Badawi Trail to the Last Oasis 2026, Syd Stelvio Day 11 – Madinah to Jeddah – 558km
Day 11, the day we came full circle and arrived back in Jeddah, after retracing our steps to Madinah of course, the day before. Ordinarily this would be it, and it will feel odd to be departing tomorrow, for another couple of days on the road, before we return again and the adventure is over.
It isn’t quite time for the melancholy to settle in just yet, though, there is still plenty to enjoy. Day 11 would see the rally follow in the wheel tracks of the 2023 event, with three challenging competitive sections, composed of two regularities and a sporting section. The first of the regs wouldn’t have won any prizes in a beauty contest, definitely a case of function over form, as it ran on dirt tracks through somewhat of a wasteland below and around the highway. Best on the reg were yesterday’s top scorers, Yang Zhan and Jason Zhe Ren, with a zero to kick off the day, though this was set to be somewhat of a false dawn for the boys in the Land Cruiser, who would not enjoy reg number 2.
The second regularity was one of the best we enjoyed on the ’23 event, and I think the same could be said this time as well, though that sentiment may well be linked to success! The run to the reg suggested that there would be nothing remarkable about it, another dive into the rocky back lands and, with the amount of rubbish strewn across the place it was also no beauty queen. The second half of it was more picturesque, as it climbed a rock escarpment in the shadow of Jabal al Mansir, the majestic peaks towering to 5,800ft. The climbs for the cars weren’t quite touching that sort of elevation, but on the tricky mixture of sand, scree and rocks, maintaining momentum wasn’t straightforward. One constant across the reg was the number of tracks that could be followed, and these were causing consternation for the navigators, though I’m sure they would just say that their drivers were not listening to their instructions.
Classic category leaders Xavier and Lucas de Sarrau, who top the table overall as well, were one of the cars to wrong slot, collecting time at all three of the timing points. They had a much better time of it than most of the top ten though, with quite a lot of double figure penalties and maximums as the crews struggled with the myriads of tracks. The best performance came from Haikki Visser and Alfonso de Orleans-Borbon in the creased Land Cruiser, despite some wild lines around some of the bends. Everything was clearly under control in the car though, and they left the section with just 5 seconds of penalty.
If the level of choice had been too high in the regularity, the day’s only STC was really going to fox some crews, as it presented not just plenty of tracks, but also areas where the desert opened up and the tracks disappeared entirely. There’s nothing quite like the paradox of choice to upset a nav, and judging by the fact that only five crews exited the section debt free, it’s a fair bet that there were more than a few confused cartographers in our midst. The wooden spoon went to car 1, Tomas de Vargas Machuca and Ben Cussons – with ‘journalist’ David Ayre hanging on for grim death – in the goliath Itala, but the times are irrelevant for this crew, it was just great to see the oldest car on the rally getting stuck into the regs and time control sections.
For those whose minds had been melted across the STC’s there was a steady drive into Jeddah to wind down, with a lengthy bit of transit south down highway 5. As Jeddah came into view though, pulses would raise again, as the afternoon city traffic came out to play. It’s been a while since we have experienced this level of density on the roads, and that is a double-barrelled statement if ever there was one. The evidence of fresh accidents was plentiful as the cars were sucked along the highway, and indeed with the speed some road users were filling our mirrors it did feel as though we were being swept along, rather than mastering our own destiny. Gaps that weren’t gaps were being snatched, late exits taken and lanes invented. But if you can’t beat them, join them, right?
Safely at the hotel we could all take heart in the fact that the cities arteries wouldn’t be as clogged for the following mornings departure, when we leave for our penultimate day on the road. As the day’s results were delivered, they showed that the gap between the number 16 Mustang and number 35 Land Cruiser at the top of the Classic category had been almost halved. The gap back to the second Land Cruiser in third had also increased by 45 seconds, after Haikko Visser and Alfonso de Orleans-Borbon had performed the best across the day and accumulated only 8 seconds of penalty – the only crew to keep the score in single figures. They are still 1 minute and 15 seconds back from the de Sarrau’s in first, but it leaves the competition intriguingly poised with just two days left on the road.
Syd.