And we are off! Rally Day 1!

So, the day has finally arrived. May 18, 2024 and the start of the 2024 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge.

We had a great start to the rally. We all have to be at the start line for your allotted time, but there is a fantastic local display of dragon dancers, acrobats and drummers, this starts at 7am.

The first car leaves at 7.30am and then the following cars go in 1 minute intervals based on your car number, we are car 42, but we were 24 minutes after because there are a number of cars who originally enter but end up not starting. The latest to not start was car 39, he was in Beijing but then he got word that his father was seriously ill, so he turned around and went home.

Where we start is about and an hour (or longer depending on traffic) from the start, so we had decided to grab a few things to eat from the early breakfast buffet and be on the road by about 5.15am, thereby missing the traffic and get to the start area with plenty of time to enjoy the atmosphere.

However, the police instructed that they wanted all cars to leave between 5am and 6am because Putin is in town, so it was a hive of activity as all the cars scrambled to get out in time. With 75 competitor cars and around 20 organisation and local logistic cars, this is quite a feat.

So we left as we had wanted, and had a lovely quiet ride to the Great Wall, settling in nicely to our navigation and driving patterns. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, eat a bit of breakfast, freshen up and watch the entertainment.

We started at 7:54, we are the 24th car even though we’re car 42 we start a 24 minutes after the start time. On day one the start time was 7.30. After a few days we will be handicapped and the rally order will change so the rally stays together as much as possible. This helps with logistics, but also it’s important for safety.

And so, we were off! We then drove like mad crazy people. No, just joking, Andrew is a great navigator so we just got ourselves settled in and made sure we knew what we were doing and reestablished our routine.

The route took us a long beautiful country roads, it is so nice to get out of the crazy traffic of the cities. The countryside is so different. Where we drive through is very horticultural, with layers of terraces, so that very available piece of land can be planted on and harvested easily. We had a little bit of what was described as “broken road” and a sand track driving, just to get us used to the idea and settle us all in it was great fun. It certainly makes you grateful for the road quality at home!

By about 11am, we ended up at a restaurant, I use the word advisedly, but just into the car park where we did our first time-check. This gave us a chance to have something to eat and a freshen up, go to the toilet, and connect with others to see how their morning had gone. You can really see the spring vegetation contrasting with the dry environment up on the hills.

Eleanor was working very well she’s humming along quite nicely, though a bit rougher than I had thought with a fully reconditioned engine. She was starting to get her rally dirt on, so it felt we were really getting there. While we took our break, I give her engine some fresh air.

The second part of the day included a couple of regularities, this is when we have to do a certain distance in a particular average speed. It’s not something we are particularly good get, but we do it and have a great time.

Following this we went up and over a hill or a mountain, as some might call it. It was all dirt sand track it was amazing fun. We travelled up and up, along this winding road, it was very sandy in part, so there was lots of dust.

It was tough driving particularly, for Eleanor, who overheated about halfway up. However, she was not the first to overheat we passed several cars along the way. We had been watching her temperature gauge and were just looking for a flat place to stop, when she made the decision for us.

We stopped and waited for her to cool down. However, this gave me a chance to take some photos and a video of other rally cars, as they passed us.

What had happened with the engine, was the fuel had evaporated completely and no fuel was to be seen in the fuel filter. Once she had a chance to cool down Eleanor started fine and off we continued, back up the hill. And it just seemed to go on, and on and on.

It was incredibly beautiful on either side, it’s spring here so there were the parts of the ground and trees that were greening up. It's very here arid, so the contrast with the dry soils and landscape and the fresh spring green, it quite remarkable.

We had incredible sights that I was driving past at speed and unable to stop to show you. There was one place which was an abandoned village which would have been incredible to stop to photograph, but sadly no, we could not stop at that point. This is was incredible to imagine a village on this difficult road, what their life would be like, and why there had all left. There are similar villages in Oman, but usually they leave their house, for a government supported, new built village not very far away.

So with sand and dust and dirt in our eyes ears, noses, mouths and everywhere in the car, we came down the other end quite delighted. The drive down was definitely using our gears to slow us, we would have ended up burning the brakes otherwise.

We were having a small problem with the fuel supply from our large fuel tank. We have two tanks one is 60 litres and one is 90 litres. The 90 litre tank didn’t seem to be supplying well. Part of this is to do with the heat of the engine and the fuel evaporating. But this didn’t seem to be a problem for us with the 60 litre tank. We were a bit confused. The main concern, on this particular part of the journey, was that our 60 litre tank was just about empty.

However we got to the end of the rally where we had the final time control, which was at the hanging monastery at Datong. By time we got there though it was already 3:30pm we were exhausted, the car was not driving so well as explained. To go and see this amazing historical sight, required us to do more walking than I had energy for - and the hotel was still another 80 kilometres away. And Andrew was anxious to get fuel into our 60 litre tank, in case we continued to have problems with Eleanor stalling and not starting. So here is someone else’s photo of the monastery for you!

So, we made the decision to continue on and get to a fuel station, then get back to the hotel so I could rest. This is rallying for you. Driving past great sights and not having the time energy or ability to go see them. So, we filled up on the way back and then we drove the rest of the way back to the hotel. Most of it was motorway driving so it didn’t require too much effort. But it is quite soporific at the end of the day to try and stay awake on boring motorway. We made it back to the hotel and parked the car. I went up to the room to rest, I was exhausted and could feel a migraine coming on. Quite frankly, I was beginning to wonder what I had got myself into and wonder if I would be able to last through the second day, let alone the full rally.

The room was spectacular and the hotel is certainly a magnificent piece of architecture. Very opulent. You will see from these pictures and from the video of the room that we have not been let down by the rally in terms of the quality of accommodation.

Up in the room I washed my face, put my feet up, took some tablets and just rested for about half an hour. Andrew stayed down with the car so that he could speak to the mechanics and try and resolve quite what was going on with our fuel tank.

He rang me after half an hour asking me to bring down 8 beers for the mechanics because they’ve done such a great job of finding what was going on and were well on the way to fixing it. It would seem that when the engine was put back in, various parts of the carburettor, hadn’t been tightened properly and so air was getting in and this was causing us to not manage so well in the heat. This is the problem with preparations happening at the last minute and we had not seen the car after the new engine had been put in.

I was feeling quite a lot better after my break, so we continued on with car maintenance, adjusting the brakes, checking and checking and checking. Fortunately, we had decided to get under Eleanor for the brakes - we found that we had sheered one of the bolts that holds the roll bracket for the engine!

The wonderful mechanics got straight back in and drilled out the part and we were all fixed in 30 minutes.

By then it was nearly 8.30pm and so we washed our hands and went to the dining room for a bite to eat before heading to the room and warm showers, washing our clothes and falling into bed, clean and fresh and ready for the morning.

So that was our first day Beijing to Datong, Day 1, only 36 more to go.

© Charlotte Lockhart 2024. All rights reserved.