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“The Longest Day”. That is the warning note on the route overview from the organizers of the 2010 Rally International de Tunisie. It is followed by terms such as “fast, undulating tracks: sliding and jumping at daybreak” and “small dunes become large dunes, with less space between them: it becomes increasing difficult to find a route through them”. This is what Don faced today on Stage 4 of the rally.
However Don has survived the “longest day” in the Rally. He ended up 25th on the stage, and dropped to 22nd overall but remains 6th in his class.
Don is now 8 hr and 6 minutes back from the leader Lopez. Second place is being fought between Spaniard Marc Coma – one of the race favorites – and Poland’s Jacob Przygonski who are within 21 seconds of each other and only 23 minutes back from Lopez. Very tight times with only two more days of racing remaining!
“I actually enjoyed the day and had fun” Don noted via text. “ I lost time due to a fuel issue 21 kilometers from the end of the stage”. This unfortunately lost him time and two places in the overall rankings. Don’s bike quit due to a fuel starvation issue so he had to stop and physically unbolt and remove his front fuel tank and pour the contents into his rear fuel tank to get the bike running again.
Stage 3 is a loop from Nekrif back to Nikrif totaling 265 kilometers in length. It is a fast special with a mix of small sand dunes, canyons and winding rocky tracks. As the organizers note: “ there will be something for everyone”. They are also reminding riders to “follow the right bearings through the sea of dunes” as the “track keeps disappearing under the wheels”.
Don finished Stage 3 of the rally 25th on the stage, 28th overall and still 6th in his class, 5 hours and 16 minutes behind the leader Lopez. This is amazing considering the rough, rock strewn terrain that favors the smaller lighter bikes. Couple this with extreme heat and a blinding sand storm described as a “white out” that nearly grounded the helicopters.
Don notes via text message “we needed good navigation skills today as all the tracks were covered with blowing sand”. Although tired by the tough racing conditions – it is hard to train for the extreme heat and the soft sand terrain here in western Canada – he is loving the competition.
Stage 2 was a straight 288km special stage. That means they raced the whole way riding at 100%, no relaxing riding during a liaison. The stage consists of sand, sand with rocks, sand dunes, soft sand and more fast, wide packed sand tracts to the bivouac at Nekrif.
Don successfully completed Stage 2 of the Rally in 24th position for the day. Don was 2 hours and 9 minutes behind the leader Chalelo Lopez of Chili. This places Don in 29th position overall in the rally and 6th in his class with four more days of competition to come.
It was an incredibly hot day, temperatures in the high 30 degrees Celsius, with a winding route through the sands of Tunisia. This was the first day of racing in the sand dunes that all the competitors were looking forward to. Don is not reporting any ongoing issues with his motorcycle after yesterday’s mechanical delay.
Today’s Stage 1 – Tunis to Douz – is a total of 586 kilometers of which 180 kilometers is the special stage. The organizers note that it will be challenging to navigate with numerous intersections and change of directions. They also gave warning regarding the cacti – “get too close and you’ll get hurt”.
Don finished the stage in 30th place. Sunday’s Stage 1 was an early start with Don having a start time of 5:52 AM. Don did well with the longest stage of the race: 586 kilometers. He was riding well up to approximately 65km from the end of the stage when he was delayed for a mechanical issue. He was able to get underway again and finished the special stage 1 hour 36 minutes off the pace.
If you watch the video clips of the race you will see huge cacti bordering the route in the desert area. They appear massive and even the event organizers gave warning not to wander near them. This is not the place to loose concentration! You will also see Don in the opening sequence riding number 18!
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Don is competing in the Rallye International de Tunisie starting today in Tunis, Tunisia. Don has passed all the scrutineering procedures with the Desert Rose team and his KTM 690 Rally bike, the same bike that he rode in the 2010 Dakar race.
“Tunisia is definitely Africa” Don’s wife and onsite support crew member Natalie comments. Temperatures are in the mid 30 to low 40 degree Celsius during the day and low teens at nighttime. There will be an excessive amount of sand riding for the competition stages with long liaison stages in between.
New to this year’s rally is “live broadcasting” by the event organizers. We will be following the event here to see how well this works.
Day one on Saturday was a prologue event held on the beach near Tunis. This accommodated the spectators allowing them to see the cars, motorcycles and heavy trucks up close and in full race action. The terrain was very deep wet sand – not the easiest thing for Don to contend with riding his heavy KTM 690.
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Morocco 2009 Links and Info
Don on Rally Radio
Don’s Quote Of The Day: “I’m proud to say I did finish the rally again this year.”
Don’s quote says it all, he finished all 6 stages of the rally for the second year in a row.
For Don’s thoughts on stage 6 listen to the audio clip.
Don finished the rally in a very respectable 4th place in the Motorcycle Enduro Cup. Just to finish is a remarkable feat and Don and his team would like to congratulate everyone who took place in this years rally.
Don provided the following overall summary of the rally.
The KTM 690 Enduro was defiantly the wrong choice in bikes for this rally and I had to ride the wheels off it to place as high as I did. I can tell you I was longing for my dakar bike, as it would have been in its element on this course. The 690 Enduro is a good bike, but the thing that most people don’t know about it is that in order to get a lower seat height on it, they simply cut back on the suspension travel 25% to only 8 – 9 inches of stroke.
My navigation went very well. I was a little caught off guard by the heat in stage 2 however after a short rest in the desert I recovered enough to finish well that day. After that I wore a few less items of clothing.
I did not have any trouble in the large Dunes on stage 3 and was pleased that I was able to navigate my way through over 20 kms of Dunes successfully. I did make a couple of minor navigation errors but nothing serious.
Well next stop Dakar!
Natalie’s Quote Of The Day: “Being part of the rally is such an exciting and amazing experience.”
Once again Don finished 5th in stage 5 but has moved up to 4th in the overall standings for the Enduro Cup Motorcycle class.
Today’s stage was very tough due to the heat and dunes. Natalie provided the following update.
It was a very long stage, there are still guys out there in the dunes. We usually have a very full house for the dinner and briefing, but tonight there were a lot of empty spaces. Teams were straggling in looking pretty tired.
The stage started with a long off piece section with small dunes called dunettes (they are small but not easy to ride and difficult to navigate in). The big challenge of the day was the 20kms of absolute off piece dunes meaning there was no route through it – Don had to navigate through using cap headings. He made it through but he swears he climbed every dune in the 20kms. He said it was really quite a sensation to be in a dune field so large that you couldn’t see any end to them. Navigation was difficult but he got through. Don is still finding the bike a challenge to ride but is adapting his riding to the bike as best he can. At the last part of the stage there was 25 km’s of fech fech (fine silty sand with a thin crust) so Don was really glad to see the end of it.
As an observer at the stages and dinner table talk you cannot believe what happens to these guys in a day and they just continue forward. There are some amazing stories.
We have a little controversy going on at this time. It appears that Cyril, who is in the lead, did not hand his time card in at the end of the special. Apparently for good reason, he had gone back to assist another rider and in all the excitement forgot to hand in his time card. He rode really well today and would be a shame to see him lose the rally for a technicality like that (but then again that’s the rules)!.
Tomorrow is the last day. We are all looking forward to it. Being part of the rally is such an exciting and amazing experience.
Good luck in stage 6 Don!
Don Cooling Down in Stage 3
Don’s KTM 690E Stuck in the sand
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Don’s Quote Of The Day: “Had a really good ride today.”
Once again Don finished 5th in the days stage and is sitting 5th in the overall standings of the Enduro Cup.
Don felt really good on stage 4, yesterdays set back was definitely heat stroke but he had fully recovered before the start of today’s stage.
The KTM 690 Enduro performed well on today’s stage, while riding a totally stock bike is not ideal for the kind of terrain in Morocco, Don is coming to terms with it and feeling more comfortable as the rally progresses.
The terrain today was a fast track but with lots of rocks and treacherous sections. The organizers were warning riders at the start that the route was very dangerous with lots of holes that were not marked on the road book.
Unfortunately it looks like another of Don’s teammates, David Dickinson of Great Britain, may be out of the rally. It appears that David completed stage 4 but later in the day was undergoing medical treatment and awaiting X-rays for a possible broken sternum. Another of Don’s teammates, the only other Canadian in the rally, Rick Hatswell of Vancouver, dropped out in stage 2 with a broken leg.
Don provided the following description of Stage 4:
The first 30 kms of the stage was very rocky initially with some bad cliffs – on the edge of a mountain with sheer drops of over 1000 feet and the road wasn’t any more than 8 feet wide- just wide enough to get the trucks up.
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Then it was some very fast gravel with huge washouts – entire sections of the road gone. 150km an hour sections and entire parts of the road missing. Then we had fech fech for about 6kms interspersed with sections of gravel and huge rocks. The last couple kms were small dunes with treacherous drops (that’s where David got hurt). Total distance for the special was 218 kms. Overall though I had a great day. My mechanic Bernie is starting to get my bike dialed in for me. Tomorrow (Stage 5) is going to be very hard … we have a 20km section of large dunes, in addition to that we have some small sections of dunes. It is going to be hot and tiring tomorrow plus we have 200kms of liaison.
Good luck in stage 5 Don!
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Don’s Quote Of The Day: “Challenging but fun”
Don finished 5th in Stage 3 today and is sitting 5th overall in the Enduro class.
He reports Stage 3 had heavy dunes and was very hot. Don had a little problem with overheating (himself, not the bike) and had to pull over at one stage to hide in the shade of the bike while he stripped down, had a drink, and ate something.
Several other riders were forced to drop out of the rally today due to the heat and several had trouble with navigation and got lost for a while.
Natalie says she was watching and they were coming in to the finish from all over the place. She also saw a helicopter bringing in a broken bike around mid day but doesn’t have any additional information.
Don has been updating his road book for stage 4 and says it looks like it is back to rocks tomorrow. Even the top riders are saying tomorrow is going to be a hard day.
Good luck on stage 4 Don!
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