London to Cape Town Rally: Day 15 update

Pics by Gerard Brown

Latest news updates from Africa are coming from the organisers – the rally boys are all off the phone message grids at the minute and the driving days are pretty long.

Hayden Burvill in the number 35 Porsche sent me a quick text on Friday by way of update, but this is the first chance I’ve had to blog it. Not heard much since, no doubt due to communication network availability. As soon as I get more news, I will let you know.

The Rally has been travelling through Sudan and Ethiopia, destination Kenya. Some competitors have encountered mechanical problems, and the organisers have reported an issue with the exhaust on the Caldwell/Burvill Porsche 912, but they dropped only three seconds on a long stage yesterday so it can’t be serious.

The 912 is currently 7th overall. The Van Cauwenberge 911 from the Tuthill Porsche stable is now up to 4th: yesterday, it finished a minute behind the modern 4wd Subaru that won yesterday’s stage. The 911′s position change came after a cracked sump for the BMW 5-series team.

The 964 C4 (third Porsche in the event) is in 26th position overall but is still running. This tough rally has quite a way to go yet. Here’s what Hayden said on Friday:

Here we are at the end of week 2 and the rally is already half over. We changed wheel bearings this afternoon when we got in. The inners were grumbling, which turned out to be rust from water invasion – probably from one of the two severe pressure washings in Italy or Greece after the wet muddy stages in week one.

AC washed the air filters tonight and we have had a good look round, after the night drive at high speed over car-launching pot holes may have taken a toll. Shades of Khazakstan on the P2P: there were some brutal potholes, some we launched off at 120 km/h were potentially pretty harmful. The light weight of the 912 paid off for sure in these conditions.

Tomorrow will be a grind, with an 0630 start time and 750 km of hard work. Apparently a nice hotel waits at Aswas (?) we will see.