|
As preparations were in progress on the Kitchen table right before our eyes, Tom Morgan told us about how the rally is the worst organised in the world and how he's encouraging entrants on motorbikes... well, mopeds at least. After losing a small personal fortune organising the rally last year - how are things different this time around? This year is an awful lot bigger - we kept it small last year because we didn't know what we were doing - and although we're in our second year we still don't really know what we're doing , but there's nearly a 100 potential teams - we reckon that'll drop to about fifty though, which is still an awful lot of rubbish cars trying to get to Mongolia! Are you planning on following the same route or would that be a boring for your sense of adventure? No, the route has got much more interesting. Teams can go whatever way they want either through Moscow, Kiev or Istanbul - depending where they want to go. Will the poor motoring conditions along the way come as a surprise to people who don't know better? Yeah, Mongolia and Kazakhstan in particular top the bad road bill with the biggest potholes in the world! But that's the highlight of the race. I've got a picture of my car parked in one divot in the road and you can only just see the roof of the car and the tops of the windows!
There's probably about 100 feet of tarmac per fifty miles of dirt track. But even the tarmac has huge pot holes! One competitor trashed his car by driving into one last year and he knackered his wheels, gear box and shock absorbers. How did you manage to stay on the right side of the law which is often made up according to the mood of the cop? All across central Asia and Russia they have quite a reputation for robbing people. One of the guys had his digital camera confiscated from him. The police demanded $200 before they gave it back. When they're standing there with a big gun you basically have to do what they say - although really they're just underpaid and corrupt and all they're really looking for is money, not to put holes in people. And how often did you find yourself looking down the nasty end of a gun?
A lot! It's not like here where you generally only get stopped if you've done something wrong - we had to deal with these guys every 50 or 60 miles. In Russia they wave you down with these long batons and this one guy just kind of twitched his at the end of what must have been a long day - we didn't know if he was trying to wave us down or not and basically we couldn't be bothered to stop again! Then I looked behind me and he was waving his baton like mad and I just pretended not to notice and drove on. 5 minutes later he drew up alongside us in a police car with lights and sirens going and a machine gun hanging out of the window, which is when we decided it was a good idea to stop because legally they're allowed to shoot you if you don't comply! Hmmm, is travel insurance a problem? Erm, well... we don't give too much away when taking out a policy - and car insurance; we just deal with it on the boarder. Last year you set off from London in the tiniest of cars, a fiat 126 - was it reliable? No, it broke down 38 times! The worst was when the leaf suspension snapped in the middle of the desert. We had to find a mechanic who went and found a welder who took 9 hours to fix it by transplanting bits from an old Muskowitz. It's a long time cramped up in a rubbish tiny car, got any stories of fights breaking out between team members or even any love stories?
There were a couple last year. Art and Archie used to have the most hilarious tiffs with each other and we used to look forward to the next time they would fall out - but it never came to any entertaining blows. Maybe that will happen this year! What do you do about personal hygiene? Nothing usually. We begin to absolutely stink, but you and your co driver both stink so it doesn't matter too much! It's when people's faces screw up when you meet them that it's time to make and effort to wash. We went to a restaurant in Kazhakstan and a lady said "Where have you been so dirty?!" We told her London and realised we hadn't washed for thousands of miles! And sleeping... Again, not a lot We often tried to drive through the night but got so tired we found ourselves either hallucinating or falling asleep so we ended up pulling over to get a few hours. You could only get somewhere to stay if you were in a town which was hassle anyway - so normally we'd just kip on the side of the road. This year though, we are going to try and organise a few strategic meeting points along the way so we can have a bit of a party from time to time and maybe some sleep. This year you're also planning on introducing a different form of transport. Yeah, I'm thinking two wheels, a sub 125cc motorbike or moped. Could be a bit dangerous on the Autobahns of Germany but should be good fun if I can persuade a couple of other people to do same and we can go along together! | 
