Syd Stelvio Peking to Paris 25 - Day 16 – Almaty to Shymkent – 754km

Almaty is a bustling city, and somewhat of a crossroads of cultures on the Silk Road. The former Kazakh capital is full of bars and restaurants, all tempting propositions but, all best avoided by everyone in our contingent, as day 16 was set to be a long one. In fact, the longest on the event, at a whopping 754km.

The first car rolled out onto the quiet city streets at 7am, and whilst the centre has quite the cosmopolitan vibe, the sprawling suburbs are more of what you might expect from this part of the world. A mix of ramshackle architecture and the faded signs of local businesses, with the occasional neon facades of more recent commercial ventures, representing the technicolour dreams of a younger generation. These would be the bright spots of a fairly drab day colour wise, as the surrounds throughout the day were a mix of desaturated yellows and browns.

Our first competitive section of the day was also at one of Kazakhstan’s newest developments, a test within the Sokol International Circuit, a facility built with FIA funding and soon to host the MotoGP. We weren’t on the full circuit though, instead the competitors were completing two laps of the large kart circuit. Gerd Bühler enjoyed the best day out around the circuit, with he and Laurenz Feierabend recording a best time of 3:14 in the Porsche 911.

Next up was a tricky slot off the main highway onto a sandy track, that offered up the day’s first and only regularity. Navigationally it wasn’t too tricky, although there were a few choices of track, some of which had deeper furrows cut into the extremely fine and dry sand, and a couple of places where there was a fork to catch out the unwary. There were some casualties as well, including long time Classic Category leaders Harold Goddijn and Corinne Vigreux, and John Henderson and Lui MacLennan taking the wrong track and losing two minutes a piece across the reg. It was worse for Christos Livades and Chris Papaioannou in Chevrolet Deluxe and Christina and Alex Gruber in the Bentley MKVI Special, as they missed the controls completely, and were subject to ten minutes of penalty each. Andrew and David Scowcroft also wrong slotted in the Mustard Fangio, but were struggling with a sticking throttle, not an ideal scenario to be in on a slippery reg.

It was a delight to see the lesser spotted car 27 on the road this morning, Mike Schultz and Johann Ersnt have suffered lots of bad luck in the Ford Super Deluxe, and sadly at the end of the regularity had to pull over again, with a failed head gasket, a rotten run of form, we will all be hoping they can get it fixed.

Just a few miles down the road from the regularity, there was a Sporting Time Control section to enjoy, across more dirt tracks that followed the contours of the rolling hills and farmland the route was now travelling through. We would be offroad for quite a few kilometres now, and the track was treacherous, with off camber sections, tricky descents, and scrambling climbs. The navigators were earning their keep through here, relaying the road book instructions, especially important when more than one path appeared, as the wrong choice could easily lead the cars onto long abandoned tracks that turned quickly into terrain only a tank would be able to pass, all whilst maintaining the pace required by the STC. There was plenty of confusion on the perilous paths, with plenty of wrong slots and cars tripping over one another, but for the rally leaders, Jorge and Cristobal Perez Companc, the path was a smooth one, and they cleaned the section.

The opposite approach was needed post time control, as the path became rougher, passing the odd farmhouse before approaching an isolated village that was a warren of streets and alleys. This also signalled the end of the dirt, but not before negotiating an extremely rutted road into the settlement, a surface of deep grooves and gulleys that required careful examination from the drivers.

The rest of the day was a long run into the finish, largely on multiple lane highways. It wasn’t an exciting drive and hammered home just how large and empty Kazakhstan is, a precursor of what is to come as we head further west. There were the seemingly never-ending peaks of the Tian Shan range to stare at, particularly alluring as we ran close to the Kyrgyzstan border, with the snow-capped mountains towering above the manned watch towers that lined the boundary.

The long transit run was also an introduction to the modus operandi of the local drivers, which appeared to be a desire to travel from a to b as quickly as possible, with scant regard for the laws of physics and an appreciation that two objects cannot occupy the same space at once. This was particularly risky on an uphill section towards the end of the day, which seemed to be where Kazakhstani HGV’s go to die, with the inner carriageway and hard shoulder littered with marooned trucks. It should also be noted that the most aggressive drivers, were also piloting old German saloons, in variable states of repair, as though DTM banger racing, and there was also a continuous stream of Lada’s.

Back to our rally and the rapscallion of a regularity had shaken the order up somewhat, with the Perez Companc crew now at the top of the leaderboard completely, as well as first in the main competition. Gerd Bühler and Laurenz Feierabend have now taken over as leaders of the Classic Category, 48 seconds to the good over our former long-time leaders Goddijn and Vigreaux.

Syd