Updates from David on Patricia's Rally progress.
636 km (of which 286km Special Section)
More dunes today ..... just as big, but very hot (51 degrees) ..... due to non cloudy conditions !!
The rally is now in Inner Mongolia.
Yes, there were indeed more dunes today, as promised, but also some pretty fast sections. From what I could see on Motors TV, the dunes were softer sand than previous days, which meant more "falling off" problems for the bikers. Navigation also looked like a challenge.
Despite the heat, Patricia sounded happy with her day - which she described as "uneventful and with no navigation issues". She said there was a bad sand storm at lunchtime - so I guess they had sandwiches to eat - literally.
The day started late, due to a local truck spilling its load across the motorway and holding up the rally vehicles for 2 hours, before the special began. In the end, they began at midday as the temperatures tipped 50 degrees.
Patricia had some good fortune, in that she got stuck in a dune and went to the top to survey her options. On returning to her bike she noticed the radiator was boiling over and so could make immediate repairs - rather than not noticing it (whilst riding) and causing permanent damage to the engine.
Apparently Simon's BMW was not faring so well in the heat and needed continuous "love and attention" to get it through the day. It would seem the KTMs are generally much happier in the hot weather. The fact that KTM's are Austrian and BMW's are German means we cannot yet add motorbikes to our growing list of German achievements.
24th position for the day, means Patricia is still at 21st overall.
Over and Out....
Reminders if you are glued to progress and want up to the minute news:
Motors TV is a good watch each night (21.00 GMT and 23.30 GMT) , repeated the next morning (10.00 GMT) , if you have access to it...
For those of you unable to tune in to Motors TV, there is a video clip of each days action on the Rally website at http://www.transorientale.com/medias/video.php
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