Yesterday: 740km (of which 121km Special Section)
Today: 616km
They think it's all over ....... WELL IT IS NOW !!
Patricia phoned earlier today, from the Great Wall of China !
The Rally is over and she made it safe and sound.
Yesterday's stage was tough again, with the dunes relentless until the end. It was the final Special Stage and Patricia had a really good one. She came 23rd on the day. This resulted in her final overall position being a fantastic 19th.
After 3 countries, 17 days and 10,000km, only 38 bikes finished the Rally of the 58 that started. So Patricia was in the top third of the field. Who said girls cannot map read? Not me !
Today there was no Special Section, "just" the final 616km drive to the Great Wall, where the Rally finished. The Chinese people welcomed the whole event with enthusiasm and warmth. When Patricia phoned, she said the vehicles had been put in the collection zone (ready to be chucked on a boat for the sea journey back) and they were all unpacking boxes from the van, packing them back up, then unpacking them, then..... hang on, this is sounding familiar, was it really 19 days ago that similar scenes were going on in St Petersburg?!
Patricia has reported the smog in Beijing is indeed "very smoggy" (I guess it will blow away for the Olympics, once they shut all the factories next month) and that the part of today's journey that was on a bus, was the most dangerous section of the whole Rally.
Other news:
- Simon Pavey had a stunning final Special, coming in 7th on the day (!!), which made up for his sustained BMW problems throughout the Rally - on TV he said it was the
first "incident free day he had had" - well done Simon, who came in one step and just a few minutes ahead of Patricia overall - in 18th position.
- Colin Askey, the third member of the team, also finished the Rally, coming in 31st overall.
- The Support crew made it in one piece and so did the van - so well done to Linley, Hebert and Bernie. I expect there will be some great stories to tell from "the van".
- Overall 38 bikes out of 58 starters finished (65%), the only Quad finished, 29 cars out of 48 starters finished (60%) and 14 trucks out of 31 starters finished (45%).
- Statistically speaking therefore, cars are tougher than trucks and bikes are tougher than cars ! It would also seem that girls are tougher than most men and KTMs are
tougher than every other motorbike.
Patricia sends her best wishes and thanks to everyone who has been following these newsletters and sending their kind thoughts via me or direct over the ether!
I would also like to thank everyone who enjoyed the newsletter, especially those who provided feedback, which kept me highly amused. In particular I would like to thank the following:
Annette - who's faith in everything German is touching and extremely patriotic. I just hope your boys can live up to your hopes tomorrow ! England promise to join in next
time, so it can be a proper football competition.
Angelika - who refuses to accept that BMW's are rubbish, and maintains that the Aussie rider is to blame. Angelika, 90% of the bikes that finished were KTMs !
Patricia - for phoning through updates everyday, even when she must have been too tired to stand up.
Shreedevi - for keeping the blog up to date with all these updates stored on it.
Geology - for making such a stunning landscape through which the Rally travelled.
Finally, lets not forget the two guys that died on the Rally - one through stopping to help another driver and the second because of irresponsible truck driving.
Patricia and the rest of the team will be back home on Tuesday night, in the UK and Germany. We wish them all a safe journey and we salute them all !!!
Over and Out......that's it folks !!
PS : I just noticed that registrations are open on the website for the TransOrientale 2009. Angelika - get your BMW out, book yourself in ..... and prove me wrong !
No comments:
Post a Comment