Team Saluki DC2010 (Start +3) Roll over lay down.
To continue from where we stopped yesterday evening - we had set off in search of finding or fabricating a replacement for the 'performance' steering pump pulley that had sheared. We eventually managed to source a pulley from fellow competitor Team FJ, however it needed to be modified slightly to fit on our pump. The local fabrication shop of course had to remove the existing one from the shaft so set about taking the old pulley off with a local 'hacksaw'. To you and me a hacksaw is a hand operated tool that goes forward and back and is used for cutting metal. To the local, a hacksaw is a power operated tool that goes round very fast and grinds metal. That's right, he took a grinder to removing the small remains of the pulley. Of course, normal health and safety practices applied, he was squinting his eyes and wearing the obligatory safety sandals whilst grinding.
Regardless of how he did it, the end result was a fully functioning steering pump which was duly fitted with a new belt to the Castrol EDGE buggy. The car was ready again in when the clock had reached single digits, this time 3am. Sterling work by Rick, Gerald and Girish. To catch up on their sleep today we've decided to let James drive them to the service area. This will allow the guys to catch up on some missing sleep.
Some of the other members of the crew decided to stay up well past this hour, socialising with neighbouring team members. Even with the start of the days racing being delayed by one hour as a mark of respect on the death of Sheikh Ahmed enabling us to get a little bit of extra snooze time, can you guess which member of Team Saluki was last up ? A Team Saluki cap to the one who replies to this email first with the correct name.
And now for something more serious, the race. Since even the provisional results weren't posted until way after we sent you the update, the starting position for the buggy was in 15th place for the day, 7th overall. We had to take 10hours and 30 minutes of time penalties due to us missing waypoints yesterday but at least we're still in the running.
The start was excellent, setting off at one minute intervals, approximately two minutes after starting the buggy had caught it's first victim at the top of the first dune and had driven past the competitor as if they were out for Sunday ride in the country. This continued through the field with the buggy catching and passing the field.
By the end of PC1, the buggy was only 1:50 down on the leader, by PC2 this had dropped to 23 minutes, and by PC3 they had only dropped to 28 minutes. Continuing at this pace and they would be in second place for the day.
However, you knew there was going to be a however creeping in here didn't you. Sorry to say it was James that got THE call today, yes one of those calls. Much, much, much worse than yesterdays. On a scale from good to pretty bad, this was terrible. 180Km's into the stage at a speed of about 40Km/h it felt like the the antipodean gearbox had decided to right itself by turning the car on it's head to make the gearbox correct. The guys dropped off a dune which had a sharp drop. However due to the speed they were doing, it caused them to nose dive (remember last years video ?, No ? well it's
here). The nose dropped into the dune, Newtonian physics then took over. The back end, now travelling faster than the front, continued in an upward motion. 40Km/h it seems is fast enough to generate enough force to push the back end of the buggy the complete length of the buggy into the air.
At this point Mr Gravity took over and decided that it wanted a piece of the action. He decided to pull the back end of the buggy over the front. At this point Mark and Paul have lovely view of the sand of the empty quarter through the windscreen which is now horizontal about 3 feet above the sand and moving forward.
Mr Gravity, not content with just inverting the car decided that due to the convex layout of the roof, that it would continue to pull down on the car with the lowest point of gravity being the pivot point. Mark is obviously heavier than Paul because the car ended up lying on the drivers side at 90 Degrees to the ground. The guys were in the car, strapped in to their chairs looking at the desert horizontally. Not good.
Paul immediately pressed the emergency button on the ERTF responder beacon, the response was instant although a bit like a badly set out call centre voice menu. A voice announced "Hello, do you require a helicopter ?" Paul responded with "No." The person on the other end announced "OK, a helicopter will with you in two minutes." Once out of the car, they surveyed the damage. Given the response from the ERTF system, they perhaps should have asked for a replacement car. This one had taken a beating. Doors were missing, body panels smashed, tyres missing from their rims and hydraulics leaking. Having said that I've seen worst cars with annual safety certificates.
They were however alive which at the end of the day is all that really matters.
The search and rescue helicopter turned up (thanks guys and gals) and as a precaution Mark and Paul were taken to the nearest hospital for a check up. A couple of X-rays later and some Paracetamol to numb some pain, they get the all clear.
James, Laurie, Rick ventured into the dunes to extract the buggy. Fixing what they can to get it running again to get it out of the desert. They successfully retrieved it and it's now on the back of the trailer waiting to be returned to Dubai tomorrow morning.
Unfortunately for Team Saluki, like so many of the competitors that have fell before us, there's no other way to say it. That's us out of the challenge. It's will be a very sober mood in the camp this evening.
As always, as the event finishes on us I'll get Mark to send out one more update pulling together his take on the rally. In our first note to you we promised you a total of seven updates. Since this is only number six and there's nothing more to update you on tomorrow, we don't want to short change you. Give us a couple of days to gather our thoughts, senses and let our bodies recover.
Many thanks for your continued support.
This is Team Saluki, reporting for our entry in the Desert Challenge of 2010. Goodnight.
Regards
Team Saluki[url=http://www.teamsaluki.com][img]http://www.teamsaluki.com/vehicleheader1.jpg[/img][/url]
