Pekin Paris ... c'est parti !

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Good morning from Undurkhangai camp. After the challenges of yesterday, Day 9 is a little easier on tired crews and their battle scared vehicles. Although the overall daily distance totals nearly 450km, over 300km of this is on tarmac roads (a far cry from 2007 when almost all of the Mongolian route was on the type of tracks that crews have been tackling for the past few days). The competition takes the form of three Time Control Sections, a short test straight out of the camp to start and then two longer sections through the hills past Uureg Lake (last visited in 2013) to round off the day's run to Achit Lake.

You can view the latest results and catch up with the story so far over on the ERA website - https://www.endurorally.com/events/t...tor-challenge/

Photos by Gerard Brown



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Day 4 continued...

Day 4 was full on. The starting official told us the first stage wasn't competition, but apparently it was. Cost us a minute. We were pretty close to all the target times but half way through the day, there was no power when going to start at a control. The bloody battery lead nut had loosened off. Cost a couple of minutes to unload stuff, get a spanner and tighten it.

And there really are no roads, just a selection of tracks. So navigating by the GPS to the next waypoint means seeing the pink line (direct to waypoint) vertical and going on a track that best matches it. Easy in the flat country, but more challenging as the country gets hillier. We were a bit off at a couple of controls - maybe 300m to the side - and had to cross country to get to them. Thankfully, no trees, although occasionally lots of rocks. One interesting instruction was 'Find the best way across 1.5 km of dried lake bed'. Naively we thought a dried lake bed would be flat but it was flat like a crater on the moon, with sal pans and trees.

We saw maybe a dozen cars off the side at various timeswith mechanical or tyre problems. At one control I spoke to a bloke who'd had 2 punctures on the sharp rocks. And only 2 spares. He was in an understandable panic. One of the Porsches let the red mist come down and had a bad roll. Car is probably a write-off. Someone at dinner last night said the engine had separated from the body. Crew is ok although the driver has a broken arm. An E-type got lost and bogged in the desert on Day 3 and spent the night there. Fortunately they were found yesterday.

The mighty Volvo survived although running poorly at low revs. I think it's the altitude and will change the jets when I do today's spanner check. Hopefully not bad fuel. It's a rest day today here in beautiful downtown Ulaanbaatar which is why I didn't do it after we got here after 6:30 last night. The traffic getting in was horrendous: took over an hour to get to the car park. The shower was very good as were the local beers.

Some random photos from earlier. I'm relying on Lui for most photos because she's sitting there with both hands free to shoot through the bug splattered windscreen as we fly past interesting things.

The first couple are Camp 1. The camera on a rock is mysterious. It was over 100m from camp, just sitting there watching us. Maybe not a camera, but an alien?



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Days 6 & 7: Hard to update from the Mongolian Backcountry, but things are going well. Doing a good job balancing speed with keeping the car undamaged. The route is becoming increasingly difficult, knocking more and more cars out. We currently remain in 3rd place, now 1 second off of #2. Will be focusing on preserving the car over the remaining two days of Mongolia, as a single failure can mean a 2 to 24 hour penalty.

Photos will have to wait until we get to a hotel in Russia.



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Day 3: Made it into Mongolia! (after a 6 hour border crossing). After a few hours of highway though the Gobe, we had our first opportunity to test our new suspension in the Mongolian dirt. Timing was cancelled due to flooding, but the car handled beautifully, soaking up ruts and bumps with ease.



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Day 4: First night of camping, and first day of proper Mongolian stages; about 3 hours of back-to-back specials with only a few minute breaks in between, and required average speeds of >80km/h. The driving and navigation were both tough, but the car performed perfectly and we only lost 20 seconds in total. In Ulaanbaatar now; will be assessing damage during our rest day tomorrow before the next 4 days through Mongolia.



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Day 5: One of these things is not like the others! Today is our rest day in Ulaanbaatar. Replacing a few bent suspension bits from a hard hit during yesterday's stages. Arda Nigmet of MSM Group has been kind enough to give us a place to work and a helping hand!



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Day 2 Complete! Good performance on the first time trial (special stage), 4 seconds off of the fastest time, followed by a long drive across the Gobi desert to our last night in China, right on the Mongolian border.



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[kerouan1]

Les jeunes, je suis partant pour aider à l'assistance sur un bout en Europe

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Waiting to cross the Mongolian border.

Video updates on Chris's Instagram story: @cebury.



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[nissag250]

Yes Ladoux Ron Ron

[gil2clair]

LADOUX !!!