Syd Stelvio Peking to Paris 25 - Day 6 – Tengger Desert Camp to Jiayuguan – 688km

Boy oh boy, anyone who shied away from the camping on day four got a full bells and whistles experience on day 5, as a storm blew in over the Gobi. The wind picked up, and the rain pelted down, as the atmosphere became part water, part sand as the gusts picked up great plumes of powder from the desert floor. It was the early hours before the squall abated, and with only a few hours before it was time to rise, nobody was getting much sleep.

The first car was away at 7am this morning, with a monster 688km day ahead and an expected finish time of somewhere around 7pm. Three competitive sections would be contested, all on the sandy tracks of the Gobi, with some highway thrown in as well to allow the cars to eat up the miles on the long journey to Jiayuguan.

A long run along desert track started proceedings, before a similar length drive along a quiet highway, before turning off the main road to begin a regularity in the adjacent desert scrub. It’s at times like this you have to trust in the tulips, and your trip, as the exits from the highways always seem to be roads you just shouldn’t turn down, we aren’t talking slip roads, so much as holes in the Armco.

The track followed a loop around the sand, but with plenty of tracks to choose from, any inaccuracy in the trip had the potential for disaster. There were also some areas of soft sand to worry about, with tactical positioning of the Sweep trucks to rescue anyone who might get stuck. As it was, they had four lucky winners, Brian and John Caudwell in the number 19 Fangio, Jim Valentine and Jonathan Lodge in the AMC, and Classic leaders Harold Goddijn and Corinne Vigreux. Their last customer was car 62, who’s surnames I’m not able to publish, so we will just refer to them as James and Josh Acorns.

The speed along the desert reg had been dropped, from 50kph to 40kph, but this seemed to have been missed by a number of cars, with many arriving early at the regs sole timing point. The biggest victim of this were the rallies Argentinian leaders, Jorge and Cristobel, who accrued a minute of penalty for early arrival, though they would ace the rest of the day.

A time control section followed, through more non-descript desert, as the cars picked a lonely route along the sandy tracks, with the only company being the odd small herd of Bactrian Camels. The Camel is a stupid looking beast, but even they looked more confused than usual by the eclectic mix of motor cars, that had seemingly escaped from the museum.

The surface was dusty, but hard packed, although American crew Keith West and Richard Haslam managed to find some softer sand in the ’74 Toyota Celica, beaching themselves in the process. For others, the issue was following in the dust cloud of the car in front, leading to a large queue at the start of the section as crews waited for some space before departing the control. Tony Rowe and Mark Delling, in the 91 Ford Coupe, had more than just the sand to deal with, as their Garmin wasn’t working. This meant they had no track to follow, so were relying on the route book directions and the trip, no mean feat in the reduced visibility.

Whilst the tracks were featureless, there were glimpses of scenery in the distance, jagged mountains and the like, and as the dust under tyre turned a shade of maroon the crews could have been forgiven for thinking they had ended up on Mars.

The days second STC seemed to pose minimal problems, but there was some excitement for P2P veteran Jonathan Turner and navigator Nick English after the section, when JT’s Bentley caught fire, after the exhaust heat wrap ejected itself and the hot exhaust ignited the wooden coachwork of the 1929 machine. Thankfully, JT is faster than the Chinese fire service and extinguished the blaze before any lasting damage was done, and the pair of them will be back on the road in the morning.

There were other mechanical issues as well. Patrick Burke and Karl Schaller elected to skip the final section, with a suspected suspension issue on the Mercedes Fintail, that turned out to be an anti-roll bar link, the sensible option not just for the longevity of their trip, but also their immediate safety. Car 56, the Saab of Ivan and Tisa Pusnik had also suffered, albeit earlier in the day, and was finishing day 6 on a flat bed, with a broken top arm. Once into base though, the magic mechanics went to work and repaired the stricken Saab.

The rare mistake from crew 20 earlier in the day meant that they had surrendered the lead to Brian Scowcroft and Mark Gilmour in the Black and Maroon Fangio, after they picked up only one second of penalty all day. There were some perfect scores though, not least from Classic leaders Harold Goddijn and Corinne Vigreux, despite being swallowed by sand, as well as Tony Rowe and Mark Delling, minus their Garmin remember. Zeroes were also achieved by Marc Schätzle and Sandro Tanner in Ford 91A, Christian and Alex Gruber in a Bentley MKVI Special, as well as Francois and Cecile Abrial, campaigning a BMW 320 E21, completing fantastic five.

After such a big day, and two days of camping, no doubt everybody was ready for a long shower, before tomorrow 8am departure, for day seven of the Peking to Paris Adventure.

Syd