Syd Stelvio – Sahara Challenge Day 4 – Ifrane to Erfoud – 508 km
The longest day of the rally, and one that would see us arrive at the northernmost parts of the Sahara. It was a day of some intense driving at times, with plenty of offroad elements. There was a lot of transit as well, such is the way on an endurance rally when covering distance. Whilst the route may have used a lot of ‘main road’ though, these were not European highways, but never-ending routes that followed the ever-shifting topography, as the landscape around us left us under no illusions that we were now in a desert.
In fact, after the previous day’s environmental evolution, today, almost as soon as we were clear of the pine trees that surround Ifrane, the geography became instantly arid in appearance. It was sparse and almost oppressive, but stunning nonetheless, with the geology of the landscape laid bare, from the gravel of the desert floor to the heights of the surrounding rock formations.
The first competitive section took place in just such an environment, after turning off of the main road after some 70 km’s, the first regularity began in the bottom of a valley, tracing the path of a dried river. A quick inspection of the rocks underfoot revealed fossils of long expired sea creatures, bleached in the sun. These days the hills of the valley were inhabited by villagers, carving out a life in this harsh environment, and staring in amazement as one by one the cars of the Sahara Challenge drove the road over the hills, that is more often than not the preserve of Donkeys.
The nature of the regularity, with its slippery surface and constantly changing elevation led to plenty of errors from the crews, with nobody cleaning the section and plenty achieving maximum penalties between the timing points. Some had a better time of it than others, the Danglard’s in their Porsche being just a second early to the first timing point, on a day where they would climb up to 8th overall and third in their class, but for every penalty kept in single digits, there was another in double digits to follow.
There would be plenty of time to contemplate errors, with nearly 300 km until the next competitive section, a planned Sporting Time Control through the desert floor, navigating on waypoints. There was a route control to break things up along the way, positioned off the main highway and causing plenty of U-turns to be made – albeit with some help from the local constabulary that had positioned themselves just after the turn the competitors should have taken.
After what probably seemed like an eternity of following the same road through the desert, the asphalt suddenly ended, and the rocky desert track began. Unfortunately, the planned competitive section was cancelled on safety grounds, as the terrain had changed remarkably since the final recce had been completed. A few weeks ago, Morocco experienced serious torrential rain, and the worst flooding in a decade. A quick search with a well-known search engine will show the scale of the floods, including aerial footage of lakes that had formed between dunes, filmed just two weeks ago. We had seen evidence of the effects of the flooding on day three, but many of the wadis in this part of the desert had been deepened further, and new ones had appeared as the ground had been washed away. It was passable, with extreme caution, but to pursue any competition would have been folly.
Thankfully, the next sporting section was a goer, and would be the days last bit of competitive action and took the form of a zig-zagging route on some desert scrub off the main road, in amongst the Palm Plantations that punctuated the sparse landscape. It was largely designed to get everyone up to speed with navigating using the GPS but provided ample opportunity to get up a head of steam across the desert track. For some though, less haste and more speed might have been a better maxim to adopt, as confusion clouded any meaningful propulsion and some interesting lines were taken through the section, including one or two opting to go straight through the few pieces of vegetation that did exist.
By the close of play, there had been plenty of moving about in the leader board, with Jorge Perez Companc and Jose Volta leaping to the top of the table with a best on the day 19 seconds of penalty. Aussies Tony Sutton and Andrew Lawson had also moved up the table to sixth overall and maintaining their second in the competition. In the classic category Andrew Laing and Ian Milne had maintained their lead, with the Morgan of Trond Bràthen and Bjørn Schage in second. Third place was now in the hands of Marco Fila and Stephanie Gout-Fila, after amassing one of the better scores of the day with 34 seconds of penalty. Just behind them though, is the Mercedes of Michael Rodel and Andrew Duerden, who were the best of the Classics, with 29 seconds of penalty.
Day 5 is the day of the desert, as we head into the dunes at Merzouga, and then a desert camp. It is sure to be another great day behind the wheel.
Syd
