Syd Stelvio Peking to Paris 25 - Day 35 – Salzburg to Egerkingen – 665km

The penultimate day of competition for the 2025 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge was a long one, indeed one of the longest of the event. Most of Salzburg was still asleep when the first cars rolled out onto the road this morning, indeed it was before 6am when some of the crews departed the hotel, largely those in the slower machines, who’s goal now is the finish.

Austria is where our day began, and Switzerland is where it would end, the penultimate country on our whistlestop European leg, the penultimate country of the adventure. To help shake the sleep from the eyes there was a test planned for the morning, the final test to be contested, in fact. There will be lots of marking down of final and nearly final elements of the trip over the next couple of days, after such a long time on the road, each carries its own poignance, and perhaps even some regret, as well as adding to the excitement of nearly being home, nearly being reunited with loved ones.

The rallying isn’t done yet though, and for those with designs on actually winning the thing now is the time to hold your nerve and consolidate a lead or put pressure on your closest opponents and hope that they crack. The table is such now that it is going to take a moment of madness to unsettle things, either that or a mechanical failure, and nobody wishes to win that way.

At the test then, for those leading, it is a case of putting in a decent time without pushing so hard that you spin out, or worse, get lost. Enter car 61, the Peugeot 504 of Classic leaders Brian Palmer and David Bell. It’s fair to say that across the event they’ve been up and down the leaderboard like a game of snakes and ladders. But just recently they’ve discovered some consistency, and deservedly lead. A roll of the dice though and a snake can appear, and did so, when they fluffed their lines on the test this morning. A mix-up in direction caused the pair to clock up 2:02, giving away 40 seconds to their closest rivals, Harold Goddijn and Corinne Vigreux in the cool blue Porsche.

There was an error in the main category as well, when second placed Tony Rowe and Mark Delling, desperately attempting to claw back the deficit to leaders Tony Sutton and Andrew Lawson, picked up a wrong test fault, giving them a time penalty of 4 minutes, compared to the time of 1:52 set by the Aussies in first. Two tests and two errors that may affect the outcome of this year’s competition.

There was plenty of time to contemplate the mistakes as well, with a 400km run from the Brandlhof Test Track to the first of two planned regularities. This would not be a nice relaxing drive through the mountains either, Austria was waking up now and filling up as well. The busy towns of Zell am See and Kaprun were filled with locals, as well as tourists. There were endless waves of bikers, out to enjoy the mountain roads, and reams of Friday traffic as well, and the journey would be frustrating, and at times even ground to a halt.

The scenery at least was spectacular, especially as the road began to climb up the ski towns of Zurs and Lech, the latter of which was especially busy. It was a shame that we had to share the roads with so many others, for they would have been tremendous fun with a clear run, but not everywhere can be Kazakhstan!

Whilst many took the opportunity to refuel in Lech, there was some bad news from the marshal cars ahead of the rally, the Ghost of Bernard Cribbens had been up to his old tricks, and a large hole had appeared in the road on the way to the first reg. “You can’t dig there, dig it elsewhere!” cried Clerk of the Course Guy Woodcock, but the damage was done, and sadly the reg ended up in the hole as well, leaving just one competitive section to finish the day.

Those with leads may well have been glad of that, those trying to close leads up less so, with another opportunity to claw back precious seconds gone by the wayside. The only reg then, took place overlooking the cool blue waters of Lake Walensee, one of the larger bodies of waters in Switzerland. It was the narrow roads in the hills above the lake that were of interest to us though, and whilst not wildly busy in comparison with the rest of the day, there was enough traffic on them to make life interesting, but not interesting enough that it would make a great deal of difference to the leaderboard.

As we head into the final day of competitive action then, the overall lead still belongs to Tony Sutton and Andrew Lawson, with 4:26 seconds in the bank after their nearest rival’s error on this morning’s test. In the Classic category, car 61 still leads, despite their error in the test, though their cushion to second place is now measured in seconds rather than minutes. Whilst two regularities remain for day 36, the times are such now that it may all be academic, as long as those in the lead can retain some consistency. There is always an unknown element to rallying though, as we have seen time and time again in this competition. Don’t rule out a joker card by the mischievous competition team either, the sting in the tail is oft the calling card of the habitual route planner.

Syd