Syd Stelvio – Sahara Challenge Day 1 – Malaga to Tangier – 281 km
Getting on the road is one of the best feelings in the world, seldom other experiences bestow upon a person the sense of freedom that is felt during the first few miles of an adventure rally. This morning, 58 competitors revelled in that very feeling as the 29 cars taking part in this year’s Sahara Challenge rumbled onto the Spanish highway on the first of 13 days of rallying, that will take place mostly in Morocco.
There was a day of rallying under the hazy Spanish sun to contend with first though, before any wheel tracks could be laid in North Africa. A day to get everyone into the swing of things before the bigger challenges of the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara itself loom into view. There was nothing filler about the route offered up by HERO’s very own desert fox, John Spiller though, with three enjoyable regularities in the Montes de Malaga, on a mixture of gravel and tarmac, offering perhaps a taste of just what might be to come.
It may have been eye opening for some, as whilst there are old hands in the field, there is plenty of fresh meat, some rallying for the very first time. Indeed, one navigator was overheard asking their driver to explain exactly what a regularity was and of course as the more experienced of you will know, drivers just aren’t designed to deal with such complex requests as this.
No matter, there is plenty of time to learn on the job and from such an education some of the very best navs in the business have been born. It’s only the biggest hot desert in the world we’re driving into, what’s the worst that could happen?
It might be trial by tulips for some in the days ahead, but for today at least things were kept reasonably simple and everyone made it to the Port at Tarifa in time to board the ferry to Tangiers, including Philip Dobson and Richard Arnold in the mighty American LaFrance Type 75, not the easiest machine to pilot around the mountain roads. It is not the first LaFrance to attempt this rally, but certainly the biggest. HERO-ERA Chairman Tomas de Vargas Machuca completed the event in his LaFrance in 2022. If you don’t know the story of that particular car, then buy him a whiskey at the bar and I’m sure he will re-tell it, all I will say is it wasn’t quite ready for this event. Instead, he is competing in a Bentley, with wife Camelia, herself another novice navigator, and she will no doubt need to keep his eye on the task at hand, when he is inevitably caught staring misty eyed at the Philip’s Type 75.
Despite the day being on the shorter side, the minutes cantered away, and time passed extremely quickly as all concerned enjoyed some of the fabulous roads in this part of Spain. Some were roughshod and potholed, and some were racetrack smooth with barely a breath of traffic on them, and these were no doubt enjoyed by the mixture of machinery that is present on this event. In the afternoon the descent towards the coast began, down through a cork forest, with its half-naked trees – a road that is one of the well-known rally routes around these parts. It may have been hazy all day, but there were still spectacular views across valleys and up to the mountain peaks, and the weather remained pleasant for the crossing of the Strait of Gibralter, for the maritime part of the day.
Unfortunately, despite everyone making it to the port, not everyone made it onto the ferry. Fabrizio Bove, driving the number 19 Ford Mustang had somehow picked up his wife’s passport by mistake. Now, if Fabrizio chooses to identify as his wife, that’s his, or her, own damn business, but unfortunately the Spanish Border Force didn’t agree, and so he remains in Spain whilst his documents are dispatched post haste from Zurich.
These are the trials and tribulations of adventure rallying, there is more to it than simply being on the right road, although that does help. The results for the day showed that a fair few were on the right road, and some had even been on the correct time as well, with the overall best performance of the day going to the Finnish pair of Heikki Julin and Hekki Saloheimo in the diminutive Fiat 124 Spyder, as they racked up 14 seconds of penalties, a feat that was shared by Andrew Laing and Ian Milne in their Datsun 240z. Rounding out the Classic Category is Father and Daughter duo Joe and Maggie Hayes, one of a number of crews over from the States.
Leading overall at the end of day one is one half of the ’48 twins, Amin Hwaidak, in his grey Ford 48, with its sister car being piloted by his brother Sherif. Amin is being navigated by Jack Amies, who built the cars and Sherif has HERO’s Mark O’Donnell sitting alongside him, a last-minute stand in, so perhaps all the more reMARKable that they have finished the day in third. Sitting between them in second is Jorge Perez Companc and Jose Volta, winners of last year’s Badawi Trail rally, providing a Chevrolet shaped filling in the ‘48 sandwich.
Nobody wins the rally on the first day though, and tomorrow we will get going properly as we head on a 346km day to Fes, on roads that will take us up into the mountains, through more Cork Forests, and through the blue city of Chefchaouen.
Syd
