Syd Stelvio – Sahara Challenge - Day 11 – Essaouira to Casablanca – 428km

There was a relatively early start for our rallyists this morning, indeed the sun was barely up when the first drivers went to warm up cars, ready for the day ahead. The call to prayer that echoed over Essaouira would rouse anyone who had perhaps snoozed the alarm one too many times, but I daresay everyone was raring to go as day 11 was the last full day of rallying in Morocco.

The scenery would change today, it was all quite similar, but also completely different. We would still see plenty of desert and lots of small, seemingly quite insular communities, but the huge elevation changes we have experienced whilst traversing the Atlas would begin to dwindle, as the route never took us too far inland from the coast.

Whilst we may not have been ascending and descending huge peaks, it wasn’t exactly Holland, either, and a lot of the route was on dirt, or broken tarmac, making for a technically challenging day. In terms of the competition, there were three regularities to contest, and they required some sharp concentration from the navigators, particularly on the third one.

Reg one took place in some quiet countryside, in between a mixture of stepped farmland, woodland and desert. The biggest surprise though, was the appearance of Car 1, the titanic LaFrance of Philip Dobson and Richard Arnold, that hasn’t been mentioned in this scripture since perhaps day 1! They have largely been doing their own thing and getting over the issues of driving such a contraption on a rally like this. It’s not impossible, but it certainly has its own difficulties, but today it was brilliant to see them getting stuck into a competitive section again.

It was even more pleasurable seeing them get stuck into one of the most technically demanding bits of driving of the trip. The scenery may be getting less dramatic, but John Spiller certainly knows how to keep things interesting until the end, as today the cars were asked to traverse a track that ran along the bed of a wadi, a route I daresay even the locals think twice about using. It was narrow, steep sided and had devious ascents and descents at various points, but the LaFrance pressed on, the din from its six-cylinder powerplant echoing off the banks of the mini gorge, and the discharge from its exhaust billowing dust and sand into the atmosphere, like a giant, snorting monster.

Regularity two soon followed regularity one, and then in the fashion of these latter days there was a long concentration run to get to grips with. This would see the rally run through the town of Nagga, and on the approach to this small populous the road began to get more and more busy with horses and carts. The reason was apparent as soon as we began to drive through the town, it was market day, and the streets were chaos. Police attempted to keep things flowing, but the main street was awash with stalls, people and livestock and there’s nothing to cause a stir amongst the gathered population of the surrounding settlements than a cavalcade of classic cars. Someone once told me that motorsport is about moments, and this was one such moment, as people looked on with glee and shouted and cheered the occupants, some event reaching out to high five drivers and navigators. It is true that during our time in Morocco, we have not always had the easiest of times with crowds – particularly with errant children, but today was full of good moments, from the crowd in the market, to school children cheering us on from playgrounds and Police positioned along almost the entire route, waving us over junctions and even through red lights to help our progress.

Progress during the day was brisk, and it was still relatively early when the cars began to arrive at regularity number three, a run across the desert and a reg in which the navigators would be tested, with a myriad of inviting tracks looking to catch out the unwary. Today, that including the so far unshakable car 6, our runaway leaders in the Chevy. They managed to lose nearly two minutes across the three timing points, offering hope to the chasing pack, perhaps the pressure is beginning to mount. They still lead the field with a bit of a cushion though, and in the podium positions behind it was very much line astern for the rest of the crews. Best on the day was Michael Rodel and Andrew Duerden, but climbing a position into the top five of the classic category, as well as being first in their class was father and daughter Thibault and Lola Hector, in the beautiful little Porsche 912, who amassed just 30 seconds of penalty today, showing off the progress they have made in the past 11 days.

Once the competitive sections were done, it was onwards to Casablanca, and as we got into the outer limits of the city, our surroundings changed in a big way. After so long picking a route through the relative wilderness, through small villages and towns, all of a sudden, we seemed to go through a time warp, as the road turned into a modern multilane highway, lined with all the trappings of the western world. Big supermarkets, DIY stores and every fast-food chain you could imagine line the tarmac artery feeding cars into and out of the city, Bergman and Bogart it wasn’t. The vehicles too had changed, after days of sharing the road with beaten up relic’s decades old, all of a sudden, the tarmac was full of brand-new cars from all of the major marques. The drive into the city at the heart of one of the most famous romantic movies, perhaps began to mark the end of the romance of our adventure. There is just half a day now before we board the boat back to Spain, and then one more half day before the finish. But, if there has been anything to learn from the rally so far, it’s that our route planner will extract every ounce of fun from this country and its roads, it ain’t done yet.

Play it, Spiller…

Syd