Badawi Trail to the Last Oasis 2026, Syd Stelvio Day 9 – Tabuk to Hail – 759km
On any endurance rally there are long days, and then there are the really long days. Today belonged to the latter group, and at 759km day 9 was the longest of the event. This was to be no monotonous transit day though, well, at least not entirely. As the day’s distance was bookended by a pair of STC sections, and the vast gap between these was even punctuated by some tourist opportunities.
It was an early start of course, and there was even a chill in the air as the day got underway. Proceedings began even earlier for car 1, the venerable Itala, and they were through the first STC before most of the other crews had even left breakfast as they attempted to give themselves the best chance of arriving at the MTC before it got dark.
On the run out of Tabuk there were a few firsts for the rally, as the countryside actually contained some decent sized trees and examples of agriculture. Goodness knows how much soil had to be imported to make something of the sand, but in amongst the rock, there were one or two green fields. This was fleeting though, as not much further along the route great dunes flared up either side of the road, and before long the view was the usual fifty shades of beige.
The first sporting section followed the familiar pattern of a loop in the desert off of the main highway, and whilst to a casual glance the wilderness appeared devoid of any undulation, the truth was quite a bit different, with the track offering plenty of ups and downs, and for those not keeping an eye on the topography, the odd unintentional leap as well! The track through the scrub appeared to be pretty well defined, but one part was causing a few issues, as cars seemed to go a little awry, including the number 3 Medcalf Dune Buggy, that thankfully avoided getting stuck as it opted for an abstract line along the section. They weren’t the only ones, as Peter and Debbie Fitzcharles and even Richard Clark and Jonathan Round opted for the less conventional lines, though the former lost 30 seconds to their rivals in the process.
As the cars each took their turn on the section, the levels of commitment were starting to reflect how close the rally is to the end. Even Arthur Monschein and Kai Wunderlich had throttled back in the white 911, that up to now has mostly been sideways through the desert. One car that perhaps ought to have been taking it easy, was the newly repaired, again, Toyota Landcruiser of Alfonso de Orleans-Borbon and Haikko Visser, that had successfully managed to have its engine bolted back in overnight. It hasn’t seemed to slow them down though, as they went full send as per usual.
Back onto the road and the start of the concentration run began, with well over 500km before the next competitive section would appear. To pass the time though, there was a Route Control that looped around the back of Al Muzzam Castle, a 17th century Ottoman Fortress. It’s fair to say if our lot had been sent out to attack it, the Ottomans would not have worried, as most crews sailed right past the landmark, before having to double back on themselves, though everyone found it eventually.
A Passage Control was next on the hit list, around a third of the way through the days distance, located at the entrance to Rainbow Rock, with plenty of time built in for the crews to drive down and see the sandstone arch, that is embedded with quartz, and for those who wished to brave the soft sand the opportunity to drive underneath for a bit of a photo op. Of course, get enough hooligans in cars together in one place and there is bound to be some silliness, and naturally there was as drivers attempted to power slide out from underneath the ancient rock formation. No decorum.
As we passed Al Ula and headed east it was time to really settle down into the drive, as the road became more and more remote and the scenery ever more barren. The huge rock formations of Al Ula seemed a long way away, as the road stretched out through the Great Nafud, or the Al-Nafud Al-Kabir, a vast sea of sand that stretches well beyond the distance we have travelled today. Even the Police became sparse out here, and the only life seemed to belong to the Sand Martins, flitting about in the air looking for something, anything, to eat.
It was hard to see how the final STC section would take place in anything other than vast swathes of empty nothing, but we should all know Saudi better than that by now, and despite the beginning of the long Time Control section taking place in exactly that landscape, the second half of the 25km long run seemed to take the cars through a portal into another dimension entirely. Great hills formed from boulders of rock, towered over grassy savanna, in a huge landscape that looked as though it might have dinosaurs running across it at any moment, as the tracks ran a shingle line between the swathes of grass and past erratically placed trees. Quite a contrast to the nothing we had been staring at for the past few hours.
Not everyone was able to enjoy the scenery though, as car 9 had fallen foul of the clutch linkage issue that had affected the car on day 5. Luckily, they had made it to the first Time Control, limiting the penalties they would incur, but they would suffer a five-minute penalty at the next control, as the Ford was fixed roadside again.
This has inevitably closed the gap between them and the Fitzcharles’ in second place, and at the close of play today there are now 2:26 seconds separating the cars. It is worth saying however, that if the time lost to mechanicals was removed, Richard Clark and Jonathan Round would only have amassed 27 seconds of penalty during the whole event, so the ball is still very much in their court. In the Classic category, the positions remained static at the sharp end, with the Mustang of Xavier and Lucas de Sarrau still leading the two Land Cruisers, with even gaps across the top three.
Tomorrow see’s the start of the additional four days of competition, added in due to the situation to the North of the region, with the first of these taking the rally back towards Madinah, as the end of the rally creeps slowly into view.
Syd.