn’t fall over: first encounter with the Range Rover at Solihull... 23

Sahara the supreme test: Let’s Go with British Caledonian... 24

Desert rat: how to prepare for the last great adventure... 26

Actualités en plus... 32

History and provenance: originally a factory development vehicle... 34

TSO’s finisher’s certificate... 36

Technical talk: specifications... 37

Paris-Dakar Is a fever that sweeps all across France... 38

Napoleon of the sand dunes: across the Sahara with Jean Todt... 41

Eccentric escapism: the long road to Timbuktu... 42

Dust, sweat and bloody-minded determination: we’ll never be the same again... 45

Teddy is ready to launch Dakar crusade... 49

An aptitude to enrage, yet capable of awesome generority: Anne Hope... 50

Getting the story out... 51

A jolly good jape for Mirror prestige: London-Mexico World Cup rally... 52

Paris-Dakar media briefing... 55

Hot rides: fast pictures... 56

We didn’t get lost in the Sahara...that’s

Contents

A presentation byAnthony Howard

+44+(0)7802 654 776 [email protected]

www.wordspix.co.ukCopyright © 2012

Words and photography byamong others:

Associated Press, Stuart Bladon,Peter Cramer, DPPI,

Christopher Hilton, Anne Hope,Anthony Howard, Bob Kirwin,

John Miles, Eric Mirivel,Roger Swan, Colin Taylor,

Norman Hodson


PARIS-DAKAR. a sortof relentless demonicpunishment for vehicleand occupants, and cer-tainly not what oneimagines it is going tobe like. After all, theblurb that came with theentry forms did say"each minute will bringthe emotions which willconstitute an impreg-nable fortress of realmemories in your mindswhich will resist thesands of time indefinite-

ly." Powerful stuff, andas you may judge, notwithout a grain of truth.

The man responsiblefor getting me involvedin this madcap schemewas ex-AutocarAssistant Editor TonyHoward. The extraordi-nary thing was that evenafter withstanding theheart-breaking businessof getting within 400miles of Dakar last yearhe badly wanted to goback. The vehicle wouldbe the same - a Range

Rover - except this timeit would be prepared inthis country rather thanby BL France. BL waseven keen enough onthe idea of two journal-ists actually competingto provide the car, theentry fee, and somefinance to prepare it withsuitably strengthenedsuspension, an addition-al tank, extra lights andall the paraphernaliathat goes with compet-ing in an event of thiskind. Of course, in reali-

ty there is no event likeit.

For in this the thirdRallye Paris-Dakar therewere 308 competitors(179 cars, 15 trucks, 114motorcycles) againstyear's total of 208 -exactly 100 more vehi-cles and, perhaps 200more madmen battlingagainst fatigue, badfood, mechanical fail-ures and accidents.

The route would takeus from Paris to the portof Sète via two short

Half way: TimbuktuThe Paris-Dakar: a peculiarly French event, that takes 20 days, covers four African states and6,500 miles of truly gruelling sand, scrub and rock. It seems to go on for ever...By John Miles

Main picture: On route to Timbuktu this is a familiarscene. The route notes say "follow plusiers pistes (sev-eral tracks) and leave the dunes to the left". Inset aboveleft: Only differential guards grounding on a high centralhump would stop the Range Rover. Digging out wouldsoon restore tyre contact and traction. Above right: ThePuren Chapel prototype was typical of several cut down

Range Rovers in the event. Top far right: When presseda Senegalese camel can make about 25 mph. Such ani-mals were much less of a hazard than a slow movingcow. Lower far right: the De Montcorge-Pelletier space-framed, glass fibre-bodied, Chevrolet-engined 4 x 4"Rolls-Royce" lookalike was beautifully turned out, andoften competitive


special stages at Olivet(near Orléans) andGarrigues (near Nimes),thence across theMediterranean to Algierswhere the rally properwould start. We wouldgo due south throughBordj-Omar-Driss, skirtTamanrasset, then intoMali - over relentlessly-rough tracks - toTimeiaoune, Gao andTimbuktu. The loop intoUpper Volta and theIvory Coast took inBouna and Korhogo.Then this year's routetook us back into Malithrough Kolokani andNioro. The final leg wason better surfaced -sometimes graded -tracks into Senegal -Bakel, Tiougoune andfinally Dakar.

Long, dusty road Never in my experi-

ence has NorthcoteParkinson's law statingthat "work alwaysexpands into the timeavailable" seemed moreapt as Tony Howard andmyself tried to organizethe Range Rover, thespares, the documenta-tion, vaccinations, visas,and a degree of last-minute sponsorship tocover our running costs.

Come Christmas Evewe began to learn thatin the main it was theindividuals and smallfirms that could be reliedupon: Janspeed, whodid a super job on theengine and chassis; WMAutodevelopments, whodid their level best tocomplete the detailwork; Wood & Pickett;Cibié; Microtrip; Roadand Racing Accessories;Aushdeck; and oneClive Huish who rushedaround getting the parts

Unipart were unable tosupply. Smiths? Theyrelied on ThomasRichfield to build a met-ric speedometer. Land-Rover themselves werefantastic, one enterpris-ing gentleman eventual-ly acquiring some elu-sive spares direct fromthe line for us, and BPwho, with no significantpresence in France orthe old French coloniesthrough which the rallypassed, helped whenthey need not have.

We assembled onNew Year's Day in frontof the Palais de Chaillot,under the shadow of theEiffel Tower. Drivers whohad done last year'sevent must have knownwhat to expect. Otherslike myself may haveimagined a bit of astruggle ahead, butnothing too serious.Twenty days later the 42cars' crews who arrivedin Dakar "in time" mayhave had a differentidea. The two specialstages in France weresimple enough; 5 kmthrough army traininggrounds, just occasion-ally plunging into sloppymud, but mostly slidingsideways on hard, roughtracks - easy stuff. Thereal rally would start inAfrica.

For this year's event(the third) FISA decreedthat on safety groundsthe cars and motor-cycles should run to dif-ferent rules; the fourwheelers accruingpenalties on exceedingtimes set by TSO, whilethe bikes would run on astraight scratch basis.TSO Thierry SabineOrganisation, a sort oftravelling band of offi-

cials employed by therally's bearded instiga-tor, Thierry Sabine. Hefollowed in a helicopter,gave early morningbriefings, and oftenstarted the cars. Like hisblue-overalled officials,he popped up every-where.

Strict time limits -sometimes easy, some-times tight - applied onthe "transport sections".One had to check in onthe appointed minute -no later and no earlier.The pre-set specialstage times wouldalways be impossible toachieve. There wouldalways be a penalty.

We went due souththrough France to thesmall port of Sète. Fromthere, crossing theMediterranean took 30hours. Then there wasan utterly chaotic disem-barkation at Algiers. Therally proper had started.

Running your ownshow means living out ofthe back of a dust-ladenRange Rover for 20days, except for the oddoccasion when a hotelveranda can be hired.Competing in the RallyeParis-Dakar is a weary-ing business.

We would get up, wan-der off into the desert todo the things one doesin the desert, grab apiece of bread and jamand a cup of coffee pro-vided by the organisers,pick up what TSOeuphemistically called"energy rations", get intothe car and set off into.perhaps 600 km of des-olate terrain encompass-ing flat desert, soft cloy-ing sand, and rocky,bone-jarring tracks; usu-ally all three.

One had constantly tobe alert for the wash-aways (cuvettes), hol-lows (ornières) and the

many other hazardsdescribed in the "routenotes". Problems arosebecause, even account-ing for wheel spin, haz-ards were often out ofsynchronisation with thenotes. Unlogged ditchesand yumps were alwaysthere to catch one out.On a good day wewould reach the end ofa stage having had justone puncture (bike rid-ers seemed to be con-tinually repairing tyresby the road side). Onewould arrive havingmanaged to keep moreor less to the correcttrack, tired and hungry,but then having to lookafter the health of ourmount.

Darkness, sand, andfatigue meant each jobtook twice as long as itshould. Changing air fil-ters was an essentialtask, so was checkingfor broken engine andgearbox mounts (webroke three). Webecame adept at findingthe local blacksmith, andpressing his batteredoxyacetylene or arcwelding gear into serv-ice to repair the frontdamper turrets.Dampers and brakepads had to be changedand brakes bled at leastonce. Any work of thisnature involved unpack-ing tool bags and thespares chest, thenrepacking same and

tension strapping thevarious items down toprevent them flyingaround during the nextday's punishment.

Finally it was time -well past time usually -to grab the only hotmeal of the day; queuein the moonlight with300 other hungry people(a number that dimin-ished rapidly as the rallyprogressed) to beserved lukewarm tinnedfrankfurters, or perhapsmeat lumps of doubtfulorigin with rice. Starvinglocals stared on envi-ously from outside theroped-off eating com-pounds, grateful for anyscraps. Our only realluxury would be a slug

of brandy before climb-ing partially clothed andusually dirty into asleeping bag. Sand anddirt get everywhere. Youcannot escape it.

Ours was at least aninteresting story, if not aparticularly successfulone. We finished 27thoverall and fourth in thestandard four-wheel-drive class - one of just42 competitors who fin-ished in time.

The rally had gonewell for us in France andover the first two stagesin Africa. We led theclass, until a quite unex-pected 15-hour penaltycrept into our results!This was only to beexplained as a "mistake'


Top left: On stony but flat ground we motor past theDelefortrie brothers' class-winning Toyota diesel pickup.Below left: Bearded Thierry Sabine personally startedmany of the stages - like this one from Quatre Cheminsto In Ecker.

Top right: One of the many villages in southern Mali thatlooked desperately run down. Middle right: Severalmotorcycle combinations started - none finished. Bottomright: At Gao (less than halfway) the Range Rover islooking filthy and tired. The metal tool box sitting on thetailgate later disintegrated. Spare parts were carried inthe aluminium chest, Dust gets everywhere


much later. Meanwhilethe relatively easy goingearly on had favouredthe nippy two-wheel-drive cars; Luc-Alessandrini (to be thesole two- wheel-drivecar finisher),Deschaseaux-Plassard,and lckx-Brasseur inCitroen CXs, plus thePorsche 924 of DaCosta-Grandville.

Buggies and specialsran in their own classand the Cotel-CorbettaPRV-engined machinedid a fabulous job in fin-ishing second overall.Range Rovers andMercedesGelandewagens werepopular, running both inthe fairly open "modi-fied" class (where onecould tune, lighten, andcut and shut the body-work) or the standardclass, as we were.

Diesel engined 4x4sran in a separate class,won by the uncompro-misingly extrovertDelefortrie brothers witha Toyota BJ43 pick-up.Toyota Land Cruisersand 4x4 flat-backToyotas were plentiful.There were Renaultsaloons converted tofour wheel drive bySimpar. Of these, theMaurreau brothers' 20flew, but like the otherseventually broke. LadaNivas were also wellrepresented with theBriavoine-Deliare crisp-sounding, Perspex-win-dowed version cominghome third.

Our class was won bythe beautifully drivenBiasini brothers' RangeRover. But it was FrenchGroup 1 saloon carchampion René Metge,ably guided by Robert

Giroux, driving one of apair of BL France-entered Range Rovers,who eventually groundthe opposition down.Both were prepared inthis country by SchulerPresses and BLAbingdon mechanicsworking at TomWalkinshaw's TWRacing. Their sponsor-ship came from VSD(Vendredi SamediDimanche), ParisMatch's magazine rival.

Prize for the mostaudacious effort must goto Thierry de Montcorgeand Jean-ChristophePelletier in a beautifullyprepared 4x4 Rolls-Royce Corniche - actu-ally a space framed,glass-fibre-bodied,Chevrolet-engined spe-cial. Jules, the sponsor,got their money's worth,even though the pseu-do-Rolls completed thecourse "out of time". Theincredible Alm/Acmat (aquite innocuous-lookingmilitary truck) came 18thoverall and easily wonits class.

Perhaps the most cru-cial stage for us andmost other competitorswas one of 540 km fromTit (near Tamanrasset)to Timeiaoune. This andthe next fromTimeiaoune to Gao (awearying 740 km) deci-mated the field. Bothnearly did for us, andthere were still over3,000 km of specialstage to go, let alonethe transport sectionsbetween!

The memory of thesetwo stages will live withme forever. The start atTit was on a good hardsurface - a bit stony andtopped by sand, but

encouragingly straight-forward. Home for tea,we thought. We werereasonably fresh fromfour hours sleepbetween clean sheets inthe main hotel inTamanrasset.

The previous night wehad managed to buy apair of suitable Pirellitruck tyres, one toreplace a Michelinalready destroyed, oneto carry as a spare (asaviour as it turned out).Early morning we hadborrowed welding gearfrom a German motorcy-cle support team andrepaired the top of thenear front dampermounting which hadripped out on the dragfrom In Ecker. Weworked hard.

Moral was goodbecause it seemed thatThierry Sabine's TSOorganisation recognisedthe fact that the previ-ously mentioned 15-hourpenalty was a "mistake".Or was it for leading theclass early on? Or fordescribing a French rivalas resembling an aero-plane as it passed usairborne? It was a joke -honest. This didn't stopus having to start welldown the field for days.It didn't stop us havingdrive in a lot of slowercars' dust for severalimportant stages.

The stage from Tit toTimeiaoune started wellenough. 50 km later wewere bucking over a sur-face bordered andstrewn with evil-lookingblack rocks, some foot-ball sized, other morelike knives. Even whilegoing carefully, trying topick our through theworst, both right-hand

tyres suddenly went,knifed through the side-wall by the same rock.

With two spares usedup in one go, the nextpuncture would meanchanging a tyre. Andsince Murphy's operatesin southern Algeria as itdoes here, it was only25 km later when ourgallant Range Roverheeled over once moreto the right. To our con-sternation, one brandnew Pirelli we had fittedhad gone flat!

Only a saint, or some-body supreme self con-trol (like Tony), couldhave remained calm andcollected at such luckand more jack andspanner work. It washot. A Press crew werenearby and by dint ofdriving their Toyota LandCruiser over the sidewalland some desperatework with tyre levers wewere able to break thebead. Why had the tyredeflated? The answerfell out in the form of a5-inch nail insertedbetween the runner tubeand outer cover by thetyre fitter inTamanrasset. Fitting thetyre was simple, except,that is, for the frustrationof having to borrow apump from a passingcompetitor, because thetoy-like Unipart articlewould hardly work. Sonow we had no sparetyres and there werearound 475 km to go.We soon stopped worry-ing on that score. Ourproblems were justbeginning.

Silet, 84.7 km out,consisted of a petrol sta-tion, some huts andarmy barracks. After aconfusing set of turns in



the village, the routenotes gave a vagueinstruction to take a gen-tle right turn down oneof five separate traces.But which one? The aimwas a passage throughmountains set on thehorizon; thence westinto the sun and out intoopen desert - flat-out.Traces, I should ex-plain, are nothing morethan wheel tracks in thesand, more often thannot criss-crossing,sometimes leading offthe main route, some-times simply comingtogether again, eithergiving ideal opportunitiesto see past the wakes ofdust and overtake, orget lost..

The route notes could

have been clearer. Wechose our trace and setabout catching up.Instructions tallied atfirst. The mountainrange appeared to begetting nearer but thenthe track deterioratedinto an expanse of rock- a black, rocky cul desac. Those following usall risked their tyres turn-ing round. Back wewent, bucking, lurching,as fast as we dared.

The compass wasn'tmuch help. It was actinglike an aircraft's turn andbank indicator as theRange Rover heeledover in the turns. On therough stuff, particularlycorrugations, it simplyrotated madly. Anothertrace branching from the

first began to makesense, until we met atleast six people comingin the opposite direction.They said it led no-where. As it turned outwe should not havebelieved them. Theylacked faith - and webelieved them! Yetanother sandy trail led towhat I can only describeas a sort of grass tuftedsand pit, a sort of madNoddy land where wemet at least a dozencars plus a couple ofheavy trucks and the,redoubtable Vic Elford(driving a medical assis-tance Lada Niva) millingaround, disorientated,getting stuck fast in afirst gear cloying hell.

The mountains were

no nearer. Fuel was nowa problem. The mileagerecorder no longer madesense nor did the routsnotes. I'll always remem-ber Tony's words - spatout: "Let's get out. ForChrist's sake, let's getout of here." He was likesomebody fighting off anightmare. We were agood four hours adriftand now heading backtowards Silet to re-fuelat the garage in the mid-dle of nowhere. Re-fuel,and think.

After the inevitablebarter with a fuel pumpattendant anxious to sellfuel and do a currencydeal, we moved off tothe barracks. Therewere others wonderingwhether to give up. It

Top: After dissolving his own acetylene this Malianmechanic blacksmith set about repairing the nearsidedamper turret - without welding goggles. The taller gen-tleman later straightened a wheel with a 14-lb sledgehammer.

Centre left: One day's running would completely clog theair filters with fine sand (new one in the middle). Bottomleft: Spartan but effective: the Cotell/Corbetta Buggycame second overall. Bottom right: Day 19 - washing inthe sea at Tiougoune, just 60 miles from Dakar


was now 4.30 pm (wehad set out at 10 am).There were two hours tosunset, and 470 km offeatureless desert andscrub in store even if wegot through those moun-tains; those elusivemountains on the hori-zon, bathed in a palemauve light.

A Mercedes crewwashed gratefully in abarrel of water outsidethe army post. Theirmotor had blown. Iwashed too, forgetting totake off my glasses atfirst. The captain incharge said it was asimple matter. The roadto Timeiaoune was aneasy one to find, but weexplained that six of ourfriends had given up,turned round on theroad he described. Onelast try was called for. Alot of people had put alot of effort into our car.

I shall never knowwhether it was our stateof relaxed concentrationthat helped, or simply aguiding spirit. We set offin company with a cou-ple of Toyota LandCruisers and didn't put afoot wrong - until later. Iwas driving, not reallytaking in much of theoutside scenery, justconcentrating avidly onthe road ahead. It wasthe usual second andthird gear stuff, alwaysfull throttle and down agear when the sandthickened and draggedthe speed down.

Suddenly the moun-tains were there on ourleft, sliding by. The threeof us were through, trail-ing great plumes of dustlike some tiny animalsescaping a giant trap.We powered ahead over

flat, featureless desert.There were markerposts just visible abouttwo kilometres to theleft, otherwise nothing,just us, almost blinded,charging flat out at 85mph directly into the set-ting sun. If we hadstopped a Toyota couldhave passed unseentwo miles to the left, or10 to the right.

The sun set; five hoursleft and 300 km to cover.It dawned on us thatperhaps there was ahope of getting to ourdestination before goingover the maximum timelimit, before collecting apenalty sufficient to putus out.

It is at times like thisthat the navigator mustnot hesitate even if he iswrong, because at 60mph-plus the headlightsdon't show the trace farenough ahead for achange of mind. It waspitch black when thedesert ended and webegan to pick up tracesonce more. The goinggot rougher. We werechasing grooves thattwisted and turned 30degrees either side ofthe chosen compassbearing, peering aheadlooking for shadows castby the headlights thatmight mean a spine-jar-ring car-smashing hol-low, at the same timetrying to keep a friendlystar in view, and ourheading constant. Raptconcentration meant Iwas hardly aware ofTony using the mapreading light to followthe route notes or tocheck our compassheading.

The first inkling that allwas not well came a

couple of hours into thenight - light bulbs! Farahead a row of nakedlight bulbs twinkled. Thetrace was leading usinexorably to a settle-ment where no settle-ment should have been.Hooded figuresappeared. They wereeager to shake handsand know what theseimpatient strangerscould possibly want.Large eyes stared in atwhat must have seemedto them a strangelycomplex machine. Wewanted Timeiaoune!Timeiaoune, they said,was 200 km away, on atrace to the right, morewest than south. Wehad three hours left.

The real fight had juststarted - difficult on adiet of purified watertasting of Milton andlukewarm at that, a fewdried prunes, and somebiscuits. We were atleast heading in the rightdirection. To press onseemed the best course,going right trace bytrace. Timeiaoune couldhave been light yearsaway. There are nosignposts in this terrain,just endless traces inthe sand, some appar-ently soft but with rocksunderneath to give theaxles and chassis apounding, some so softthat the best way tokeep moving was toswing our long sufferingmount from side to side,giving the diffs a chanceto barge through a cen-tral hump waiting to jamthe car fast.

Our guiding spirit ledto another settlement. Aparticularly bright youthconfirmed thatTimeiaoune was still to

the right but only 120km away, just an inchaway on our large-scalemap, yet so far; andthere were just twohours to do it in. "Youmust pick up the trace tothe right, then fork rightagain - soon - onto themain trace," heexplained. Any thoughtof caution or tyre con-servation had to goThose at the controlwere waiting to give usa stiff penalty if wearrived after 12.45 am.We were now on a hid-ing to nothing. We hadto go as hard as possi-ble. The tension liftedonly slightly when 7kmlater the headlightpicked up a turn to theright - nothing more thanwheel tracks veering off.

Soon we saw the firstcomforting wisp of dust -a haunting entrail caughtin our beams. it wasthere and then gone.Could it be another com-petitor far ahead? Orwas it simply dust stirredby a flurry of wind? Nowit was more dense.Suddenly we glimpsedtwo tail lights weaving,independently, andalmost uncontrollably.They followed twosteadier ones. Two com-pletely worn-out motor-cyclists were followingtheir service vehicle - aMercedes G-wagen - forthe last, agonising miles.

Bouncing, slithering offshallow sand banks bor-dering our track weforced past. It took moretime to scratch past acouple of Ladas and atruck. Self control isneeded, to pass in adust trail. You need toexercise patience, untila light breeze or surface


change makes the duststorm abate. Only thencan you get a vagueimpression of the trackahead.

Agonisingly, with just afew km to run the traceevaporated. It simplyvanished from view. Adesperate sweep leftand right failed to pick itup. Where the hell wasit? Rocks began to hemus in. Only Tony wascalm. "Turn around.""How can I in this lot?""Turn round."

Those following hadturned to the right andhad picked up the trail.So the overtakingprocess started again.The last few km were amad dash. The tensionbarely lifted when wesaw the flashing amberlight in the distance. Itwas the control. Welived again with 10 min-utes to spare.Africatours still had theirfield kitchen going. I only

remember swallowingsome of their awfulfrankfurters (or was ithorsemeat stew?) thenstumbling around tryingto find somewhere tosleep.

It took all my strengthto pull a sleeping bagout of its sack. Tony hadgone to the only garageto find tyres. Just beforepassing out, I rememberwondering if the smileon the face of the TSOofficial at the control wasone of surprise that wemade it. Or did healready know what thevery next stage to Gaohad in store for us? Thatwas to turn out to beanother object lesson insurvival. Only this time itwas a dreadful 740 kmlong.

If only it had all beenlike the first 140 km,thrashing across a driedup lake bed. I hadn'tbelieved Tony when hesaid that given the

chance a Range Roverin full cry corners in gen-tle oversteer. Therewere moments whenthis machine weighing agood two tons ladenbehaved like real racer.It was stable enough ina long slide for the driv-er not to be tempted tolift off. The tail wouldmove gently out, but notfar. There wasn't enoughexcess power for that tohappen.

For an hour lifeseemed worthwhile."Many cars overtaken,"said my notes. The lakebed was open and fastwith traces thatdiverged. Overtakingwas a comparativelysimple matter. Then sud-denly here was an unex-pected ditch. The RangeRover took off and land-ed awkwardly with atremendous crash.Clonking noises and hewildly pattering frontaxle told us the one

unstrengthened dampermount had failed. Oninspection the dampershaft was bent. Two ofthe four turret mountingbolts had sheared. Ittook a good hour toeffect a jury rig. Thistime it was all over, wewere sure. A damperlashed at the top withlarge washers and heldby two bolts at the bot-tom would soon fail,especially as the roadinto Mali immediatelydeteriorated into themost relentlessly awfulrocky and stony trailimaginable. A puncturefollowed; one spare tyreleft, 500 km to go, adamper mount distortingat each bump. This timewe were definitely out.

At each and everyunscheduled top,natives would appearfrom nowhere, politelypleading for food (incontrast to Senegalesechildren who would

Fleet Street Christmas farewell with Spike Milligan, JohnMiles, Tony Howard and Bernard Miles, character actor,writer, director and mastermind behind London’sMermaid Theatre

PARIS, Jan 1st - Some 250 cars, trucks and motorbikesare lined around the Trocadero fountains opposite theEifel tower Wednesday after completing check-in oper-atins for the 10,000-kilometre Paris to Dakar, Senegal,rally. Participants left Paris early Thursday for the three-week long ride through African deserts to the capital ofSenegal. (AP WIREPHOTO)

Les actualités


demand). There seemedno need-to rush anymore especially when asecond tyre went flat.Out once more camethat impossible RangeRover screw jack (ourhydraulic version hadbeen stolen). We feltthere was time to talk toan English couple whodrove up in a Peugeot404. "We're just lookingaround," they said! Onceagain we had no sparetyres and a long way togo.

50 km later, the cob-bled-up damper mounthad not failed despitethe awful hammering itwas getting. It wasgroaning at each bigbump but it held up. Ourspirits rose just a little.Gradually it seemedworth trying to get to ourdestination within time.

What followed was aremarkable piece ofdriving on Tony's part.After a while we became

inured to the crashing,banging, bucking pun-ishment, the groaningsfrom the car's front. Itdidn't seem possible thatthe damper should orcould hold, or that weshould not have anotherstone driven through thesidewall on one of ourfour remaining tyres.

Tony drove with greatneatness and anticipa-tion, finding a way roundthe worst hollows yet allthe time keeping thepace up. Darkness fellbefore half distance. Theroad surface onlyimproved much later yetwe had no more punc-tures. We made it toGao with half an hour tospare, both utterlyexhausted, but now witha rest day to rebuildmorale, find yet moretyres and repair thosedamper mounts. Ourtroubles plus the unjust15 hour penalty haddropped us from 16th to

62nd overall. 86 carswere left running. Thoseleft by the way- sidewere presumably strug-gling home as best theycould. It's a cruel event.

From now, on the rallywould seem compara-tively easy for us. Adamper mount crackedthis time around the bot-tom flange (most otherRange Rover ownersobviously knew of theproblem and hadstrengthened theirs) andwe had five more punc-tures. Vibration shat-tered the liquid crystalnumbers in the other-wise excellent Microtripspeed time and distancemeasuring equipment.The differential lockjammed in. The bodymoved on the chassis,all vestige of synchro-mesh disappeared fromsecond gear, we hadcontinual trouble with afuel pump change-overswitch (until we threw it

away) which had obvi-ously also suffered fromthe heat and vibration,and would make onlyintermittent contact.

Two engine mounts(replaced with FordCapri ones due toUnipart's inability to sup-ply) and a gearboxmount sheared. We con-sumed two sets of reardampers and were onour third set of fronts bythe time we reachedDakar. Within 100 milesof Dakar the standardfuel tank split (the 200litre tank inside the carsurvived intact) though itsuffered no obviousexternal damage.

By Timbuktu, sandfilled every uncoveredcrevice inside the car.The two remainingMichelins were commit-ted to being used asspares. We were nowrunning exclusively onPirelli light truck tyres.

Timbuktu: less than

Thumbs-up for for an Associated Press snapper fromHoward and Miles on a chilly New year’s morning.

TRW 425R in parc fermé at the Palais du Trocadero -as ready as she’s ever going to be for the rough rideahead


halfway! But now wewere running better,climbing up the overallresults, usually finishingstages in the top 25 - orbetter. As we headedsouth west fromTimbuktu (a lively littletown) to Niono, ThierrySabine's entourage,some of the servicecrews and some journal-ists would continueahead by air (food wasscarce but air stripswere plentiful).

Each night, encamp-ment left a mountain ofempty cans, bottles,rags, and spares boxesbehind. Imperceptibly

the tracks in SouthernMali and across the bor-der into Upper Voltabegan to be recognis-able as such. They werebordered by vegetationand trees. The occasion-al goat, dog, chicken orcow would wanderacross our path oblivi-ous of the siren.

On several occasionsa grossly overloadedPeugeot pick-up lurchedoff the road to get out ofcompetitors' way. Mostof the time the bushtelegraph had worked,so we met vehiclesalready parked well offthe road. By comparison

Howard slips and slides through the first - 5 km - specialstage at Olivet near Orléans

Passing a big artic ladenwith bales of cotton en

route throug Côte d'Ivoirewhile the truck driver

awaits assistance andenjoys a fine vantage

point


with Mali, Upper Voltaseemed like a paradise.We washed all over forthe first time in days inthe Hotel Ram in BoboDioulasso. We manageda decent meal and anight's sleep next to thehotel swimming pool.

Better still were theconditions in the IvoryCoast where - thanks tothe good offices of theBP garage in Korhogo -we were able to seamweld the damper turrets,wash the car, and blowout some of the sandthat had collectedinside.

Lasting impressions

were of the utter relent-lessness of the event.Then the sheer pleasureof staggering throughthe cutting that led tothat extraordinary beachof white sand stretchingthe 120 km fromTiougoune to Yof(Dakar) and at least asfar in the other direction.The memories at theend were mostly pleas-ant; washing in the sea,tinned fruit salad forpudding, watching acamel and its wild look-ing rider take off fromthe kneeling positionand reach 25 mph inabout 3 sec then

galumph off into thedusk at high speed. Thefollowing day we drovevirtually flat-out downthat gloriously smoothsand, following the lineof the breaking seawhere the sand wasdamp and therefore firm.We only dabbed thebrakes for the yumps.

The mayor of Dakarduly appeared at theprize-giving as did hisopposite number inParis, Jacques Chirac.He gave a long impas-sioned speech. EvenJean-Marie Balestre hadtaken time off from hisF1 wrangles with Bernie

Ecclestone to add pompand his official seal ofapproval, so the RallyeParis-Dakar looks likebeing a hardy annual.

There was no realparty, no dancing girls,no long-term friendshipsgained, simply an oddfeeling of emptiness, aseven-hour flight back toParis (seven hours!)and, inevitably, that irri-tating feeling that ifgiven the opportunityyou would go throughthe whole thing all overagain.

by John MilesAutocar 21 March 1981


White Knuckle Tours


Driver’s-eye views


THE PARIS-DAKARRally is 6,000 miles ofunrelenting hell. Itsmashes cars, friend-ships and ambition.

But it is adventure ona grand scale. It is arally in which I havetwice taken part - andone that even the mostexperienced driverapproaches withextreme trepidation.

Mark Thatcher, miss-ing with his woman co-driver for the past fivedays, is competing inthe toughest motor rallyin the world.

Starting under theshadow of the EiffelTower on New Year's

morning, contestantshead off through drivingsleet to the first competi-tive section nearOrléans, then onthrough the snow of theMassif Central moun-tains to the south ofFrance and embarkationto Algiers.

DemonThis is the last real

civilisation for thousandsof miles. As the routewinds its way up into thehigh Atlas mountains,which divide the coastalstrip and the desert, theraw cold of the nightgives a first hint of theSahara's ugly, ever-changing moods.

Within an hour of sun-set, it is almost too coldto hold a spanner. Yetan hour after sunrise thesand dazzles, sweatpours, and sunglassesare useless, dust-foggedinside and out.

In the intense heat, upto 100 degreesFahrenheit, franticefforts quickly de-hydrate the human body,leaving the musclesexhausted and the mindfuzzy. That's when mis-takes are made, anddanger looms.

A typical day consistsof driving across vastopen spaces, oftenpunctuated only by thewreckage of vehicles at100-mile intervals. Youcan be behind the wheelfor 18 hours, workinglike a demon all the timeto keep the car moving,swinging it from side toside to maintain traction,trying to pick a wayround the many obsta-cles.

The only let-up iswhen you have to leapout to change yet anoth-er wheel, its tyre insmouldering shreds afteran unavoidable impactwith a sharp chunk ofrock. There are no serv-ice crews to help rebuildyour car. You bend it,you mend it, is the rule.If you get stuck, axle-deep in one of the fre-quent seas of cloyingsand, the two of youhave to use all youringenuity to extract thecar.

Always there is theintense urge to press on- to catch up with the

front-runners, to com-pete. And that's wherethe greatest dangers lie.My co-driver and I had11 punctures in twodays last year, plussmashed wheels, shat-tered shock absorbersand broken enginemounts. Our tyre troubledelayed us so much inthe region where MarkThatcher is now lost thatwe had to drive 200miles flat-out acrossopen desert in the blackof night, compass spin-ning wildly because ofintense vibrations.

My partner, formerGrand Prix driver, JohnMiles, drove in total dis-belief that we could everfind our way. "Keep yourfoot down," I told him,sniffing out the trail likean Indian tracker. Wecame across a remoteencampment. Dark, curi-ous faces surroundedthe car. "Follow thetrace," they said, point-ing across the rollingsand dunes into the inkyvoid.

DustyHours later, we saw

faint wisps of dust in theair. We were on the righttrack. More time passed,then we saw red taillights ahead. We startedto pick off the back-markers, one by one,diving headlong throughthe clouds of chokingdust they were churningup. At 1 am, wescreeched to a halt inTimeiaoune - we hadmade it, just 15 minutesinside the maximumtime allowed.

Utterly drained, we

One driver's account of justhow tough it can be on thatSahara rally by Tony Howard


gulped a hasty mealfrom a field kitchen,serviced the car, andarranged for more ofthose punctures to berepaired. Then, likedusty, stinking refugees,we threw our sleepingbags on the sand tosnatch five hours of fitfulslumber before doing itall over again.

At times, we were neardespair. A run of punc-tures would leave usvulnerable again.Another impact with thescenery made us won-der just how muchlonger the car wouldsurvive. After rushingthrough the night, pick-ing a way betweenclose-packed thorn treesat 70-80 mph, I began tohallucinate, gritting myteeth to maintain con-centration, trying not tosmash the front suspen-sion again in one of themany culverts.

At the end of that sec-tion, the half-way mark,to which only half the180 starters survived,my co-driver said: "If itgoes on like this all theway to Dakar, there isno way we can possiblymake it."

ShameBut we survived to join

that triumphant band ofonly 40 cars classifiedas finishers after a finalglorious dash along thebeach to Dakar. For meit was a great rewardjust to finish, after hav-ing so narrowly failedthe previous year, only450 miles from the end.

That first attempt wasa saga in its own right.Near Timbuktu, the carahead overshot a cornerand reversed into itsown dust cloud - an act

of criminal stupidity,especially as I was justturning into the corner.The impact smashed ourradiator, battery, steeringand a brake calliper. Yet,with the help of a localblacksmith, we were onour way again within 2½hours - albeit having todrive for three days withno brakes.

Later, in the middle ofthe night, two bullocksstampeded across ourpath. The 100 mphimpact did no good tothem or our RangeRover. Yet we were ableto continue for another1,000 miles before thesteering succumbed. Ishall never knowwhether we could haveactually made it to thefinish if we hadn't beendiscouraged by alugubrious Frenchmechanic's despairingshrug and our ownexhaustion.

Why do it? Why facethe perils of the vast,empty desert? It is notan experience for thefaint-hearted. You neverknow, until you try, whatyou will see revealed ofyourself. You may crackup, and have to live withthe shame of that for therest of your life. Or youmay come through withflying colours, andremember with deepsatisfaction: "I did it -nothing in life will everfaze me again."

The Sahara hasseduced Westernexplorers for centuries,often rewarding theircuriosity with death. Thisvast desert stretches4,000 miles from theAtlantic to the Red Seaand 2,500 miles fromthe Mediterranean into

the Tropics. It is one ofthe most uncompromis-ing places in the world.To survive there takesall the resources thehuman frame and mindcan muster. That is whythe local people, theTuaregs, seem distant,self-contained, but notunfriendly.

What is a formidablechallenge to aEuropean, in an areathat is blessed if getsrain once in ten years, iseveryday life to theTuareg. If Mark Thatcherand Charlotte Verneyhave encounteredTuaregs, they will findthat the code of life onthe desert is much thesame as on the ocean,that no "mariner in dis-tress" is left abandoned.

On the other hand,misreading their com-pass by a degree or twomay have led them on afalse trail 50 or 100miles to the wrong sideof a mountain range.And they may have runout of fuel, despite rulesdemanding tanks bigenough for a range ofnearly 500 miles. I hopethey have the sense tostay close to their car,taking advantage ofwhat little shade it offers

by day and warmth bynight, keeping distressflares close to hand.

Outcry Outcry

Rally rules alsodemand that each carcarries five litres ofwater per person, whichthey must conserve aslong as possible. Forwith thirst comes des-peration. The worst thatmay have happened isthat they have drivenunwarily over the top ofa vast sand dune andplunged off the decep-tively steep edge at thefar side.

To cope with this sortof emergency, theorganisers have medicalcrews on the ground infour-wheel-drive vehi-cles, helicopters and afully-equipped aircraftready to fly injured crewmembers to hospital inSwitzerland.

Whatever the out-come, I hope it will notlead to an outcry for theevent to be banned. Forthis would mean onefewer among a dwin-dling number of opportu-nities to come face toface with yourself. copyright © 1982 byAnthony Howard forDaily Mail

“BONJOUR, HENRI.How goes it?” Pause.Gallic shrug. “OK. But Ithink it’s a little boring –just driving from place toplace like this.”

“More boring than driv-ing round and round arace circuit for 24hours?” Gallic shrug.

There are the oppos-ing views on long-dis-tance rallying. MultipleLe Mans winner HenriPescarolo and I werepacing up and down inthe chill dawn, afterguarding our places inthe petrol queueovernight.

Four days of hardcharging – over the

rugged Atlas Mountainsand across rollingexpanses of the world’slargest desert – had put1,400 miles between usand Algiers. We were atBordj-Moktar, a smalloutpost in the Sahara,on the frontier betweenAlgeria and Mali.

This was just thebeginning of the RallyeParis-Dakar – 6,000miles and three weeksthat surely constitute thetoughest regular eventon the international cal-endar.

The petrol had beensent across the desert ina huge tanker. Its ami-able crew were patiently

pumping by hand – 250litres at a time – into the120 thirsty cars, and asimilar number of motorcycles had to be fuelled.

A water tanker hadalso been sent in. AnAlgerian carefully rinsedhis tin mug in the lastfew precious drips.

Bodies began to stirfrom their exhaustedslumbers on the stonyground. The desert stillwas broken by nervouslaughter – someone hadcaught a scorpion in abottle. It was angry,translucent, venom-packed tail arched – areminder to check yourboots every time beforeputting them on, alwaysassuming you had hadtime and energy to takethem off.

Watching the rapidlybrightening sun, Iremembered twiddlingthe radio the nightbefore. Through themush had come JohnPeel’s late show on BBCRadio One, remarkablyclear from London, morethan 2,000 miles away.

For Henri Pescarolo, itwas a little boring. ForMark Thatcher, a subse-quent Rallye Paris-Dakar was to prove anembarrassing debacle;the whole thing was runby a bunch of cowboys,said his father when he“came to the rescue”.Not so, I argued in vari-ous writings. But, any-way, thank you both forputting the event in theheadlines in Britain.

For me, this firstattempt at Paris-Dakar,back in 1980, was sev-enth heaven – space,sounds, smells, clearbright skies and a novelchallenge every morn-

ing. When I lived there,sages said Africa neverlets go of you. Now,after a three-yearabsence from the conti-nent, I knew how rightthey were.

The experience wasnone the worse forbeing shared with thiscrowd of Frenchlunatics, among whomwe had been given aheroic send-off fromParis early on NewYear’s morning, a weekbefore.

Two months beforethat, I had never evenheard of Paris-Dakar.Since leaving Africa, Ihad been satisfying mywanderlust elsewhere.An old chum, fellow-journalist Anne Hope,had been invited byBritish Leyland Franceto pick a partner for thisnew type of rally inAfrica. Next thing, wewere in Paris to learn allabout it at a slap-upchampagne reception.They were all posing likemad. The speecheswere interminable, thefood and music wereNorth African, and thecrumpet was smashing.All this bore absolutelyno relationship to whatwe were about to under-go.

“Bonne route et bonnechance,” they said asthey flagged us awayfrom the Trocadéro. Iwas later to sense asimilar, if much morepoignant, atmosphereamong the crowds alongSouthampton water,


..a severe test ofwillpower and stami-na, with the potentialto break friendshipsas well as people...

About as far removed from national rallyingas it’s possible to get while discussing thesame sport, the Rallye Paris-Dakar remainsone of the last supreme adventures, the ulti-mate tests of man and machine. Distancesare immense; the temperatures searing; ter-rain ruthless; the pace fierce. And once in,there’s only one way out....

Tony Howard reports

watching the QE2 steamaway to the Falklands.On both occasions,everyone must havepondered on how manywould return, but never-theless thrilled with asense of adventure.

The first short specialstage south of Paris wasan odious mixture ofsand and mud; theobjective was to seed usfor the re-start in Africa.To try too hard herecould mean immediateignominy. But, with dustabout to be an ever-present companion, areasonable placing was

desirable.Our comparatively

standard Range Roversettled down nicely.Where the track waswide enough, it could bechucked with consider-able abandon, slidinginto a controllable poweroversteer. Nothing cameloose, and the extraequipment – roll cage,full safety harnessesand a 200-litre additionalfuel tank in place of therear seat-all seemedfirmly attached.

In Algiers, we filledboth tanks to the brimfor the drive out to the

first desert bivouac. Inoted at the time:“Definitely aware of fuelsurge trying to drive outthe tail of the car.Inadequate baffles?”But, once in the desert, Iwas in my element – therattle of stones and theshoosh of sand underthe wheel arches havethe same evocativeeffect as the rushingslap-slap of water undera yacht’s prow.

The nights were bitter-ly cold but, only a cou-ple of hours after sun-rise, it was scorching,particularly inside ahard-driven car. And, wequickly slipped into aroutine that was to keepus sane for the next twoand a half weeks. Wekept a big stock of min-eral water – £1.50 a bot-tle when you could getit, and far more palat-able than local eaulaced with purifyingtablets.

Every 20-30 minutes, Iwould guzzle water,often with a salt tablet,an essential to keepinga clear head while work-ing hard in intense heat.

Crossing the Saharawas tough work, but fun,particularly when com-pared with what fol-lowed. Soon after eachday dawned, we werere-started in an ordertaking account of cumu-lative scores. Each day’srun was a special stage,maybe 400 miles longand taking five and ahalf hours if you werelucky and quick, or 15-20 hours if you got intotrouble.

The route notes gaveinstructions such as:“Bear to the left of largesand dunes – follow

compass bearing 275.”Often, the only landmarks were areas ofparticularly soft sand,the odd burned out vehi-cle, oil drum or aban-doned tyre.

Desert surfaces, con-tours and colours variedcontinually. For 50 miles,firm gravel allowed youto fly along flat-out, butvery warily. Driver andnavigator had to con-centrate hard all thetime, scanning the hori-zon for landmarks,keeping to the compassheading, looking out forsoft patches that mightbog us down, anticipat-ing yumps into deeptroughs that could shat-ter the front suspension.

All this had to be donewithout the aid of con-ventional perspectives.And a high bright sunmeant there was noshadow to help in judg-ing the wave form ofundulations, making iteven harder to pick theright speed at which totake them.

Suddenly the pacewould slow dramaticallyas the surface changed.Running into heavysand might knock thespeed down fromaround 100mph to 20-30mph in seconds, asthough the brakes hadgone on really hard. Tohesitate then was disas-ter. You had to collect alower gear smartly,maybe lock the centraltransmission differential,and charge even harderthan before, throwingthe car from side to sideto keep it free of the


...a kind of automo-tive outward boundcourse...

Top right: The start of the Tamanrasset section whichsorted the men from the boys. It began as rolling sand,but rapidly turned into a moonscape with fingers of razorsharp flints standing proud on the surface. Corrugationswere so bad that Howard didn’t realize a tyre had punc-tured until he smelt the burning rubber, by which time thewheel was square. Left: In the encampment of Niro du Sahel on the borderof Mali and Mauritania. This was the normal method ofobtaining petrol. As many as 80 vehicles would queue upto be filled at a rate of five litres a time, each competitorperhaps wanting as much as 300 litres! Right: Our heroes set off on the road to Timbuktu.

sand.To get stuck here

would entail hours ofheartbreaking labour,digging and heaving tomove the car forward tofirmer ground a few feetat a time.

You would be forgivenfor thinking that, oncethe Sahara wascrossed, the worst wasover. You would bewrong, however. For, inthe Sahel, the fringearea where vegetationfights a losing battle withthe desert, the going isoften far more difficult.

In a case study, writing

at the time to providefeedback for BL and oth-ers, I said: “Thick all-pervading dust was acontinual companion.Surfaces ranged fromglutinously soft tocoarse and firm sand,from baby-smooth dried-up lake beds to destruc-tive potholes and rocks.

PullquoteOnly the most opti-

mistic and resilient spir-its survived the discov-ery that each successiveday was worse than theprevious, in a way notenvisaged before thestart.

“Thierry Sabine (theorganiser) has a reputa-tion for creating man-breaking as well as car-breaking events.... Muchmore than a long-dis-tance motoring competi-tion, it was extremelyinteresting psychologi-cally, being a severe testof will-power and stami-na with the potential tobreak friendships as wellas people. It was a kindof automotive outwardbound course thatopened up new vistas inone’s personality andawareness.

“The event wasorchestrated withincreasing pressures. Soonly the most optimisticand resilient spirits sur-vived the discovery thateach successive daywas worse than the pre-vious, in a way notenvisaged before thestart.

“The hard facts of life,lived rough betweendrives, held furtherpotential for underminingmorale of the flaggingspirit. At the majority ofovernight halts, we sleptin the open desert, or inthe bush, or among thestinking litter attendanton primitive settlements.Flies, mosquitos andchildren on the scroungewere constant pests. Forthe most part, wequeued like refugees forfood from the fieldkitchen that was thefocus of each night’scamp.

“Water was oftenscarce and had to beconserved for drinking.Washing was necessari-ly cursory – a mostunwelcome fact to faceafter driving 600km flat-out through thick dust

and high temperaturesand then spending fouror five hours working onthe car. A clean T-shirtwas brown with dustwithin an hour afterbeing put on. And onereached the point whereto spend half an hourwith a bucket of waterand a bar of soap wasoccasion for joyful frol-icking – hotels withshowers and swimmingpools were forgottendreams.

“With this change invalues came the realisa-tion that one could sur-vive and compete underthese conditions. Then,too, there was the chal-lenge of keeping thevehicle in fettle nightafter night with minimalequipment or assis-tance. Even for the best-organised, that was aconsiderable undertak-ing.”

In the desert we wereslowed by a power lossthat came and went forreasons we couldn’tdivine. But that was tobe the least of our trou-bles.

On day 10, we werestill battling hard. Usingthe choke to maintainsome semblance ofpower, a practice thatproved embarrassingwhen the need arose toslow rapidly, we man-aged to pass 20 carsearly on the 350-milestage from Gao to Moptiin Mali. Then we spent15 minutes extractingthe car from a cloyingmulch that all butenveloped the axles, thepenalty for a split-sec-ond’s indecision.

Forty five miles fromthe end of the stage, thebrakes packed up – a


Above left: Breaking camp shortly after sunrise at QuatreChemins, the prelude to a 74-kilometre drive over opendesert to Tamanrasset. The temperature drops to belowfreezing overnight. Main picture: Flat-out at around 100mph in the GrandErg Oriental of the northern Sahara, following in thetracks of three other competitors. Vigilance is vital, foryumps and holes can easily wreck an axle, and when thesun reaches a certain angle, there are no shadows toenable crews to pick out the holes. After sunrise, thetemperature soars to around 100 degrees....and this iswinter! Sahara dust is exceptionally fine end percolatesthrough even the most determined precautions.

rock had smashed thehydraulic line away froma rear caliper. But worsemust have befallen oth-ers – we managed to befifteenth quickest, while26 competitors were“hors du temps” – out oftime.

Next morning, a villagemechanic quicklygrasped what was need-ed, and helped bodge arepair. Rushing to makeup time, we connectedwith a goat making asuicide bid. The stenchfrom the 80mph impactwas unbelievable – goreon hot exhaust pipes –but the car seemedundamaged.

By now, we wereclimbing steadily up thefield again. Estimating amove up of perhaps fiveplaces a day, we reck-oned to be among thefront runners at the fin-

ish-with luck on our side.But it wasn’t.

On day 12, the 350-mile special stage fromNiono to Timbuktu start-ed along fast dirt roadsnext to canals irrigatingsugar cane fields. Across-wind clearedmuch of the dust, somaking an early bid wasfairly straightforward. Inthe first 30 miles, wepassed 12 cars.

We knew from theroad book that, at57.4km, there was adangerous sharp leftover a canal bridge, fol-lowed immediately by asharp right. Anne begancoumting medown. Weknew that turn must bein a desnse cloud ofdust that hung amongtrees. I braked, startedturning, saw the bridge.

Anne began countingme down. We knew that

turn must be in a densecloud of dust that hungamong trees. I braked,started turning, saw thebridge.

Then, in the corner ofmy eye, a red shapeloomed from the right. Ihit the brakes. Bang!The driver ahead hadwrong-slotted, thenreversed into his owndust cloud – bloody fool!

First priority was toensure other competi-tors were warned toslow. Next was to fix theRange Rover.

The battery, radiator,right-hand wheel andbrake caliper, steeringdampers, steering slaveand track arms were allscrap. Anne startednegotiations to buy thelocal police chief’s bat-tery for an outrageousprice. A blacksmith saidhe could straighten thesteering arms. Willinghands heaved on a ropeto pull out the batteredwing. Others fished outthe shattered battery –water was brought fromthe canal to rinse theacid off their hands.

Mechanics from BLFrance arrived, took onelook and were ready togive us up for lost. Butwe weren’t having anyof that. So they pro-duced a radiator andlightweight battery, andwe set to work. Twohours later, we were onour way.

But, 30 miles later, theearth lead, hastilyattached, fell off the bat-tery. It hadn’t taken inenough of a charge tore-start the engine, yetthere was no way wecould bump start it, sothick was the sand.

There was nothing for

it but to wait, conservingour energy and sanity.Panic measures in thatheat, like walking off tofind help, finish only incalamity. Three hourspassed before a sweepcar appeared, and thesurprised crew gave usa jump start from theirbattery.

Then we laboured onacross the mostdepressing expanse ofsoft sand I have everencountered, much of itsecond gear work thatkept the temperaturegauge permanently inthe red. Total absence ofbrakes was hardly aproblem. Exhausted, wearrived in Timbuktu atmidnight, experiencingbrief satisfaction ateveryone’s amazement.

Sealing the hydraulicline to the broken caliperrestored braking to threewheels, and we pressedon next morning to slogthrough another 260miles. Unable to slowthe car all-square, therewas little choice but tofly off an unexpectedsix-foot ledge at 60mph.The Range Rover land-ed true, but the impactmade the chassisengine mounts concaveand sheered one of theMetalastics.

Luckily for us, aFrench competitor hadearlier gone a real boxof tricks in his RangeRover. From its alreadydismembered compo-nents, I was able toselect a caliper andMetalastics. These werefitted overnight by twobrothers, en route forEast Africa, while wesnatched five hours kip.We were back in thehunt.


Word was that the earlier Saharan stages had been tooeasy, and they had been revised to make the eventtougher, longer.

The 850-mile transportsection that followedwas as demanding asany special stage. Wehad three puncturedtyres repaired and abent rim smashed backinto shape – the repairman darned the rents inthe tubes with needleand cotton before stick-ing on the patches.

Sixty miles out fromthe end of the section,two bullocks rushed outof the night into our apath. They were killedimmediately – in a lowercar, we might have beentoo. But we kept going,with all-too-frequentstops to refill the nowleaking radiator, laterrepaired quickly byanother village black-smith.

At Bamako, the Maliancapital, after 16 days ofDIY-in-the-dust, we

found a large workshopgiven over to rally serv-icing. A man in a whitecoat waved me over apit and allocated amechanic. Worried bythe impact of that acci-dent on the steeringdrop arm ball-joint, Iasked if they had areplacement. It was pro-duced, but we didn’trealise, until too late,that the splines were dif-ferent for left and right-hand-drive models.

The old arm had beensmashed irredeemablyby a Mohammed Ali-sizemechanic in his effortsto remove it. So theyattempted to re-work thesplines on the new armwith a hacksaw bladeand file. Despite myanger, they worked ondoggedly, and the carwas back on the road at5am. We would get to

Dakar – they guaran-teed it.

Two days later, thatrepair failed, and weknocked over thebiggest thorn tree in theworld. We had littlechoice but to load thecar and ourselves onto agoods train for a 60-hourjourney to the coast. Itwas hard to take, just400 miles from the finishand with all but 90 of3,000 special stagemiles behind us.

Next year it would bedifferent. With the bene-fit of that first experi-ence, we would try hard-er, do better. Luckily,others agreed, prepara-tion of a Range Roverwas set in hand, andGrand Prix driver-turned-journalist JohnMiles was persuaded toshare the ride.

Word was that the ear-lier-Saharan-stages hadbeen “too easy”, andthey had been revised tomake the event tougher,longer. Success in thisobjective was devastat-ing for many.

Special stage mileagewas increased to 3,400,about eight times that ofBritain’s Lombard RACRally; it included a sec-ond stage in France,and was re-routed tocover much nastier partsof the Sahara.

The entry increased byone third: 114 motorcy-cles (running in a “sepa-rate” but simultaneousevent); 170 cars (mainly4WD); 15 heavy trucks(competing in a class oftheir own, but reallythere to provide supportfor the richer teams).

Sharing the driving,day-on/day-off, we putthe Range Rover into

19th place overall, lead-ing our class, for the re-start across the desert.

Those first three daysin Africa went reason-ably well for us. Despitethree blow-outs and abroken front damper tur-ret on the 1,300-mile runto Tamanrasset, wemoved up three placesand retained the classlead, one third of therally distance covered.

With three tyres and awheel destroyed, wewere fortunate that atrading post inTamanrasset stockedPirelli truck tyres in asize that fitted ourremaining spare wheel.We were going todepend on them.

The next 800 miles toGao, half-way mark,were real killers. Only 88of 170 cars got there.We had three more flattyres, embarrassing inthe desert when youhave only two spares.The sidewalls of ouroriginal Michelins werebeing slashed throughby sharp stones. Twoblew out simultaneously.By accident or design,the mechanic who hadfitted one of the Pirellisleft a six-inch nail inside– no wonder the thingwent flat within minutes.

Another driver stoppedto help, running his LandCruiser back and forthacross the tyre to breakthe bead so we couldget at the tube andrepair it.

Next day, we boughttwo more of the ruggedPirellis, and were reallyglad of them when theremaining pair ofMichelins puncturedagain. To cap it all, thesecond damper turret


Above: Flat-out at 100 mph as the Saharan dusk rushesup from the east. Endless dust trails mark the presenceof competitors ahead

fractured, and we had tobodge a repair withlarge washers.

Each of those twodays’ runs took us 15hours, much of them inthe black of night, guid-ed largely by instinctand the compass.During that desperatebid to remain among theclassified runners, wesaw our position slidefrom 16th to 62nd. Itwas no consolation torealise that, but for thatlost time, we could havebeen well up, for we hadthe pace.

I can’t speak for othercompetitors, but I canput my hand on myheart and say I haveonly once been fright-ened on the Rallye

Paris-Dakar. It was notthe prospect of driving“blind” at night across200 miles of opendesert; it was not beingstranded withoutelectrics or tyres; it wasnot hallucinating withfatigue as I threw theRange Rover betweenthorn trees, eerily starkin the lights, trying not tobreak that fragile turretrepair.

It was in Gao wherewe decided the only wayto do the job properlywas to take out thatdamper turret. Thismeant getting the black-smith to knock up a cou-ple of clamps with whichto compress the roadspring. Standing in thepit, my head in the

wheel-arch and face toface with the potentially-explosive spring andclamps was not themost tranquil ofmoments. Imagine – ifall that pent-up energywere unleashed in aconfined space.

Fortunately for me butnot John, he was theonly “industrial accident”of our attempt, slippinginto that pit and wreck-ing his ankle. For theremaining 10 days, itwas so sore he couldn’tdrive much; but sitting inthe “shotgun” seat wasalmost as painful.What’s more, he didn’tgive a lot for anyone’schances of finishing – ifthe second half was asrough as the first.

It was. But we sol-diered on, giving a fairaccount of ourselvesand conserving the car.As 46 more dropped outof the running, so weclambered up again tofinish 27th among anexhausted but happy 42,led home by ReneMetge’s BL France-entered Walkinshaw-prepared Range Rover.

Soap and sea wateraren’t a great combina-tion, but the “bath” I tookwhen we arrived by theAtlantic Ocean was thebest yet. I can’t wait totry again – in the samecar.

CCC, September 1982


DURING a visit toSolihull in 1970, I wasdriven round the testtrack in the new RangeRover - a handsomeand innovative beastdevised by Spen Kingand his team, it was toendure for 26 years.But, at the time of itsintroduction, most peo-ple's experience of 4x4swas limited to utilitarianboneshakers such ascart-sprung LandRovers and the oddJeep, laden with JackRussell terriers or sheepand sacks of grain. After a couple of laps

on the tarmac, my hostturned smartly offacross a field. Prettystartling, especiallybecause if anything hedrove even faster.Amazingly, the suspen-sion simply mopped upthe ruts, and the devicedidn't fall over.

Little did I dream that,10 years later, I woulddrive a Range Rover inmy first Paris-DakarRally - with my old mateAnne Hope, publisher ofVE. 'We'll never be thesame again,' she said.Thus began an all-con-suming, expensiveobsession that contin-ued into the 1990s. If I learnt anything

amid the dunes andwide horizons of theSahara, it was just howmany adrenalin-fuelledliberties one could takewith a Range Rover -attaining myriad crazyangles at speed, withoutparking the thing on itsroof.Much the hardest part

was marshalling thenecessary hardwareand money - thesedays, they call thissponsorship marketing.Getting the car built to

any kind of standard indouble-quick time was abit easier. And compet-ing in the rally itselfseemed like kid's stuffby comparison. These efforts relied

hugely on the goodwilland behind-the-scenessupport of key peoplewith the gumption to seethe point. In turn, theircapacity to abet theseventures mirrored theups and downs of LandRover Ltd, then a divi-sion of BL. The task became pro-

gressively more difficult

as the company beganits cultural shift towardsshag-pile carpets andwalnut door cappings,appealing more to urbanbuyers, an astonishingnumber of whom appar-ently seemed unawarethey had four-wheeldrive. So associationswith mud, sand, dustand greasy motor sport-ing hooligans came tobe disdained as outré. Itwas a bumpy ride. Sayno more.by Anthony Howardfor Vehicle Engineer

It didn't fall over

WHEN the British PrimeMinister's son MarkThatcher got lost in theSahara, and his fathercalled the rally organis-ers "a bunch of cow-boys", my friends smiledknowingly.

I thought: "There butfor the grace of God..."For the Tanezrouft ta-n-ahenet (desert within adesert), where thatmuch misunderstoodincident happened, is anawesome place to beentered only with thegreatest of respect.

The only route acrossit is a piste interdite (for-bidden trail), often kilo-metres wide and wan-dering through vastareas of shifting sands

that alternate with equal-ly-barren, rock-strewnlandscapes.

Here, and throughoutthe rest of the 6,000-mile (10,000km) RallyeParis-Dakar, the chal-lenge to competitorsmeans more than justavoiding the manysnares of this hot water-less region.

This particular section,340 miles (540km) fromTamanrasset in southernAlgeria to Timeiaounenear the Mali frontier,was a 'special stage', onwhich we all raced flat-out - against the clockand each other. Thelucky ones got throughin six or seven hours;many had to battle with

mechanical trouble,cloying sand and fatiguefor 15 hours or more;others faced the lonelydespair of failure.

This was where disas-ter taunted us with achallenge to give up. Forthe first third of the rallywe had led our class,moving up steadily.

I had felt pretty smugabout how well we werepacing ourselves to con-serve the Range Roveryet stay among thefront-runners.

The smile had startedto disappear the daybefore as we buckedacross corrugations sosevere that the wheelswere hardly ever in con-tact with the ground. In

all that noise, dust andconfusion, I began tosuspect that a tyre hadgone flat.

By the rime I couldstop the car, it was toolate - the wheel wassquare and all thatremained of the tyrewere smoulderingshreds.

Replacing it left uswith two spares thatsoon had to be usedwhen more tyres wereslashed by razor-sharpstones. Now we werefaced with the dauntingprospect of drivingacross hundreds ofmiles of open desertwith no tyres in reserve.

However, we made itto the finish of this stage


Dakar, the capital and port of Senegal, stands on Cap Vert, the western-most point ofAfrica. British Caledonian can fly you there in comfort and safety from Gatwick in justunder six hours. But there are always some people who have to do things the difficult way.One of them is Tony Howard the only Briton to have driven twice in the Rallye Paris-Dakar,the world's toughest annual motoring event. He plans to do it again in January. But evenhe doesn't quite understand why...

in reasonable time. Butthis satisfaction wasshort-lived. The remain-ing 90 miles (140km) toTamanrasset were alonga tarmac road so badlypock-marked that itsdeep potholes wereunavoidable.

Next thing we knew, afront shock absorbermount succumbed to therelentless pounding ithad endured.

We were in trouble.Without all shockabsorbers working prop-erly, the car would beuncontrollable at speed.And, no matter what theprice this far from 'civili-sation', we had to havemore tyres if we were tocontinue with anychance of success.

To our amazementand relief, we found apair of suitable ruggedPirellis among pilesstacked on the sandbeside some petrolpumps.

Next day, after somefrantic welding in thefreezing dawn, theshock absorber mountwas repaired just in timefor us to depart onschedule.

It was a good feeling,but not for long. Twomore tyres soon wentand one of the replace-ments was flat withinminutes. We were sunk- with only three inflatedtyres, our rally was over.

For, in that intenseheat, our efforts toremove tyre from wheelto replace the tube werequickly exhausted.Precious time tickedaway until the driver of aLand Cruiser stopped -he drove back and forthacross that stubborntyre until it came off therim. Inside was a six-inch (15m) nail.

When, hours later, wehad re-inflated it with ahand pump, the day'sadventure was only justbeginning. Taking acompass bearing fromSilet, a tiny settlement,we picked up the trailtowards a mountainrange where, promisedthe route notes, a gapwould open into moredesert.

In the hours that ittook us to reach thatgap, one of the mostimportant rules of desertrallying was re-affirmed.

It is that you musthave faith in your owninstincts about whichway to go, and not beconfused by the doubtsof others. As we fol-lowed the trail, it wasmatching the routenotes nicely - until weencountered six back-markers coming back.

This was the wrongway, they advised, ges-turing towards our left.Thrown off the scent, wefollowed their lead into acul-de-sac, hemmed inby vast dunes. Here wejoined dozens of other

vehicles, milling aroundin the axle-deep sand,desperate to find a wayout and not daring tostop for fear of gettingstuck fast.

"Let's get the hell outof here," I yelled to co-driver John Miles. Therewas nothing for it but toreturn to square one toreplenish our 280-litrepetrol tanks, in prepara-tion for the Big Push.

Determined to makeup lost ground, I tookadvantage of thesmooth-going nextmorning, and merrilyflew past a successionof other cars. With 470miles (740km) to go thatday, we might evenregain our earlier plac-ing. But smooth gaveway to rough with asickening crash thatsmashed another shockabsorber mount.

Despair came near aswe toiled to complete arepair; for hundreds ofmiles we were on tenter-hooks, waiting for thenext crunch that wouldshatter the mount forgood. Instead, two moretyres gave up, and nowwe had only four Pirellisto rely on.

Having come this far,no way were we goingto give in. For hour afterhour, I drove as hard asI dare, yet striving forfingertip accuracy forfear of another breakageor puncture.

Towards the end ofthose 14½ hours ofintense effort and con-centration, I was soweary that I began see-ing things that were notthere - I vividly recall alarge thorn tree assum-ing the appearance of aneon sign in New York's

Times Square.And so we came to

Gao, the rally's mid-point, in northern Mali.Those three days had allbut put paid to ourchances so many times,dropping us from 16th to62nd position in theprocess. But we wereamong the lucky ones.

Only half the 170starters survived this far,and the rally had onlyrun eight of its 20 days.

The subsequent 3,000mile (5,000km) sweeparound West Africa elim-inated many more,smashing machineryand crushing all but themost indomitable of spir-its. And there is thechallenge - to be amongthe happy few still tryinghard at the finish. It waswhat, mysteriously, gaveus the resources to fightour way back to 27thplace among the 42 fin-ishers in Dakar.

The first deliciousswim in the balmyAtlantic somehow madeall the danger, filth andfatigue really worthwhile.There are many easierways to go bathing, butthey are nothing like assatisfying.

Let's Go - BritishCaledonian in-flightmagazine, 1982


Captions: Howard in thedriving seat (far left) on therugged trail away fromTimbuktu. Intense concen-tration and effort aredemanded for 15 or morehours at a stretch.

Rally driver's eye view(top) of one of theSahara's ever-changingvistas - the Tanezrouft.

The Tony Howard andJohn Miles Range Rover(centre left) goes throughits paces on the first spe-cial stage near Orléans inFrance

Main photo: AssociatedPress

THE WORLD is upsidedown. Yesterday, for thefirst time in nearly twomonths, I went to anEnglish pub for aSunday lunchtime pint.The cosy claustrophobiaalmost blew my mindwith a sledge-hammerblow of culture shock.

Today it is snowingoutside, laying a drearypatina on London'sstreets as I force myselfback into the sedentarydiscipline of the writer -strong coffee and alarge ashtray close tohand.

Yet I'm fit, suntannedand bright-eyed -for howlong? - after three phys-ically and mentallydemanding months,preparing for and com-peting in the Paris-Dakar Rally. It's the

toughest of them all,with an hypnotic grip onthe French imagination,though much misunder-stood in Britain.

The event takes threeweeks to cover morethan 6,000 miles, largelyacross some of the mostinhospitable terrain onearth. The lure is, I sup-pose, that you mayovercome all the oddsand be among the fewwho are actually in therunning at the finish -only 40 or so cars fromamong 200 startersachieve that each year.Bitter disappointmentawaits the rest, out therein the overwhelmingSahara.

The scope and chal-lenge of the event seemenigmatic enough in thatsmoke-filled bar with a

fire blazing merrily in thehearth. Even more diffi-cult to explain are 1)why one should evencontemplate having ago, and 2) that the easypart begins when you

are cheered on yourway from the start rampby the assembled multi-tudes at the Place de laConcorde in Paris.

Putting together aParis-Dakar entry con-sists of three phases: a)raising the money; b)preparing the car; and c)going out to the desertand doing the best youcan with the packageyou have been able tocreate - with more than

a little bit of help fromothers.

Each phase presentsconsiderable difficultiesand satisfactions,demanding non-stoptenacity and imagina-tion.

First, it pays to cometo terms with the factthat - even if you aregood-looking, urbane,well connected, chockfull of driving talent anda sure-fire winner (athoroughly deservingcase, in fact) - it mattershardly a jot. This is notto suggest you set asideyour conviction thatwhat you are trying todo is thoroughly worth-while as a personalchallenge. Nor is it todenigrate an ability toswitch into the "execu-tive suite mode" - clean


Our man in the Sahara with the teapot and the bowler hat is Tony Howard, who, almostrecovered from his latest Paris/Dakar adventure, (it was won by the little known JackieIckx for Mercedes) divulges the secrets of how to survive the Sahara

It's the toughest ofthem all, with a hyp-notic grip on theFrench imagination...

shirt and fingernails - tomake your pitch.

Both will help whenyou set out to persuadea potential sponsor thatyours is the team toback. But he is unlikelyto do so on the groundsthat here is a never-to-be-repeated opportunityto help you push backthe frontiers of adven-ture.

Assuming you get ahearing - and this cantake months or evenyears to achieve - allyour audience will wantto know is how you willhelp them sell more wid-getts in West Africa orgaspers in Germany.This will be assessed interms of how many peo-ple will be smackedbetween the eyes withthe sponsor's message -the likely column inches,television time, the num-ber of people who turnout to watch the event.

Should backing thenbe forthcoming, do notjust grab the money andrun to splurge it on yourdream rally car. For younow have an importantclient who has everyright to expect hismoney's worth. And, ifyou have done your jobproperly in the firstplace, he will already bepersuaded that he mustgo for the lion's share ofhis mileage before yourcar even turns a wheelin anger.

For, perish thethought, even the bestof us can so easily plantthe car between thetrees or in the biggesthole in the world, neverto be mentioned again inreports of the event.

From the momentthose signatures go on

the agreement, you area hired hand, there toplay but a small role in acomplex marketingprocess by driving ahigh-speed advertisinghoarding.

The key to getting thatfar is preparedness tolook at all the angles tofind a neat "fit" betweenwhat you are trying todo and and the market-ing aims of a backer. It'sa matter of coming upwith the right ideas atthe right time and place.

In the autumn of 1981,I read in Campaign, theadvertising trade'sweekly paper, that theMilk Marketing Boardwas initiating a five-yearprogramme to promoteBritish dairy products onthe Continent. ThroughSponsorship PromotionsLtd - "our name sayswhat we do" - I wasalready in touch with aFrench newspapergroup, offering directparticipation in one ofthe "hottest sporting sto-ries of the year". TheMMB then expressedpolite interest, but sub-sequently said therewas not enough time toexploit involvement ade-quately in an event soclose to hand - January,1982. Could we comeback to them later with aproposition for the 1983rally? You bet.

Meanwhile, spurred byvery encouraging noisesfrom France, preparationof the car began. All thatwas needed now was aboard meeting in Paris,any day now, to affirmthe sponsorship.Christmas loomed omi-nously closer. Foulweather and delayedaircraft caused several

postponements of themeeting.

The organisers telexeda rally number and thetime and date that thecar should be presentedat scrutineering - wewere in.

On Boxing Day, we fin-ished work on the car,still hoping for that sec-ond vital call fromFrance. None came -the rally left without us,our only consolationbeing a letter of abjectapology for indecision.That arrived on January5.

It is at times like thisthat the phenomenon,known as the CredibilityGap, comes into play.Onlookers think: "So hewas bullshitting after all."And you feel bruised,wistfully regretting all thewine, women and songyou have foregone, notto mention the lucrativebest-sellers you could

have written.But the heritage that

gave us the stiff upperlip also provided theimmortal lines: "T'is alesson you should heed/Try, try again/ If at firstyou don't succeed/ Try,try again."

Thus fortified, we wereto return once more tothe Milk MarketingBoard with the proposi-tion that British participa-tion in one of the year'sgreat sporting specta-cles was bound to turn alot of French heads.After consultation withthe French distributor ofDairy Crest FromagesAnglais, it was agreed.The race was on to a)push out the promotion-al boat for Dairy Crest,the MMB's commercialarm, b) build the bestpossible car in the timeavailable. Not includingweekends and theChristmas holiday, we


had 35 days beforescrutineering.

First priority was tohave the car paintedwhite, a colour moresuited to dairy products,and signwritten. As away of getting the pub-licity ball rolling, I hadsuggested competing inthat famous "race" tobring home the first ofthe Beaujolais Nouveau,taking Miss Dairy Crestalong as co-driver.

No such luck. The ideawas turned on its head,rather neatly I thought.Instead, I was to run myown single-handed "un-Beaujolais Race" fromLondon to Paris, bearinggifts of Stilton andEnglish wine to be hand-ed over to the MissesDairy Crest at an open-ing of the internationalfood fair.

During this assignmentand subsequent visits toFrance the magic was

unmistakeable. Everytime we parked theRange Rover a crowdwould gather - house-wives, school children,businessmen, tourists,all intrigued with the carand the evidence thatLes Anglaises actuallymade cheese too. Oneshopkeeper we visitedwas so enthused that hethrust a bottle of vintagechampagne into myhand "for you to cele-brate with in Dakar".

This was living. Butthere was also moreserious work to be done.For a Paris-Dakar carcannot be preparedovernight, following asketchy briefing.Attention to the minutestdetail is essential and, ifthe people building thecar have not experi-enced the event itself,they cannot be expectedto understand fully theextent of the bashing a

car will have to sustain.With the advice of

Peter Armel, Land RoverLtd's engine develop-ment expert, we settledon a set of options togive us the right balancebetween power and reli-ability. Low compression- 8.25:1 - is a must. For,while good petrol isobtainable until you passsouth of Algeria, qualityis dubious thereafter.

In place of the RangeRover's standard Zenith-Stromberg CD carburet-tors, we substituted SUHIFs from the SD1saloon, the benefit beinga 25 per cent greaterthroat area. Other fansof the Buick or Rover V8suggested much moreexotic forms of aspira-tion, such as fourWebers or a Holley. But,out in the desert, thedevil you know is alwayspreferable.

Choosing a camshaftfor this sort of event istricky. Anything too wildcan leave you embar-rassingly short of bot-tom-end performancewhich is essential whenslogging through reallysoft sand. Accordingly,we fitted BL Motorsport'sWL9 camshaft, for whichamazing claims aremade - in an otherwiseunchanged SD1 V8, it issaid to raise the powerto 193-197bhp. In theevent, the WL9 provedto have magical proper-ties.

When I went toJanspeed to collect thecylinder heads, I was intwo minds about fittingthem to the engine - sobeauteous were they tobehold that they meriteda place on a mantle-piece. They were highly

polished with matchedports and Rover Vitesse-profile valves, and hadbeen machined toaccommodate the spe-cial springs and capsthat go with the WL9.

A pair of Janspeedfabricated exhaust mani-folds feeding into a sin-gle big bore pipe com-pleted the system.

The great debatebetween Janspeed's JanOdor and myself as towhere the silencershould go will no doubtcontinue ad infinitum.Jan insists the optimumposition is at the veryend of the system but, inParis-Dakar terms, it'svulnerable there.

After thumping it hardon two events, we shallhave to sacrifice a fewhorses and re-position itout of harm's way, closerto the centre of the car.

Cooling is a problembecause of the widerange of ambient tem-peratures encountered.In January, it freezes notonly in France, but alsoat night in the Sahara.Yet daytime desert tem-peratures soar past 95degrees Fahrenheit,making heavy demandson the system, particu-larly when soft goingkeeps speed down andrevs up. A combinationof heavy-duty radiatorwith high-capacity waterpump and engine-drivenfan with thermostatic vis-cous coupling seemedto lick the problem,


... but he is unlikely todo so on the groundsthat here is a never-to-be repeated opportuni-ty to help you pushback the frontiers ofadventure...

aided by a water ther-mostat set to stay aheadof the game by openingat low temperature.

The philosophy has tobe: keep it simple; keepit light; and fit compo-nents you understandwell enough so that youcan bodge a repair in asandstorm. We thusavoided fancy ignitionsystems, and stuck withJoe Lucas's originalequipment.

Unfortunately, it's notalways possible to followthis rule to the letter.The need for an 800kmrange requires a lot ofextra fuel to be carried.In our Range Rover, the80-litre standard tank issupplemented by 200-litre tank mounted inplace of the back seat,which means a fairlycomplex supply system,at the heart of which is awork of art that wouldmake a modern sculptorproud.

Four Facet Bendixpumps with accompany-ing Aeroquip hoses andunions are contained inan aluminium caseabout the size of ashoebox, from which asingle feed runs to theengine. A pair of pumps(one is a back-up to beswitched in should theother fail) draw fromeach tank. Changingtanks is simply a matterof flicking switches, andremembering to re-directthe spill-return by meansof the valve at the dri-ver's right hand.

A density of around0.75 kg/litre means thatthe top tank contains150 kg (330 Ibs) ofpetrol when full. It isobviously desirable toburn that off first so as

to improve the vehicle'strim. However, a certainamount of fuel does runback through the pair ofpumps which are not inuse. So it's necessary toswitch to the bottomtank from time to time tode-pressurise it and soavert a fracture thatmight otherwise occurduring a hard landing.

At this, our third Paris-Dakar attempt, we hadat last created a fuelsystem that nevermissed a beat, seeming-ly untroubled by vapour-lock, vibration or surge.

If nothing else, tacklingan event like this onebrings home very force-fully just how dependentthe competitor is on theenthusiastic support of alot of people. Thus hecarries with him a con-siderable responsibilityto all those whoseefforts have put him onthe start line and whosehopes ride with him.

All around, there werepeople working like tro-jans-to produce thecylinder heads andcamshaft quickly, supplythe dampers, tyres,lights and endless othercomponents and then,at Talon Engineering, tobring them all togetherin the one throaty beast.

Switching on the newfuel system for the firsttime created a fine cas-cade of petrol inside thecar. Disappointed, thesmall crowd that hadgathered for the start-upceremony repaired tothe pub while I applied afirmer hand with theAeroquip. By 10pm, we

were cranking up someoil pressure, and shefired first time.

One beauty of thisengine is that it's com-pletely without tempera-ment in traffic. Yet it per-ceptibly gets up on thecam at around3,000rpm, requiring con-siderable restraint toavoid falling foul of theBoys in Blue.

A session onJanspeed's rolling road,trying a variety of carbu-rettor needles, soon pro-duced 112bhp at therear wheels at 4,000and at 5,000 rpm, equiv-alent to 220bhp plus atthe flywheel.

To keep the car asaccelerative as possible,a gearbox with an earlier- 1.123:1 as opposed tothe present 0.996:1 -transfer ratio is fitted.With Pirelli WS45 tyresfitted, I have seen5,500rpm in top on a

level road in still air - I'dbetter not say wherebecause a calculationindicated almost112mph. (With a fairwind, marginal help fromgravity, and disregard forthe engine's longevity, Idare say you couldcrank it up to 6,000rpm -122mph - given thespace.)

If you were to use thatpace all the time in thedesert, the car wouldpretty soon bedestroyed. A moreimportant reason forhaving all that extrahorsepower is to beable, so to speak, toaquaplane: across thetop of soft sand insteadof having to ploughthrough all of it as theless powerful cars do.

Reliable performanceis perhaps half theParis-Dakar battle. Theother half lies in makingthe car durable enough


.In the event, the WL9camshaft proved tohave magical proper-ties.,

to be driven at a com-petitive rate for threeweeks over specialstages that are as longas 617 km (380 miles),and in being braveenough to keep theweight down by carryingfew spare parts.

Previous experiencecounts for a great deal.Nobody who hasn't beenthere really believes theaccounts of shreddedtyres, bent axles,sheared engine mountsand shattered dampers.Much of the evidencelies out there buried bythe sands of time.

A priority is to fit checkstraps to the axles tosave the dampers andsprings from having torestrain their downwardtravel every time the carlifts off. This certainlysaves the suspension,but it does create otherproblems. While corner-ing, an inside wheel is

picked up, losing trac-tion earlier than it wouldotherwise do. In extrem-is, this translates intoheavy, snatching loadsgoing through both pro-peller shafts into thesmall centre differential.Frightful noises andeventual cessation oftransmission can resultfrom long days of thiskind of abuse. But don'tworry - we now reckonto be able to slap in anew diff in about2½hours if the heat ison.

Other demon tweaksinclude welding bracesacross the undersides ofthe axles, fitting skid-plates under the differ-entials, double-skinningthe engine brackets,duplicating theMetalastics, and fittingbrackets to restrain therise and fall of theengine.

On the Range Rover,

the only skin panels thatare not aluminium arethe bonnet and lowertailgate, so there is plen-ty of cost-effectiveweight loss to be hadfrom replacing thesewith glassfibre.Substituting perspex forglass in the side andrear glazing also has tobe the way to go ifyou're running in one ofthe "modified" cate-gories.

One of the great fearson this event is that theelectrics will give up insome mysterious wayafter days or weeks ofbeing shaken about. Theonly answer is to ensureas far as possible thatnothing will become dis-connected, and arrangethings accessibly so thatit's easy to check forfaults such as blownfuses and dud relays orswitches.

No matter how careful-ly the inner car is pre-pared, it will all be fornothing without tyresand dampers that canwithstand almostunimaginable punish-ment. On the 1981Paris-Dakar Rally, JohnMiles and I had toendure 11 punctures inless than three days.One tyre gave up oncorrugations so bad thatI did not realise untilthere was nothing leftbut a smouldering car-cass on a square wheel.Others were ruined bysharp rocks leaving bul-let-like holes in the side-walls.

Fate led us to somePirelli truck tyres at anoasis. Their roadgoingtread pattern meant thecar handled like a pig onsand, but the wearisome

wheel changing ceased.This is how we came,after a deal of head-scratching with Pirelli'snew European competi-tion tyre co-ordinator,Derek Walters, to fitCinturato WS45 M+Swith an eight-ply rating.

With ice and snowexpected in France, afirst set was suppliedwith cold weather com-pound which wore ratherfast during a try-out inmild weather on therough stones ofBagshot. The importantthing was that none ofthe dreaded puncturesoccured - at 70psi, theload rating of the WS45is 2,150lbs which, multi-plied by four, leaves ahandsome 3,068lb mar-gin over the standardcar's 5,532 grossweight, a figure the rallycar undercuts consider-ably.

The Australian outbackis just about - if not actu-ally - the most ruggedplace on earth, I hear. Itwas for use there thatBilstein developed arange of gas-filleddampers for 4x4 vehi-cles. With a pedigreelike that, the Bilsteinshad to be worth a go.After a very satisfactoryinitial experience acrossrough country in Ireland,we decided to use themin the desert.

Set up with fourdampers at the rear, twoat the front, stiff rising-rate springs, andwarmer weather ver-sions of the new Pirellis,the Range Rover wastaut, neat and eminentlychuckable - magic.Good enough to moveup 70 places in oneday's blast across the


desert, as it turned out.But there's many a slip ..

Threatened by a familylynching party, I had togive up playing cars tobe at home onChristmas day. Afterlunch, the 'phone rang -my co-driver calling fromParis. A printing disputethreatened to jeopardisehis magazine. Could hecome to London tomor-row to introduce areplacement to me?Holy Cow! We were dueat scrutineering in fourdays.

One door closes,another slams in yourface .But not always. Ihad decided on aFrench co-driver in thefirst place partly in DairyCrest's interests andalso because of theobvious advantageswhen running in a majorFrench event. It's alwaysa difficult choice - shar-ing a car for threeweeks with someoneyou know really well canprove a disaster underthe physical and mentalstrains that Paris-Dakarimposes.

At least I had knownEtienne four years; hewas an experiencedParis-Dakar hand, andwanted to go again.Now I was to be lum-bered with a completestranger. Fat chance Ihad of finding anyoneelse with so little timebefore the off.

No-one likes being

faced with fait accom-plis. But my ears prickedup when, here in mystudy, some prettysearching questionswere being asked bythis newcomer. Forinstance, what was myattitude to the blackinhabitants of the coun-tries we were about tovisit? He couldn't toler-ate anyone who wouldn'tbehave civilly out there.

This Yves Géniès wasjust as concerned as Iwas about whether wecould hit it off. As itturned out, we had somany ideas in common,it was uncanny. Butthere had to be a couplemore heart-stoppersbefore we could put thisto the test.

On the way to Doverto catch a ferry, therewas this unfortunateencounter with KentConstabulary, duringwhich allusions weremade to a velocity Iwould have scarcelybelieved possible at halfthrottle.

However, the big prizewent to Messrs Sealink.Hardly had the ferry gotoutside the Dover break-water than there was adull thud, the lights wentout, the engines cut, andthe ship heaved-to like awounded whale in theswell.

Even the radio tele-phone was kaput, sothere was no way oftelling anyone that I

would have to gostraight to scrutineeringand not to the other ren-dezvous. When we putthe car into parc ferméin the Place de laConcorde that evening, Iknew what the manmeant who warnedagainst unwinding so farthat you come off thespool.

We had even had toargue hard to preventthem slapping the carnumbers across DairyCrest's "Mister Cheese"cartoon character,painstakingly signwrittenon the sides. But comeNew Year's morning, allwas smiles as we madeour bid for Britain.

A net crammed withFromages Anglais bal-loons adorned theRange Rover's roof. Wemoved up to take ourturn on the start rampwith two trumpeters,Corporal Milner and

Bandsman Barry, fromthe Worcestershire andSherwood ForestersRegiment sitting smartlyon the tailgate. As ourcountdown began, theyshut the tailgate withmilitary precision andtook up station to sendus off with a rousing fan-fare while the balloonswent up.

It was knock-out."Mister Cheese" hadreally arrived in France.And the easy part of ourrally had begun...

CCC, April 1983


A more important reason for having all thatextra horsepower is to be able, so to speak, toaquaplane across the top of soft sand instead ofhaving to plough through all of it as the lesspowerful cars do. Nobody who hasn't beenthere really believes the accounts of shreddedtyres, bent axles, sheared engine mounts andshattered dampers. Much of the evidence liesout there, buried by the sands of time...


Actualités en plus


THIS very intriguing Range Roverwas central to the first all-Britishentry to complete the formidableParis-Dakar Rally across theSahara desert .

In his second attempt on thethree-week event in 1981,

Anthony Howard was partneredby his Autocar colleague JohnMiles, son of actor Bernard, F1driver for Lotus in 1969-70 andlatterly noted as one of theworld's finest chassis develop-ment engineers.

Sharing the driving day-on-day-off, the pair led the unmodified

class for maybe the first third ofthe rally before encountering avariety of setbacks with suspen-sion and tyres, not to mention aquite unwarranted 15-hour penal-ty, later acknowledged as “a mis-take” by the organisers.

Nevertheless, they recoveredsufficiently to finish 27th overall –of the original 179 that startedfrom Paris, only 42 cars survivedto arrive “in time” at Dakar.

Howard returned with TRW425R for the 1983 rally. Afterinterviewing half a dozen Frenchcandidates, he enlisted TV jour-

nalist Yves Géniès as co-pilot.On this occasion, to compen-

sate the Algerian government forthe expensive hoo-hah whenMark Thatcher disappeared onthe wrong side of a sand dune in1982, the organisers imposed asurprise 10,000-franc levy percrew member, supposedly to fundthe department of forestry'sresearch into desert rescue. Yes,indeed.

Howard and Géniès weredelighted with the performanceand handling of the re-fettledRange Rover, which ran well inthe early stages.

However, an oil control ringbegan breaking up in southernAlgeria, causing the engine topump oil/smoke. As Range RoverV8 pistons "never broke" nobodycarried spares.

Had a replacement been avail-able, overnight fitment might verywell have propelled the pair

onwards to Dakar.

Rather than risk abandoning the car even deeper into the Sahara,Howard reluctantly opted to fightanother day by trickling homegently for a repair in Paris.

Registered to Land Rover UKLtd in May, 1977, TRW 425Rbegan life as a factory develop-ment car - first with LHD, thenRHD and finally LHD.

The blue two-door body – alu-minium skin panels, steel bonnetand tailgate – was later paintedwhite and fitted with a GRP bon-net.

After contesting his first Paris-Dakar, partnered by Anne Hope,in 1980, Anthony Howardapproached BL with a view to asecond attempt.

The vehicle came as part of apackage instigated by DavidBoole, BL Cars' director of prod-uct and international affairs, andsanctioned by Mike Hodgkinson,

Brief history and provenance

Land Rover's managing director,who also sent encouragingtelegrams.

TRW 425R was facilitated byJohn Bilton and George Hassall,managers respectively of productstrategy and company vehicles atLode Lane.

In addition, a budget was foundfor preparation by Jan Odor'sJanspeed Engineering inSalisbury, where Howard deliv-ered the car in early December1980.

Howard put in his own money,and also found sponsorship invarious forms, notably from BPthanks to the persuasive powersof Bernard Miles, mastermind ofthe Mermaid Theatre at PuddleDock on the Thames.

Among other ID, the car borethe legend "White Knuckle

Tours", inspired by the "WhiteKnuckle Airways" motif stencilledon the radome under an RAFAvro Shackleton maritime patrolaircraft seen at an RAF Abingdonair show.

PreparationJanspeed's endeavours

embraced replacing theStromberg carburettors with apair of bigger SU HIFs, a warmercamshaft, cleaning up the cylin-der heads and induction manifoldwhile retaining a low compressionratio to cope with poor-qualityfuel.

Fabricated large-bore manifoldsfed to a straight-through exhaustsystem.

All ancillaries were to "hot" mar-ket specifications, engine mountswere duplicated, and two batter-ies were installed.

Inside, equipment included afull roll cage, Recaro seats, Lukefull harnesses, a rev counter andcompass. In place of the rearseat, a fabricated 200-litre addi-tional fuel tank was sited on theplatform immediately behind driv-er and co-driver.

This tank was filled via a quick-release recessed in the roof andfeeding into a vertical down-pipe.

Fuel pipework was all Aeroquip,and pressure was maintained byfour Facet Bendix pumps, two forthe upper and two for the lowerstandard tank. A valve immediate-ly by the driver's right handallowed re-direction of fuel spillreturn to one tank or the other.

Underneath, fabricated guardsprotected both axle banjos andthe lower fuel tank. At the front, a

second steering damper was fit-ted and the damper turrets wereheavy duty.

At the rear an additional pair ofdampers was installed – so thateach side featured one inclinedforward and another inclined aft –and an anti-roll bar was attachedvia the radius arms.

As required by rally regulations,a pair of blue lights – denotingthe unmodified class – wasattached to the front right of theroof.

Night-time vision was improvedwith the addition of Cibié lights, apair on the front and a pairmounted out of harm's way ateither side of the scuttle.

Howard narrowly missed con-cluding sponsorship for 1982, andremained in London, making jour-


provenance: 1 the place of origin or earli-est known history, esp. of awork of art, manuscript, etc.2 origin.[French from provenir fromLatin provenire (as pro-1,venire 'come')]Oxford Compendium,Concise, Ninth Edition

nalistic hay of Mark Thatcher'sdisappearance in the Sahara.

Re-fettlingChanges to the car for 1983

included new axles and transmis-sion fitted by Land Rover Ltd atSolihull.

Engine upgrades comprised aBL Motorsport WL9 camshaft andRover Vitesse competition cylin-der heads prepared by Janspeedand matched to new fabricatedexhaust manifolds. The 112 bhpat 5,000 rpm delivered to the rearwheels on Janspeed's rollingroad only hint at the full-time

4WD transmission losses.Four Facet Bendix pumps and

accompanying Aeroquip were re-plumbed to increase resistance toair locks and other feed prob-lems. Additional mounts wereinstalled to better control engineand gearbox movement.

Rising-rate springs and Bilsteingas dampers further stiffened thesuspension, and a front anti-rollbar was added, greatly improvingdirectional response.

Narrower-diameter coils wereinserted concentrically within therear springs to better cope withroll and the rear-platform load offuel, three or four spare wheels,tools and parts.

A pair of catch-straps was fittedto each axle to restrain downwardsuspension movement andstresses when airborne, and thefront damper turrets were rein-forced.


All mounted at the front thistime, three pairs of Cibiés aug-mented the 100-Watt headlights.

TRW 425R was re-sprayedwhite and bore title sponsor DairyCrest's "Mr Cheese" ID as part ofthe organisation's strategy tointroduce English cheeses –Fromages Anglais – to theFrench market.

Other additions included DeltaMics lightweight alloy wheels andan alloy guard to protect thesteering, front axle and sump,especially during "nose-in" situa-tions.

In his judgement after the £10million Old Number One racingBentley court action – at theRoyal Courts of Justice, London,1990 – Mr Justice Otton dis-cussed three criteria for assess-ing the provenance of a motorcar. These are equally applicableto TRW 424R:

1 Historical continuity: substan-

tial documentary, editorial andphotographic records.

2. Physical originality: the carhas never been cannibalised.Changes over time includeengine upgrades, axle and trans-mission replacements, new sus-pension components and wheels,and many detail improvements to

enhance durability and reliability.Nevertheless, the body, glass,chassis rails and many otherparts are identical to the day thevehicle came off the line.

3. Owner's intent: it has alwaysbeen Howard's intention thatTRW 425R should continue as anentity.


Engine: Rover V8; 3,528cc.

Compression ratio: 8.25:1.

Carburettors: twin SU HIF with BAC needles.Camshaft: BL Motorsport WL9.

Cylinder heads: Janspeed - gas flowed, polished,inlet and exhaust ports matched to manifolds,Rover Vitesse-profile valves. Cooling: Middle East specification high-capacitywater pump, and fan with temperature actuatedviscous coupling; heavy-duty radiator; thermostatset to open at 72 degrees F.

Exhaust system: Janspeed fabricated manifoldsinto single big-bore pipe with single tail silencer.

Fuel system: Standard tank - 82 litres. Upper tankon load floor - 200 litres.

Feed system: four Facet Bendix pumps; spillreturn with switch overtap; Aeroquip hosingthroughout.

Transmission: Four-speed synchromesh, drivingthrough two-speed transfer box; constant four-wheel-drive with lockable centre differential.

Suspension: front- live axle with two radius armsand Panhard rod; rising rate coil springs; Bilsteingas filled dampers. Rear - live axle with two trailinglinks and A-bracket; rising rate coil springs; Bogeself-levelling unit; four Bilstein gas filled dampers.

Wheels: pressed steel; 6.00 JK X 16; Delta Mics.

Tyres: Pirelli Cinturato WS45 195 R 16 C; eight-plyrating; maximum load at 70psi - 976 kg.

Weights:

Standard two-door Range Rover unladen:1762 kg, 51/49%.

EEC kerb (inc full 82 litre tank, and driver): 1895kg, 48/52%.

Standard gross:2510 kg, 40/60%.

Rally car all-up (inc 282 litres of fuel, two crew,two spare wheels, tools, spare parts):2421 kg, 43/57%

Power at rear wheels: (front propshaft removedand centre differential locked) - Janspeed rollingroad, (20/12/82):

Needle BAF BBW BACRevs BHP %CO BHP %CO BHP %CO2000 47 6.19 48 5.74 38 5.73000 82.5 3.55 90 3.41 86 3.44000 105 0.80 112 1.81 112 7.625000 106 0.42 112 1.72 112 7.715500 102 0.66 106 1.77 108 7.18

Performance: (calculated from observed maximumrevs of 5,500 with Pirelli WS45 tyres).First gear: 27.4 mph; second gear: 45.6mph; thirdgear: 74.2mph; top gear: 111.7mph. Top gearmph/1,000 rpm: 20.31.

Technical specs


� A fever that sweeps all across France.� Cursing as you watch fine jets of petrol squirtingfrom all the Aeroquip joints the first time you switchon your carefully assembled four-pump system.� Working on last-minute tweaks to the car untilpast midnight on Boxing Day.� Being pinched for speeding by an unsympatheticpoliceman on the M2, missing your ferry, thenboarding another one that has an engine roomexplosion and circles for an hour like a woundedwhale off Dover Harbour. � Discovering an electrical fault that almost starts afire as you queue for scrutineering. � Rushing about Paris trying to find a print shop toring-bind a massive wedge of route notes into man-ageable day-by-day chapters.� A sinking feeling on the evening before the startwhen you realise you can't find the insurance andregistration papers-then tearing about Paris with anincreasingly unhappy taxi driver, re-tracing yester-day's steps until a beautiful girl at the organisers'office calls you a silly boy and hands back the filewith a big smile at 10 pm.� A farewell New Year dinner party with pea shoot-ers, paper Napoleonic hats and champagne - whenthe lights go out at midnight, anything goes.� Making a 'voluntary' contribution to a 'fund forresearch into desert rescue' in the wake of MarkThatcher getting lost.� A minor state of shock at the bill the first timeyou fill the 300-litre fuel tanks to the brim. � Grateful surprise when your sponsor's PR con-sultant does turn up at the start with two bandsmento blow a fanfare and 500 balloons to release froma net on the roof when you leave the starting ramp-

and 50,000 people in the Place de la Concordecheer to the echo, laughing their heads off.� Being wished 'bonne route et bonne chance' bya World War 1 veteran, dewy-eyed at the thought ofthe daring adventure ahead. Huge crowds of well-wishers all along the route to the south of France.� Curiosity at a minor steering vibration at 100mph, then amazement when the car slumps downon its right-hand corner and you see the wheelbounding away along the autoroute. You're told, ifyou hadn't braked to stop the car before an acci-dent developed, It might have been unnecessary tochange the brake disc! Next you listen, dumbstruck,to suggestions that a possible cause was a rivalmechanic loosening the wheel nuts.� Queuing all night to put the car on the ferry whenyour colleagues have said they are exhausted andare sleeping their heads off, and wondering howthey're going to handle It when the bullshit reallystops in the desert.� The first smell of Africa, dusty and warm.Frustration at 'French queuing' and other antics asevery competitor simultaneously tries to buy com-pulsory insurance at a small counter in the Algierscustoms building.� Hilarious, hair-raising taxi rides from the airportas you bargain black-market currency rates with adriver, while he waves his arms, counts money anddoes almost everything but look at the road.� A thrilling feeling of anticipation as you reach thetop of the Atlas Mountains, and see the first greatexpanse of Sahara spread out before you.Satisfaction that you can find your way and you areon the pace after finishing your first 150-mile desertspecial stage.


� Oil, sand and sweat matting your hair.Crashing out exhausted in a sleeping bag throwndown on stony sand, and enjoying a last cigarettewith a slug of precious Scotch as you stare up inwonder at the clear, starlit sky.� Walking across the desert in the chill dawn to adiscreet distance from the bivouac to answer thecall of Nature.� Shivering like a refugee as you wait before dawnat the Africatours field kitchen for breakfast-hotchocolate sloshed Into your billycan and dry breadsmeared with a little honey, sticking to oily, dustyhands.� The spine-jarring crunch as you come off a'yump' wrong-footed, and smash a damper mount.� Driving by fingertips for the next eight hours,wondering if your improvised repair can possiblyhold up that long.� Finding one morning that the results service hasmysteriously dropped you from 16th to 140th place,being told to start from there and they'll put it righttomorrow, then successfully fighting your corner soyou don't have to battle back through the dust of allthose slower cars.� Destroying tyres In quick succession on razor-sharp, flinty rocks and abandoning smoulderingblack shreds on three-penny-bit-shaped wheels.� Wrong-slotting into a cul-de-sac valley surround-ed by huge dunes, where 80 other vehicles aremilling around in a confusion of fine sand.� Finding the right way through the mountains inlate afternoon, heading Into the sunset across 200miles of open desert, feeling the way through blacknight with compass and stars, then glimpsing thefirst wisps of dust and tall lights of cars ahead.� Getting stuck fast on ruts, baked hard as cement,and lying on your belly to claw the axles free withyour bare hands.� Thirst so dry and dusty that you gulp water bythe pint and pop salt tablets to keep a clear head.� Being overtaken at 100 mph by Jan de Rooy's1,000 bhp DAF turbo racing truck.� The roar of a swirling wind that whips up sand sohard it stings your face and rattles on the bodywork.� The stench inside your crash helmet after driving500 miles in temperatures soaring into the 90s - agorilla's armpit has nothing on this.� Paying £2-plus for a bottle of water.� The sickening crunch as the rear crown wheelbreaks 20 km into the second desert stage; then,100 km later, the pistol-shot crack of a front half-shaft breaking.� Discovering how much fun you can have withhalf a bucket of water and a bar of soap after aweek without a proper wash.� Losing your way in a sandstorm where 50ft visi-bility makes it impossible to find the right waythrough the dunes.

� So much dust in your cameras that the shutterssound like pepper mills.� Being robbed of your chances of winning by carthieves.� A gust of wind snatching a Kevlar door so fast itsnaps off its hinges and hits the ground before yourfeet.� Being continually surrounded by children cheer-fully demanding pens, stickers, T-shirts, presents.� Catching AIDS after a motor cycle accidentnecessitates a blood transfusion. � Driving for 18 hours a day for three or more dayson the trot, then hallucinating for the last 100 miles.� The click-clack of typewriters - 'like Rhode IslandReds pecking corn' - as journalists squat on thesand pouring forth thousands of words.� Watching the price of a Heineken rocket from£1.30 to £13 in a night.� A lullaby of distant generators in the still desertnight as service crews work on their charges.� Losing so much weight and waist-line that youronce tight money-belt keeps slipping down roundyour backside.� Jean-Marie Balestre calling you "a small-timenavigator who is now Bonaparte of the pyramidsand Napoleon of the dunes".� A frightful pong that remains for hours after youhit an errant goat at 100 mph.� Waiting for your chance to overtake a motorbikethat ejects Its rider. One goes left, the other right,and you nip between them, stopping immediately. �� The only reason the girl rider wants you to stopis that the machine Is too heavy for her to lift on herown.� Mouth-watering tanned girls who see you offevery morning, and are there, fresh as daisies, togreet you, filthy at the end of a long dusty day's bat-tle with the desert.� Sand so fine you're lucky to get into third gear allday. And, If you have to stop to change a wheel, thecar sinks on its jack faster than you can do the job.� A rude awakening at 3 am when some lunaticdecides to test his motor cycle or mis-firing V8 upand down the desert, not 100 yards from whereyou've been sleeping.� The acrid smell of the engine pumping hot oil asa piston ring breaks up. And you know in your heartof hearts that another 2,000 miles of this will blowup the engine. You're done for.� A bloody fool who wrong-slots, then reverses intohis own dust just as you are being counted downinto the corner. You snatch a glimpse of a shape inthe murk, then bang! A blacksmith straightens thesteering links, you replace the smashed radiatorand battery and, 2½ hours later, you force on.� Confirming that Timbuktu really does exist.Ear-to-ear grins when you find your car's so goodyou have moved up 80 places In a day.


� Running with only three brakes for two days,unable to stop before leaping off a 10 ft ridge at 80mph.� Knuckles bleeding from honeycomb-shapedwounds as you smash them into the radiator whena spanner slips.� Your co-driver telling you at the end of the firstweek that, if it's going to be like this for another 14days, then there's absolutely no chance of reachingDakar.� Having to listen to the photographers' jokes.� Amazement at how fast camels travel when theyrun in front of your car.� Frenchmen telling you Paris-Dakar is so crazy itmust/should have been invented by anEnglishman.� Fording wide rivers so deep they almost drownthe engine. The far bank is so steep and slipperywet you scarcely dare believe you'll drive up there.� Air filters so clogged with dust it's a .miracle theengine runs at all.� Knocking over a thorn tree when the steeringbreaks 350 miles from the finish, and having toaccept it really is insane to try to drive therebecause no welding gear is available.� Putting the car on a train that takes 72 hours fora journey scheduled to take 27.� Sitting it out In agony with knee and ankle likefootballs after being pitched off the train 24 hoursbefore you reach Dakar.

� Learning that shampoo doesn't work too well insea water as you gambol gratefully in the Atlanticbefore that wonderful final stage, blasting down thebeach to Dakar.� Glum journalists sitting around in bars with noalcohol to quench their thirst.� Flaming sunrises and sunsets.� Dawn calls to prayer echoing from distantmosques.� Learning to say no, firmly but politely, to all man-ner of temptations, often nice but naughty.� Fleet Street newspapermen who think you'retalking from somewhere in Bangladesh, then askfor a number they can call you back at when you'vespent four hours queuing in a sweltering aircraft inmid desert, competing with pushy French, Italianand Spanish hacks for a precious share of a singlesatellite phone.� An incredible welcome from smiling Senegalese- not everyone's a taxi driver who thinks he's justfound another sucker to charge four or five timesthe regular fare.� Huge anti-climax when it's all over and everyonegratefully disperses to smart hotels to shower luxu-riously, lick their wounds, swim in clear pools, gulpcold beers, eat their heads off and make long slowlove....by Anthony Howard for CCC

Range Rover TRW 425R 41Range Rover TRW 425R 41

I HAVE ALWAYS ratherliked Jean Todt. I wenton Paris-Dakar as ajournalist - instead of asa driver - several times.One year I flew in the

Peugeot team aircraftwith Jean. When wearrived at the episodewhere Ari Vatanen's(now an MEP) car was"stolen", a greatKeystone Copsescapade began. My sparring partner

Mike Calvin from theTorygraph and I werewaiting in the midst of alarge mob of Frenchmedia poseurs atBamako airfield in Maliwhen rumours began tocirculate. Then I - but apparently

nobody else - noticedJean arrive, consultbriefly, then turn on hisheel. So I signalled Miketo follow me discretelywithout alerting anyoneelse. As Jean jumped into a

car and sped off, weleaped into the back of abattered Peugeot pick-up, saying "Suivez çavoiture la, mon chef" tothe driver who happilytrod on the gas in hotpursuit. Clinging on like billy-oh

and hurtling and dodg-ing in and out of don-keys, goats, camels,chickens and other vehi-cles, we eventuallycame upon the strandedrally car. Once we had returned

to the stage start, theorganisers were"désolé", but Ari could

not depart because hewas out of time. Jeanunclipped the mandatorybriefcase stuffed with500-franc notes, lodgedhis protest accompaniedby a hefty deposit, andaway Ari went to elbowhis way back to the frontthrough the dust of the80-odd cars that hadstarted ahead of him.That afternoon we

landed in Mauretania toawait developments. Asatellite dish was set up,and half a dozen of ussheltered from the blaz-ing heat under an air-craft wing. Then via a news

agency came the firsttorrent abuse from FIApresident Jean-MarieBalestre at the Place dela Concorde. "Under no circum-

stances should theDakar organisers haveallowed the competitorVatanen to re-start in therally. “This is against the

laws of the FIA, themotor sporting ultimateauthority, and I forbidhim to continue any fur-ther. Who does thisJean Todt think he is? "Once he was a small-

time navigator. Now hefinds himself to be amember of the interna-tional jet set with anapartement on theAvenue Foch. He is theNapoleon of the sanddunes, the Bonaparte ofthe pyramids."To which Jean retorted

quick as a flash: "Betterto be that than the

Emperor Bokassa of thePlace de la Concorde."Later, while on the final

approach to Dakar, partof the landing gearstuck, and we had to goaround several timesbefore the crew finallymanaged to get all threewheels down. So it was dark when

we landed, the airportapron was chock-a-block, and we wereparked out on the farside with no transport.There was nothing for itbut to heft our gear outof the hold and staggerhalf a mile to the termi-nal. Just as we neared the

building a huge six-wheeler fire enginecame past and drew upat the steps. A door ofthe high cab was flungopen, and out droppedseveral large bags, fol-lowed by one J Todt."He didn't get where heis today..." thought I.So, when Luca

Cordero di Montezemolorecruited Jean to step inand sort out ScuderiaFerrari, I knew he wasjust the man for the job. Five years ago, I spent

a memorable few daysin Maranello with mySouth African chumAllan Trim at the time ofthe Nürburgring GP. Rory Byrne - a really

nice, quiet-spoken,unassuming fellow -took us on his full per-sonal conducted tour ofthe Gestione Sportiva,driving us around in adusty Fiat diesel coupé

of all things, and therespecto shown to himeverywhere was palpa-ble. "The world's mostbeguiling toy shop," Icalled it. The tweaks wesaw them working on inthe wind tunnel on theFriday afternoon wouldbe on the cars - viasatellite - for next morn-ing's first practice. That evening, we ate

supper at a local ris-torante - owned by theengine shop manager."Please come to front ofthe queue, SignorByrne, your table isready." On the Sunday,we had lunch chezByrne and Or, hisdelightful Thai wife, thenwatched the race on TV. Moments after the fin-

ish, the 'phone rang. Itwas Montezemolo. "Si,Avvocato...thank youvery much." Rory told us that, for

several days after theend of his first champi-onship winning seasonwith the team, he need-ed police protection -from deliriously happytifosi. One day, he was called

up to Montezemolo'soffice and asked to sitdown. Saying scarcely aword, Montezemoloreached into a drawerfor a set of keys and slidthem across the desk toRory, simply saying:"For you." He has since owned

two 360 Modenas andan F430. Now that'srespecto.Anthony Howard

“Napoleon of the sand dunes,Bonaparte of the pyramids”

AS THE cold red dawncrept over Paris thisNew Year's morning, itwasn't the only thing tak-ing on that colour. Formost of the competitorsin the Paris-DakarRallye Oasis had man-aged little sleep aftercelebrating the arrival of1980, and their eyeswere pretty red too asthey stood shivering infront of the Trocadero,

listening to the pre-startbriefing.

The scene had an airof eccentric unrealityabout it. This was thestart of no conventionallong-distance rally withMikkolas and Cowans inEscorts and Mercedes.First in the line-up were86 motor cycles includ-ing four Vespa scootersand two combinations;then came four

vehicules d'epoque - acouple of old Renaults,a Citroen traction avant,and a Jeep Hotchkiss;19 contemporary two-wheel-drive cars includ-ing three Buggies; 844X4 vehicles - LadaNivas, Volkswagen Iltis,Range Rovers, ToyotaLand Cruisers, Sinpar-converted Renaultsaloons, Cournils andV8 Land Rovers; thecategory for six-wheel-drive vehicules speciauxcomprised a couple ofSteyr Puchs and a con-verted Renault 5; andthere were 10 heavytrucks.

There are more waysthan one to kill a cat,hence the mixed-bagentry. And the driverline-up was a mix too.There was Le Mans win-ner Henri Pescarolo in aLand Rover, as wasRene Trautman; FrenchGroup 1 racing champi-on Rene Metge in a 26-ton Leyland Marathontruck; and ChristineDacremont in a Lada.

With a Sahara cross-ing in prospect andTimbuktu, epitomisingthe most inaccessibleplace on earth, on theroute schedule, the airtingled with a sense ofadventure. And onething, but only one, wassure. The motor cyclistshad to be even more outof their minds than therest of us - everyone ofany sanity knows thatit's quite impossible for atwo-wheeler not to fallover, particularly onrocky ground or thicksand.

There were 23 days inwhich to drive 6,000miles across France,Algeria, Mali, Upper

Volta, Niger andSenegal, and the event's17 sections included 12special stages account-ing for nearly half thedistance, or about sixtimes the competitivemileage of the RACRally. And there were, ineffect, to be threeevents taking place with-in the one.

It kicked off with athree-mile stage overarmy training groundnear Orléans, in order toseed the field for the re-start in Algiers and giveFrench TV something tochew on. This was con-ventional European stuff- short and sharp overmud, potholes and somethick sand from which acouple of the trucks hadto be extricated by oneof the military's tanks.The motor cycles weredepressingly fast - lastyear's winner CyrilNeveu gave notice ofthe final outcome by tak-ing his Yamaha 500 XTthrough with a quickest3 min 20 sec. The quick-est car, Jean-ClaudBriavoine's Niva, was16th overall with 4 min 4sec.

Then, as if to ensurethat this really would bea rally of extremes, theMassif Central laid onsub-zero temperatures,ice, driving snow, andthen vistas of dazzlingwhite in bright sunshine.

The next three daysallowed time to shakedown for they werelargely concerned withloading everyone aboarda ship at Sete in theSouth of France, a fineGallic performance, for a24-hour crossing toAlgiers across a glass-calm Mediterranean.


Eccentric escapismThe long hard road to Timbuktu on theRallye OasisBy Tony Howard

Regrouping after thelast civilised lunch wewere to see for days, wedrove 200 miles throughthe darkening Atlasmountains to Moudjbaraon the northern fringe ofthe Sahara to make ourfirst desert bivouac infreezing cold under aninky star-crammed sky.We queued like prison-ers of war or refugeeswaiting to have our billy-cans filled first with hotsoup and then couscousladled out by chefs froma large 4X4 Renaulttruck kitted out as a fieldkitchen and operated byAfricatours.

That first desert dawnis quite an experience.Pale blue fingers of lightprecede an orange fire-ball over the flat distanthorizon, and highlightthe golden strata on thered rock of the moun-tains opposite.Unshaven and stiff withcold and from sleepingon hard ground, mem-bers of this odd mobilecommunity slowly cameto life, realising the pre-amble was over and thereal adventure now layahead. Except for anupward mobility of tem-perature, this was to bethe pattern of our livesfor almost three weeks.

Politely, the vulnerablemotor cyclists wereallowed away first at 30sec intervals, and then ahalf-hour gap ensuedbefore the fastest carwent off - the theorybeing that the poor dev-ils on two wheels would-n't be mowed down andshowered in dust andpebbles by those of ussensible enough to havea wheel at each corner.

This was a mere 24-

mile work-out, startingwith a tortuous rockytrail between barren hillswhich suddenly andamazingly opened out toreveal wide open desertacross which we sped,taking a choice frommany tracks and pass-ing other competitorsmaybe 1 mile on eitherside. As was to be theexperience for so muchof the rest of the way,the going was firm forlong stretches, inter-spersed with glutinouslysoft sand that gave theimpression of water-ski-ing into treacle, knock-ing our speed down sud-denly from maybe 80mph to 50 or 60 mph inthe winking of an eye.

Back on the tarmacafter 75 miles, one wasall the more aware ofhow wide were the hori-zons because there wasless need to concentrateon avoiding ruts androcks. Stark rock out-crops occasionally brokeup the horizon and,once, we passed thecheering crew of an oilrig who had come to theroadside to see usthrough. The desert wasever present, drifting likesnow across the road.

Three days and 800miles south of Algierswe finally quit the tar-mac at Ain Salah, adusty oasis with palmtrees and a mud fortresslooking like somethingout of a RudolphValentino movie.

Compass bearing 260,said, the route notes.This was the start of a175-mile special stage,flat out across opendesert to Reggane,another oasis. " For thefirst kilometres, the track

is hardly visible. Thestart of the stage ismarked with oil drumsand old tyres....followthe chain of mountainson the right."

Shimmering dunes ofshifting sand rolled outahead, some lookingdeceptively easy but infact steep enough tosend the car yumping alittle. Then the terrainopened out again, subtlychanging to a harder,flatter expanse withsharp rocks hidden inthe sand. One of thesesmashed through thesump shield of the only

other British-crewed carin the event - theCitroen GS of PeterDalkin and JohnWashorn. Their rallyover, just 70 miles intothe stage, they pluggedthe hole in the sumpwith Tupperware eventu-ally, and drove home toEngland.

Rushing across thedesert at 90 mph withsand and stones blast-ing the underside of theRange Rover wassomething akin to powerboating. Wide flat hori-zons, and an undulatingsurface to provide the


wave motion.Far ahead and behind,

as well as to either side,high plumes of dust, likesmoke screens fromdestroyers, reassured uswe were on course withthe " fleet" . If we werelost, so were all the oth-ers!

Then, with a continu-ing and extraordinarysense of discovery, wedescended a rockescarpment to find thecontrol. The small groupof organisers, lookingcool as cucumbers intheir pale blue overalls,and two of the girls freshout of bandboxes. Wewiped the sweat fromour eyes, and remem-bered flying was somuch easier.

Then came four hours'patient queueing whiletwo pe text scan andedit afh 28/07/2012

trol pumps dispensedprecious fuel, 60 to 80gallons at a time. Fornext morning - sevendays out from Paris -came the 400-mile spe-cial stage through theTanezrouft.More of the same

More of the samerecipe, but a much larg-er helping with daytimetemperatures in the 90s

and shimmering miragesall around. To our right,1,000 miles of emptySahara between us andthe Atlantic. To the left,3,000 miles across shift-ing sands to the RedSea.

Soon the inadequaciesof two-wheel drive start-ed to show up. There ina morass of deep sandwere four Peugeots andCitroens, sideways,stuck fast, their onlyhope a tow from a 4X4.It wasn't many daysbefore we'd worked up asnappy drill for haulingout these unfortunates.

On the map, there's aconfidently straight linerunning diagonally to thenorthwest across thedesert. It can meannothing to the nomads,but for us it was theAlgeria-Mali frontier.There, after 5½ to 12 ormore hours' hard driv-ing, depending on yourluck, you came to Bordj-Moktar, a small outpost,no doubt once sternlymanned by the FrenchForeign Legion.

At Gao, with dustystreets, one petrol pumpand a fly-blown hotelwhere the plumbing hadlong since ceased tofunction, we found the

police swishing lengthsof knotted rope to keeplocal children at bayfrom the square wherewe parked. After anight's sleep on thehotel verandah, therewas half a day to serv-ice the cars - strictly do-it-yourself - before takingthe ferry across the wideriver Niger to start the1,300-mile westwardloop via Timbuktu andback to Gao.The leaders

At this point, Audidevelopment engineerFreddy Kotulinsky hadmoved up to the lead inone of the four VW Iltiswith a penalty of 15 hr34 min 40 sec. Threeminutes behind was theSihpar-converted 4X4Renault 4 of the broth-ers Marreau whose ear-lier recce was payingoff. Next came PierroZaniroli (Iltis), JeanRagnotti (Iltis), AndreCosta (Citroen CX 2400GTi), Christian Neveu(Range Rover Turbo) AKerk (Sinpar Renault12), Bourgoignie (RangeRover), ChristineDacremont (Lada), J-PSimon (Range Rover).And Rene Metge in theLeyland Marathon ledthe truck category fromtwo Algerian-builtSonacomes.

The loop took fourdays and consisted of:the 320-mile Gao-Moptispecial stage, a hardslog across cloyingsandy bush country andthen along rock-strewnmountain trails; a 320-mile transport sectionfrom Mopti to Niono,mainly along pock-marked tarmac roadsthrough country dottedwith baobab and fever

trees; the 360-milesNiono-Timbuktu specialstage, first along fastsand roads alongsidecanals irrigating miles ofsugar cane plantations,then a barren stonyplain, then undulatingheavy sand, thick withthorn trees; a 270-milespecial stage back toGad, first along the nar-row strip of green beltbetween the River Nigerand the Sahara, andthen more rolling desert.

After barely a night'ssleep in Gao, we wereoff again with 32 hoursallowed for an 820-miletransport section, muchof which was indistin-guishable from specialstage motoring. Theroad following the Nigerwas a beauty runningalong its own embank-ment to keep it clear ofthe flood plain, but withfrequent fords throughwhich water could rushduring the rainy season.Invariably one came upon one at about 80 mph,seeing it at the last sec-ond, and scrabbling to anear halt on the loosesurface.

Across the frontier inNiger this rock strewntyre tearer miraculouslytransformed into a well-graded sand or gravelroad with fast sweepingbends through the bush.Suddenly rallying wasfun again.

In Upper Volta,crashed trucks were fre-quent - hardly surprisingin view of the pace atwhich these hugeMercedes-Benz articswere driven along roads,as hard as concrete nowand gouged into a crazypatchwork of ruts andpotholes.


Ten minutes digging had the sand cleared from ahead ofthe Howard/Hope Range Rover which then hauled itselffree


WITH PETROL stationsfew and far between,probably the first priorityin the preparation of ourRange Rover was provi-sion of additional fuelcapacity.

So the rear seat wastaken out and replacedwith a 40-gallon tank tosupplement the 17½-gallon standard tank.

Inside, we had a rollcage with foam rubbercladding, compass, maplight, fire extinguisher,full-harness seat belts,tool box, spare partsbox, and plenty of foamrubber and anchoragestraps to keep every-thing secure over roughgoing. A pair of greenlights on the roof madethe car easier to findfrom the air. The frontaxle had a shield, boltedunder the differentialhousing, and there wereadjustable Koni shockabsorbers. A two-tone

air horn, Marchal auxil-iary lights and a pair ofspare wheels completedthe ensemble.

This was our " home"for 23 days, and theneed for comforts had tobe set against spaceand weight. So we dis-pensed with tents andbeds, in favour of five10-litre cans for water.

"We'll never be thesame again," I joked atthe start, little realisingjust how true this was.The invitation to com-pete had conjured avision of Spike Milligan's

"ragged idiots" wander-ing, bewildered, aroundtheir expired vehicles,lost in a sea of sand.And, all too often, thiswas what we were tosee. Strong men weptwith frustration at theseeming impossibility ofmaking further progressthrough axle-deep sand.And others, cooped upin the confined space oftheir vehicles for days,got on each others'nerves so much thatthey just abandoned therally.

Keeping the vehicle in

Next morning, 16 daysinto the rally and with1,250 miles to run, wecontinued the run west-wards towards Mali witha 76mile stage toKologo, snaking throughhill country where thedust hung thick betweenthe trees, making over-taking an activityattempted by only thebravest. The 27 hoursallowed for the 420-mileride from Bobo toKolokani sounded gen-erous, the idea being toallow a decent rest enroute. But many wearycrews spent nearly allnight in the Malian capi-tal, Bamako, keepinggarages busy rebuildingtheir battered vehicles.

The 185-mileKolokani-Nioro specialstage must have beenthe most tedious part ofthe event. A fast gravelroad soon degeneratedinto a grind along nar-row tracks between

thorn trees with the tem-perature at about 120degrees F.

Of the Nioro-Kayes155-mile special stage,the route notes warned:" This is the mostuneven, eventful sectionof the rally. It is the mostmountainous and themost stony." But it start-ed off deceptively. with asatisfyingly-fast gravelroad that was good formorale early in themorning after 20 toughdays at the wheel.Interspersing the fastgravel sections werestretches over rocks thesize of footballs. Aftertaking a bridge acrossthe ¾-mile wide torrentof the Senegal River -no time to fall for thetemptation of a coolingswim - the route mean-dered westward, fordingthe River Faleme, on theway to the night halt inBakel, Senegal.

Day 21 was a 230-mile

section toLinguere. Day22 was a 120-mile run, with a55-mile stage,to Lompoul onthe coast northof Dakar. Aftercamping by thesea, the finalday's route tooka 30-mile spe-cial stage alongthe beachtowards Dakar,beckoning withclear swimmingpools and coldbeer.

Of the 86motor cycles toset out, 25 were classi-fied as finishers, and sixarrived out of time. Ofthe cars, more survivedwith 30 out of 109 clas-sified as finishing, and20 arriving out of time.And seven of the 10heavy trucks gotthrough.

The incredible Cyrile

Neveu won the eventoutright for the secondtime on his Yamaha 500XT. Audi developmentengineer FreddyKotulinsky, in a VW Iltisto try out the 4X4 sys-tem used in the AudiQuattro, won the carclass and took thirdplace overall. Autocar 15 March 1980

Dust, sweat and bloody-minded determinationAutocar News Editor Tony Howard and Special Contributor AnneHope took a Range Rover on the Rallye Oasis. By Tony Howard

Darning punctures before sticking onthe patches


Clockwise from top left:Blasting across the Tanezrouft in southern Algeria;The Howard/Hope Range Rover being passed by motorcyclists on the Plateau Tademait in the northern Sahara- parking for 3 million cars;Ferry over the River Niger crossing from Gao

Sunset over El Golea, oasis in the northern Sahara;Taking on 50 gallons of petrol, hand-pumped fromTimbuktu's only petrol pump

shape was, for most,very much a do-it-your-self business. So aftermaybe eight hours ofhard driving throughdusty desert in 100degree F temperatures,one faced the prospectof long hours replacingshock absorbers, clean-ing clogged air filters, ormaking repairs.

The hard facts of lifelived rough betweendrives were that waterwas invariably scarce,and washing was curso-ry. A bucket of coolwater and a bar of soapbecame the occasion fora joyful half hour frolicthat one didn't want tostop. And everything wepossessed was brownwith dust - hotels withshowers and swimmingpools were forgottendreams.

With all this came achange in values, thesatisfying realisation thatone could survive andcompete under theseconditions, and anincreasingly-bloody-minded determination tofinish.

Much of rallying isabout ifs and buts andoptimism. And our rally,crammed with incidentas it was, became asevere test of our Britishphlegm. This weretained by getting into aroutine of letting offsteam with a short,sharp row, maybe oncea day, after which wegot back to working onour mutual objective.And six weeks after itwas all over, we're stilltalking.

The partnership shookdown well in the first fewdays. The car ransweetly, the stowage

was secure, and Annequickly became adroitwith her evening transla-tions of the followingday's route notes while Iserviced the car.Power loss

We re-started inAlgeria, 21st in the carcategory as a result ofthe special stage inFrance, and hopeful ofholding our own. But amystery power loss thatwas to dog us through-out the rally came tolight on the first desertstage. The car wouldstart the stages like abird, and we'd overtakeas many as 25 othervehicles in 40 or 50miles before the enginewent flat. And we losthours going slow orstopped trying to tracethe fault.

After 10 minutes withthe engine stopped, itwould re-start and givefull power for maybeanother 100 milesbefore disappearing asmysteriously as it hadreturned. Changing allsorts of things like thecoil and points, cleaningcarburettors and re-rout-ing tank breathers wereto little avail.

After four days of this,I yanked out the chokein desperation and thiscleared the problem forquite a lot of the time.And thus we ran on fullchoke for nearly 4,000miles.

On the Gao-Moptistage we ran the last 45miles with no brakes,but managed 15thfastest time while 26competitors were out oftime. A rock hadsheared the hydraulicline at the junction onthe left rear brake

caliper. And we wereguided to a back-streetgarage where amechanic, working withworn-out tools, brazedon a length of pipe withnipple from a crashedLand Rover. A repairthat went the distance.

When our turn came tostart the Niono-Timbuktustage, we had recoveredto 27th place after drop-ping to 40th at Gao.With that choke out, wewere managing enoughpace to put on a goodshow, and our moralewas up.

But not for long. Ourplan to make up a fewmore places that daywas thwarted after 35miles. We had passed12 cars as weapproached what theroute notes warned wasa sharp left over ahump-back bridge cross-ing a canal. Dust hungthick over the corner asI turned into it. Thenwham. The driver aheadhad over-shot the cor-ner, and was reversingback on to the stageand into his own dust.

Our damage: batteryand radiator crushed;track rod and steeringslave arm contorted;both steering dampersdestroyed; right-handfront wheel scrappedand brake caliper frac-tured. But we were run-ning again in two hourswith the help of villagersand two mechanics fromBL France. We got anew radiator, slave armand lightweight Varleybattery from the LeylandMarathon. A local black-smith straightened thetrack rod.

But, 30 miles later, wewere halted for another

four hours. The earthlead, secured to the ter-minal post by beingclamped between twowashers, fell off. WhenI'd opened up the pleat-ing and jammed it overthe post, I found the bat-tery hadn't yet taken onenough charge to re-start the engine. And thesand was too thick forthe two of us to bump-start the car. We had tosweat it out until anorganisers' sweep carcame through, and wetook a jump start from itsbattery.

We drove the remain-ing 300 miles toTimbuktu with no brakesacross depressinglydeep, seemingly endlesssand, and arrived, muchto everyone's surprise,at midnight.

Removing the brokencaliper next morningmeant I could make ajury-rig with three brakeswhich made driving veryinteresting. Especiallywhen we crested a sanddune at 60 mph andfound a " super-yump" -a 6ft ledge off which weleaped. Had I used thethree-wheel brakes, wewould have gone offsideways and rolledconclusively, but welanded straight andbroke only the rubber inan engine mount.

We bought a brakecaliper from a crashedRange Rover that nightin Gao, and anotherteam gave us an enginemount. So, by morning,with the help of twoEnglish brothers motor-ing through to EastAfrica, we were back inthe hunt.

Repairs en routeinclude having a crack in



Clockwise from top left:

Over sparse bush country on the stage to Mopti; the Gumpert/Eder VW Iltis kicks up a bow-wave of dust;Mont Hombori - helpful landmark on the trail to Timbuktu;Freddy Kotulinsky's winning VW Iltis; The Marreau brothers who finished third in the car class

with their Sinpar converted 4x4 Renault 4;

The Christian Neveu Range Rover Turbo starts the spe-cial stage from Am Salari; Ladies’ Prize winner Christine Beckers sets off at dawnfrom Kolokani with her lightweight Range RoverPictures by Anne Hope and Tony Howard


TED TOLEMAN stoodIn that most English ofplaces - Savile Row -and said: "Now we'reready to tackle theParis-Dakar rally."His bid is being support-ed by the Daily Expressand our famousCrusader symbol will beon his Range Rover.Yesterday Toleman hadthe Range Rover inLondon parked outsideanother of his support-ers, the tailors Glevesand Hawkes.They have presentedhim with a replica of theconsul's cap they madefor the explorerLivingstone when hewent to darkest Africaover a century ago.And yesterday theygave him a wicker bas-

ket - they call it a sur-vival kit - containing,among otherthings, strongdrink and atin of Fortnumand Mason'sthick oxtailsoup.It was all terri-bly British,but it didn'tobscure themain pur-pose: tomount a seri-ous assaulton one of theworld's tough-est events,starting southof Paris onJanuary 1and spanningsome 9,000miles.

"The vehicle has beencompleted, we've been

testing it. All systemsare go," Toleman said.

the radiator brazed up,and three puncturesrepaired by a man whodarned gashes in theinner tubes with needleand thread before stick-ing on the patches.

In Bamako, the Maliancapital, the Land Roveragent was pulling out allthe stops help competi-tors, but this eagernessto please was ironicallyto be our undoing.

While all the oil filterswere being changed, Ichecked the undersideof the car and found thesteering drop arm balljoint had also suc-cumbed to the accident.To my delight the pro-duced a replacementdrop arm from thestores, but they didn'thave the right puller toremove the old one. Soa mechanic the size of

Muhammad Ali got towork with hammer andchisel.Fighting on

Despite my pleas thathe and the workshopdirector forget it andtighten up the nut, theyfinally succeeded inremoving the drop armand destroyed it theprocess. But, when theyoffered up the replace-ment, it had the wrongsplines.

Undaunted, they set towith a hacksaw bladeand file to re-work thesplines to fit, and even-tually succeeded in jam-ming the new drop armon the steering box spin-dle. And, at 5 am, I tooka test drive around thetown, sceptical but atleast will a tenuouschance of still finishing.

That hope lasted

another three days.Halfway through theNioro-Kayes stage, wecame over a yump and,as we landed, I turnedthe wheel to follow theroad to the right. Butthere was no steeringresponse and weknocked over a hugethorn tree thatenveloped the car. Oncehad extricated the careverything still worked,except those drop armsplines. We had a littlelock to the left and hard-ly any to the right. Sothere was nothing forbut to teeter to the endof the stage, our rallyover with all but 85miles of special stagesbehind us and only threedays and 500 miles tothe finish.

With no chance of get-ting a replacement drop-

arm we had load the caraboard a goods train forthe nastiest railway rideof a lifetime - 400 milesin 62 hours, unable towash and living offtinned beans and hotCoca Cola.

Rallying certainly is fullof ifs and buts. If it had-n't been for over-eagersteering repair, I'm con-vinced we'd have gonedistance. If a fool hadn'treversed into his owndust, we might have fin-ished strongly. But, nev-ertheless, we were wellpleased with getting asfar we did. And, addic-tive as the Rallye Oasisis, we're look forward totrying again in 1981,very much wiser thanwe were before.

Autocar 15 March 1980

Teddy is ready to launch a Dakar crusadeBy CHRISTOPHER HILTON, DAILY EXPRESS, Friday December 19 1986

DRIVING AMBITION Ted Toleman, Barry Lee, Tony Howard andRobert Gieve, head of the family tailoring firm who presented Ted witha consul's cap as made for African explorer David Livingstone


AFTER we first met inthe mid-1960s, Anneand I dove in and out ofeach other's lives downthe decades, as onedoes.

Enterprising and ener-getic, she had an apti-tude to enrage one tothe extent of wanting toklop her with a shovel atone extreme and at theother was capable ofacts of awesome gen-erosity. Nowhere wasthis writ larger than dur-ing my first foray acrossthe Sahara with her in1980. By this time, I wasnews editor of Autocarafter some years gettingAfrican dust up mynose, and she was oneof our stringers, persist-ently feeding stories tome.

One morning sherang, and the conversa-tion went something likethis: "Fancy a driveacross the Sahara?""Oh, er, right-oh," said I.And next thing youknow, we were at a veryswanky party in Paris,seemingly attended byeverybody who wasanybody.

The Widow Cliquotflowed generously at myoptimum rate, exoticbands played toe-tap-ping music, bare breast-ed African maidensswayed in harmony, anddelicious Maghrebsnacks were served.

Along one wall, themainsail from EricTabarley's ocean racingyacht Pen Duick was

draped across an eche-lon of Range Rovers,waiting to be unveiled.Even that early in Paris-Dakar's history, onesensed that the winningvehicle would instantlybecome the bolide ofchoice among the smartpeople on the Champs-Élysées, or Elysian -celestial - Fields as sim-pletons like me some-times say.

Anne and I returned toParis after Christmas,accompanied by Marcusand Claire, and wereentertained royally byLeyland France PRdirector Humbert Carcel,the canny hand behindour involvement.Humbert and I alsofound time for a bit offancy footwork to com-plete preparation andequipment of the RangeRover allocated to Anneand me.

Nursing gentle hang-overs on New Year'smorning, we set off on legrand adventure. Amonth later, Claire toldme she and Marcushadn't a prayer of see-ing us strut our stuffthrough the first specialstage near Orléans as,to the exclusion of allelse, their hosts were sointent on a decent lunch.

Next thing we knew,we were bivouackedhigh in the Atlas moun-tains, teeth-chatteringlychilly. After queuingthrough the night for 300litres of go-juice to behand-pumped into our

tanks, we found a briskpace and Anne's naviga-tional bent becameapparent.

However, we wereperiodically thwarted bya mysterious decline inpower, which wouldrevive after we had beenat a standstill for 10-15minutes, allowing us tore-pass many who hadovertaken us while sta-tionary.

Months or even yearslater, the diagnosisemerged that the causewas fuel pump suctionclustering fine sandaround the conical microfilter on the pick-up inthe tank.

After Timbuktu, a com-petitor ahead wrong-slotted and reversed intohis own dust cloud justas we arrived at the cor-ner. Want to be xeno-phobic? Then go aheadand say it could onlyhave been a Belgian.

Jury-rigging repairs,we pressed on with onlya small Varley batterystrapped in place of theshattered original, nofan and no front brakes,which made the nextthree days quite inter-esting. But, all throughthis, Anne sat cheerfullyegging me on.

Eventually, the steer-ing failed as a result ofwell-meaning repairs ata workshop in Bamako.

Cresting a yump, Isteered into a corner,and then we sat help-less as the car kerangedstraight on into a tree

with a dreadful shriek ofthorns across bodywork.

Thus we completedour run to Dakar sittingin the Range Rover,itself lashed onto a flat-bed rail freight truck.During the 70-hour jour-ney, I was pitched offthe truck onto the track,and had to sit immobilefor two days in somepain with knee andankle the size of foot-balls. That was anotherof my nine lives gone fora Burton.

When eventually wedid arrive exhausted inthe early hours andfound a small rat-infest-ed hotel, surrounded bypretty tarts offering me agood time, it was Annewho went way beyondthe call of duty or friend-ship by contriving thather invalid driver shouldunwittingly have the onlyremaining bed while sheslept on a bench.

This was the sameAnne who a week earlierhad dropped our RangeRover's bonnet (45 kg ifI remember rightly) onme, when forgetfully sherushed off to greet afriend while I was in upto my shoulders fettlingthe engine. She certain-ly knew how to make animpression.

And she wasn't wrongwhenever she repeatedwhat became the leitmo-tif of our little adventure:"We'll never be thesame again."

An aptitude to enrage, yetcapable of awesome generosityAnne Hope suffered a heart attack while on holiday in Tenerife with her husband TomSmith. She died on June 20, 2012 at the age of 80. Anthony Howard pays tribute....


Getting the story out...

There is always plenty more, for example...

Kyalami, South Africa

Autocar news desk,London

Zouîrât,République

Islamique deMauritanie

Daily Mirror London-Mexico World Cup Rally:news centre at Holborn Circus

Labé, République de Guinée


ONCE upon a time, back in theglory days, Fleet Street thrivedamid rivers of alcohol, oldSpanish practices, the chatter oftelex machines and the unmistak-able Linotype hot lead aroma.What kept this ramshackle thrilleron the road was its firm grip onnational advertising revenues andits prime position as provider ofnews and entertainment.However, national newspapers'near-monopoly faced an increas-ing challenge as independent tel-evision began flexing its musclesfrom the mid-1950s.Amid the doom and gloom of

the Harold Wilson era - charac-terised by industrial unrest andthe devaluation of sterling -national morale got a much need-ed fillip when England beatGermany in the 1966 World Cupfinal at Wembley. Two years later, at the instiga-

tion of Daily Express proprietorSir Max Aitken and his henchmenJocelyn Stevens and TommySopwith Jr, the first London-Sydney Marathon began its9,600-mile land route fromCrystal Palace on a greyNovember weekend. The ideawas to cheer everyone up, boostcirculation, promote British engi-neering and nurture exports tothe 12 countries en route. After high drama towards the

finish, Andrew Cowan and hisHillman Hunter came through toclaim the £10,000 prize andacres of ink. Paddy Hopkirk,famed for his giant-killing 1964Monte Carlo Rally win in a MiniCooper, finished second. Hopkirksacrificed his chance of victorywhen he stopped to assist theleader Lucien Bianchi and co-driver Jean-Claude Ogier aftertheir head-on accident 150 miles

from the finish.Quietly observing all this from

behind a cloud of Havana smokewas Australian ad-man WyltonDickson, the brains behind the1966 World Cup Willie mascot,who had a chance encounter withHopkirk at a drinks party inChelsea. Hopkirk recently reminded me:

"Wylton asked me what my gamewas. I said professional rally driv-er, and he asked me what a rallywas. So I explained, mentioningLondon-Sydney." Dickson put two and two togeth-

er and came up with 10: Howabout the mother and father of allmotoring contests running fromthe previous World Cup venue tothe next - London to Mexico City- in 1970?Next question: what kind of

organisation was big enough andsilly enough to risk putting its

Forty years ago the Daily Mirror spent a packet backing the London to Mexico World Cup Rally.Tony Howard sketches in the background to this supreme motoring contest with a topical soccerflavour, and looks at a new book chronicling the epic.


financial muscle behind such ahare-brained scheme?Why, the Daily Mirror of course.

In those days, it stood like acolossus in its purpose-builtHolborn Circus HQ, now hub ofthe Sainsbury supermarketempire, and its 5 million-odd dailycirculation was the world'slargest. Dickson made his pitch, saw his

idea deftly appropriated, andfound himself confined to theshadows. He later confided to methat he resolved thenceforth toretain firm control over any futurebright ideas, for instance his 1974UDT London-Sahara-MunichWorld Cup Rally and 1977Singapore Airlines London-Sydney Rally.As the complex, highly-politi-

cised worlds of motor sport andthe media converged the result-ing ego clashes were analogousto the Large Hadron Collider. Mygood fortune was to be a Mirrorfoot soldier in the thick of all this,charged with maintaining rallynews flow to the 22 countriesfrom which the 106 entrantsarrived. This involved crucial journalist

skills such as smoking, drinkingand keeping very unsocial hours -long before blackberries, sat-phones, wi-fi laptops, e-mail ordigital photography. For I wascaptive between the varying timezones competitors were in fromday to day and the deadlines ofBritish and foreign media as farafield as Argentina, Australia andThailand - all anxious for stories.Appropriately, the start was

scheduled for Wembley Stadiumwhere Bobby Moore was to digup a sod of hallowed turf for re-planting in the Aztec Stadium.Raymond Baxter, Spitfire pilotand the voice of BBC Television'sTomorrow's World, was signed togive the start line commentary.Then some bright spark decidedthe event had to be more familyfriendly, and hired Ginger Baker'sAir Force jazz-rock band at hugeexpense to play a 20-minute gig

at the half-way mark. Nothingwas too good for our readers. After running out of media arm-

bands in face of unannouncedarrivals from all over the world, Ihad 100 copies of a grandiosely-worded laissez-passer roneo'd forthem. Once the boys in bluedetected this misdemeanour, Iwas twice fired and re-instated,then eventually congratulatedheartily. There was further consternation

when Ginger and the boys over-ran their allotted time, oblivious tofrantic signals to cease. Theywere only just getting into theirstride when power to their ampli-fiers and huge speakers was cut.And one unappreciative competi-tor called the performance "afrightful racket".Writing Where they are - day by

day for the official programme(price 4 shillings) was prettyexhausting, I quipped to col-leagues. So doing the real thingwas bound to be a touch ardu-ous. With exquisite understate-ment, IPC Newspapers chiefEdward Pickering remarked: "Iunderstand that the tougher arally is, the more it pleases com-petitors. Even as a non-expert, itseems clear to me that the DailyMirror World Cup Car rally isgoing to make a lot of competi-tors extremely happy."To warm things up, the rally first

took a brisk week-long 4,500-mile(7,300 km) tour of 16 Europeancountries, an hour ahead ofLondon. Once in South America,the remaining 11,500-mile(18,690 km) route was three toseven hours behind us, whichmostly entailed waiting late intothe night for any snippets thatcould be cobbled into stories andtelexed to grateful distant recipi-ents. So I lived just around thecorner in the Waldorf Hotel for amonth, and sustained my staminaby re-fuelling regularly at theStab-in-the-Back, where therewas a reliable telephone.Shipping the cars from Lisbon to

Rio de Janeiro took a couple of

weeks, and just to keep things onthe boil the Mirror hosted a majorblack-tie thrash for 200 thirstyautomotive luminaries atLondon's Savoy Hotel. I don'tknow where they found themoney, but we sure knew how tospend it. The Mirror's overall rallybudget was supposedly£250,000, but the smoke and mir-rors department eventually had tofind £1 million plus, a vastamount of money in those daysand maybe the last of FleetStreet's serious such extrava-gances.Inevitably, the post-mortem

found it was a jolly good jape thatunderscored the Mirror's prestigewith established readers andadvertisers. But it could scarcelyhave built new circulation or rev-enues in Latin America or main-land Europe. Furthermore, FleetStreet rivals had essayed spoilersby sponsoring likely front-runners. The Evening Standard and

Woman each backed contendersfor the ladies' prize, a battle wonby Standard's Rosemary Smith,Alice Watson and GinetteDerolland. The Daily Express andSunday Express rode with a fac-tory Ford Escort apiece, and theDaily scooped third place withRauno Aaltonen and HenryLiddon. The Daily TelegraphMagazine drew the best cards,however, winning with the Escortdriven by Hannu Mikkola andGunnar Palm. Great events invariably evoke

widely differing viewpoints. In hislavishly illustrated new bookWorld Cup Rally, GrahamRobson makes a pretty good fistof telling it how it was from theperspective of the on-the-roadorganising team and the competi-tors. He was right in the thick of itas one of the rally controllersleapfrogging along the route. Aformer competitor and team man-ager, he is steeped in the sport,and as author of some 130 bookshe is a practised hand at gettingthe words in the correct order.Robson calls the contest "the


longest, the toughest, and themost ambitious rally that theworld had ever known", makingall previous rallies look second-rate. He opines: "No other motor-ing event has ever included somany big names, so many excel-lent cars, so much ultra-profes-sional competition, and so manystupendous performances,achievements and incidents."There may be a low murmur ofdissent from some of us whohave tried our hands at the annu-al trans-Sahara Rallye Paris-Dakar, initiated almost a decadelater, but let's not spoil Robson'sentertaining party. "Forty years on," he writes," we

know that no modern organisingbody would ever allow such a tir-ing schedule to be set - duringthe 15-day South American sec-tion there were only four officialovernight rest halts - and wedoubt that the 'official' averagespeeds set on some open-roadsections in South America wouldever again be nodded through bythe authorities." Certainly, down the subsequent

decades, a sophisticated safetyculture has taken firm root in allforms of motor sport. Thoughyou'd be hard pressed to recallanyone going to the start line dur-ing the past century with a gunpointed at his head.It's as well that Robson didn't

wait until the rally was half a cen-tury old, or he'd have missed theopportunity to harvest first-handrecollections from main protago-nists, now in their 60s and 70s,while too many others arealready no longer alive. One of his main sources is ebul-

lient rally secretary John Sprinzel,now 78, who made the first reccein South America. Robson visitedSprinzel at home in Hawaii, whileothers in his cast of charactersread like a motor sporting Who'sWho from a golden age. Amongthem are Paddy Hopkirk, flyingFinns Rauno Aaltonen and HannuMikkola (fresh-faced London-Mexico winner in The Telegraph

Magazine-sponsored Ford),Stuart Turner (once Ford ofEurope motor sport director),Peter Browning (former BritishLeyland competitions manager)and even HRH Prince Michael ofKent.As Sprinzel and his two com-

padres journeyed around SouthAmerica attempting to transforma theoretical line on a map into aviable rally route, they encoun-tered plenty of obstacles. Notleast of these was the world'slongest mountain range, sittingslap-bang along six countriesthrough which the rally was topass - Argentina, Chile, Bolivia,Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.With an average altitude of13,000 ft (4,000 metres), theAndes extend 4,300 miles (7,000km) north to south and 120 miles(200 km)-430 miles (700 km) eastto west.The implications of high altitude

began to dawn on the intrepid triowhen their car punctured a tyre16,000 ft (4,877 metres) up in themountains. "We got out of thecar, and spent a lot of time justlaughing about it," Sprinzelremembers. "We couldn't do any-thing because our brains weren'tworking too well up there." This was to become a major

preoccupation for competingteams, concerned lest their crewsand cars performed below parwhile driving flat-out in thin air.The British Leyland team con-ducted tests in a decompressionchamber at RAE (Royal AircraftEstablishment) Farnborough.Paddy Hopkirk said: "We werecocky about this, but they wouldask us what 2 + 2 was, and wewould answer 15, or somethinglike that." Then there was the - allegedly -

apocryphal exchange oftelegrams between Ford's StuartTurner and his driver RogerClark, on a recce in the Andes. Iparaphrase: Turner - "Need toknow effects of lack of oxygen ataltitude. Make love to local girl at14,000 ft (4,267 metres). Report

back." Clark - "No girls at 14,000ft. So tried it 14 times at 1,000 ft.Will this do?"In addition to the personalities,

speed, daring and challenges ofmany kinds, the great attractionof motor rallying is that it leadsyou into all sorts wonderful partsof the world you might never oth-erwise see, and at times of dayand night when you should betucked up in bed. A choice mem-ory of mine was cresting a rangeof hills at dawn to see mistsabove the Limpopo river delta litup from the left by a huge fullmoon and from the right by ablazing African sunrise - no cam-era lens was wide enough cap-ture it all. Robson's World Cup Rally nar-

rative zips along at a brisk tempothrough the many twists andturns of an epic that began as asimple brilliant idea over a coupleof drinks and took on a life of itsown as so much talent, energyand money was thrown behind it. I could smell the hot oil, sense

the dust in my nostrils, hear theclatter of stones and rocks in thewheel arches, feel the car slidingaround beneath me, and endurenear-hallucinatory fatigue kept atbay by adrenaline rushes andsheer bloody-minded determina-tion. Hyperbole? Ach-yes-well-no-fine, as they say in South Africa.All that plus 250 colour and monopictures of the characters, theaction, the heartbreak and myfavourites - those incredibleAndean vistas.

The Daily Mirror 1970 World CupRally 40 by Graham Robson (208pages hardback, VelocePublishing, £35 UK / $69.95USA) www.veloce.co.uk ISBN978-1-845842-71-0

by Anthony Howard forPress Gazette and Motor Sport


MEDIA BRIEFINGPARIS-DAKAR-RALLY, January 1-20, 1981BACKGROUNDThis event covers 6,000 miles, of which two-thirdsare 20 flat-out special stages, each timed to theminute. Weather varies from snow and ice to tem-peratures up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The route runs from Paris - taking in two "conven-tional" short special stages - to Sète in the South ofFrance where competitors embark for Algiers.

The Sahara crossing via Tamanrasset andTimeiaoune is made in three days with navigationoften by compass. Nights are spent in bivouacs inthe open desert.

In Mali, tenuous vegetation presages a marginallyless-sparse way of life. But, if anything, the goingbecomes even tougher en-route for Timbuktu, epit-ome of the most inaccessible habitation on earth.It's a difficult place to reach, but even harder to getaway from with hundreds of miles of axle-deepsand to slog through.

Then comes relief on fairish roads through sugarcane fields irrigated by canals from the great RiverNiger.

Turning south through Upper Volta towards theIvory Coast, temperature and humidity increase, asdoes lushness of the vegetation. But roads deterio-rate. At this time of year, they are baked hard asconcrete in the profile imprinted by large trucks onthe mud of the rainy season.

This is the mid-point of the event. Tempers beginto fray, relationships become strained. And vehiclesshow inherent weaknesses, lack of driver sympa-thy, and lack or otherwise of preparation. By now,strong men have cried, or threatened their fellowswith entrenching tools.

Longest special stage in the rally runs 450 milesfrom Bobo-Dioulasso to Kampti in Upper Volta, andthree of the other stages are of a similar distance.

From the Ivory Coast, the route turns north andinto Mali again before heading west towardsSenegal. Fast gravel roads give way once more torocky trails and heavy sand where it takes a hardday's drive to cover 150 miles.

For those who manage to keep going for thesethree weeks of self-inflicted deprivation, comes thejoy of a final bivouac beside the Atlantic Ocean.This is followed by a last special stage, blasting 60miles along the beach to Dakar.SOLE BRITISH ENTRY

Tony Howard and John Miles are the only Britishcrew in the 1981 Paris-Dakar Rally.

Their Range Rover, provided by BL and LANDROVER LTD, has been prepared by JANSPEEDENGINEERING of Salisbury and WM AUTODEVELOPMENTS of London to run in the categoryfor standard four-wheel-drive vehicles up to 3.5tonnes.

Additional equipment includes a specially-fabricat-ed 45-gallon petrol tank to allow a range of 550miles at high speed without re-fuelling.

Safety precautions include a Fire-Eater built-inextinguisher system aimed at the big tank, six-point

roll-cage, four-point safety harnesses, six gallonsreserve of water for drivers and/or radiator; threespare wheels, distress flares.

Instrumentation by SMITHS INDUSTRIESincludes a metric speedometer and rev counter.Special seats by RECARO are trimmed in tan so asnot to show the dust.

Sophisticated time/distance measuring equipmentfrom RAM ELECTRONICS makes use of the latestmicro technology, taking its information from a smallsensor at each rear wheel. Lighting by CIBIEincludes four Super Oscar long-range lights, a pairof which are mounted on the scuttle in case ofdamage to the front of the car.

BL's UNIPART has provided most of this ven-ture's complement of spare parts and tools, careful-ly chosen to make the crew as self-sufficient aspossible in maintaining their Range Rover for threeweeks of some of the toughest competitive motor-ing in the world. Spares include a second set ofadjustable Koni shock absorbers.

BP is a major backer of this venture, flying theflag for Britain in an event largely the domain of theFrench.THE CREWJohn Miles (37) was a works driver with Lotus from1967 to 1970. He was responsible for much of theteam's development driving, and raced in 15Grands Prix. He won the 1971 British Sports CarChampionship and the 1972 Six Hours Race atPaul Ricard, sharing a works Ford Capri with BrianMuir. Miles then worked on race engine develop-ment before turning to journalism in 1977, becom-ing a member of Autocar magazine's technicaldepartment.Tony Howard (36) was, until recently, AssistantEditor of Autocar which he joined in 1977. Beforethat he worked as a journalist for six years in SouthAfrica. His wide experience of African motoringincludes the Kalahari Desert, the Roof of Africa(Lesotho), as well as the 1980 Paris-Dakar Rallywhich he drove with fellow-journalist Anne Hope ina Range Rover. It was this that prompted him toapproach BL for backing for a second attempt.Howard is possibly the fastest journalist on land -more than 200 mph as a passenger in the jet-pow-ered Project Thrust World Lane Speed Record car.THE COMPETITIONThere are 160 entries for the 1981 Paris-Dakar

Rally. Of these, 60 are motor cycles, 70 are four-wheel-drive cars, 15 are two-wheel-drive cars, and10 are heavy trucks - the balance are "special vehi-cles."Notable entries include Jacky Ickx in a Citroen

CX, a "Rolls-Royce Corniche" special with four-wheel-drive and space frame chassis, and twolightweight Range Rovers prepared in Britain for BLFrance with five-speed gearboxes, "tweaked"engines and anti-lock brakes.Four-wheel-drive cars are divided into two main

categories - "anything goes", and "standard". It is inthe latter that Miles and Howard are hoping for suc-cess....endsIssued by Tony Howard, December 23 1980


Hot rides

Ford Cortina V6, Port Elizabeth

Ford Escort BDA, Cape Town

Ford Capri 3.0, MIRA

Range Rover, Exercise Cop Drive

Formula Finesse winner with Jackie Stewart

Just 17: with Charlie Dawkins on the Land’s EndTrial

At Bob Bondurant’s anti-hijack school, SearsPoint. California

GMSA’s Nomad, Cape Flats

With John Miles after completing the Paris-Lisbonleg of an Autocar team exercise, driving the newMetro around Europe


Ford’s Desert Challenge-winning Bronco

Ford Grenada, Rovaniemi, Arctic Circle

VW Jetta GTi, Precott Hill Climb

Filming Yorkshire TV’s Winning Streak

Ford TW35 6.6-litre turbo diesel AWD tractorWith Richard Noble for a first ride in Thrust II

F1 McLaren-DFV, Brands hatch

With John Surtees in P68-DFV sports prototype

With Hannua Mikkola in Audi Quattro

With Johnny Dumfries in 7-litre V12 Jaguar XJR-9Le Mans car

The sheer hell of this desert ordeal The long hard road to Timbuktu · 2020. 1. 27. · Desert rat:...

Documents

Transcript of The sheer hell of this desert ordeal The long hard road to Timbuktu · 2020. 1. 27. · Desert rat:...