It was day 6 of our trip. Today the race started with the “Prologue”. I was a bit nervous. It was about to get real and I didn’t want to make any mistakes. I didn’t quite understand the prologue. It was flowed by 5 long stages, but the prologue itself was only 25 kilometers. That’s nothing. Why?
There was two classes of UTV’s. SSV was the “slower class”, and the class I was in, “Challenger”, was the top fastest class. There were 38 cars in my class. At the starting line they were letting cars go every minute. Like any desert it was very dusty. In places where the wind didn’t blow the dust off well from the guy ahead of you it was hard to see the ground.
I went wide on a few turns. Bruno was telling me to brake earlier. But sometimes it was a matter of seeing the turn to determine what was early. It went by in a flash – maybe 18 minutes. With only a few kilometers to go we came upon this Toyota Hilux limping along. We were in his dust in a rocky river wash. Bruno was telling me to “go!”, but I couldn’t see the ground. I obeyed. Bang! We hit something – a big rock no doubt. I didn’t see it.
Soon Bruno says we have a right rear flat. We decided to ride it out two kilometers to the finish. If we stop now to change it in a 25 km race, we finish last. We cross the finish line 26th out of 38. How you finish in the Prologue doesn’t mean much. It just determines your starting order for the next day – Stage 1. Bruno changes the tire and we take the road back to the stadium parking lot.
This time, there are no pop-up tents, no seats, and most of the trucks and pit equipment are gone. We have a five-hour bus ride to the first bivouac. A bivouac means temporary living quarters/tent/camping…I’ve never been to one. We left at 1:30 pm from Marrakesh.
The rest of the race we’d be staying at two different camps in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I figured out why the short prologue was five hours from the serious long-distance racing. To do these races you need permission from the government – the king. The king wants something going on in the populated areas to showcase the race. The race promoter needs buildings for registration and tech inspections, etc. So they set everything up in the parking lot of the stadium and do the prologue nearby, until they leave town for the parched wasteland and dunes where most of the racing miles take place.
Morocco had had heavy rains in the last few weeks and roads were washed out. The bus trip may take a little longer than five hours they said. We climbed the swithcbacks of the Atlas mountains for a crossing. It was beautiful. At high elevation there were some pine trees. Below that – no vegetation at all.
We see some lightning off in the distance. Hours pass and there’s stopped traffic ahead in a small town. Mostly a stalled out parade of race vehicles. I see a car carrier with all the South Racing race cars on it including mine. It turns out there was two feet of water rushing across the road a couple miles ahead and they closed the road – the only one to where we were going. We get out and walk ahead to see if we can what is going on. The sun sets. Finally the traffic starts crawling. Back into the little bus. When we crossed the water it was still 5 inches deep and flowing pretty good.
The five-hour trip took 11 hours. It was 12:30 am when we rolled in to the bivouac. Race teams were setting up their pits. We schlepped our bags through the pits to a enclave of tents and oriental rugs – a thousand of them I think-laid out in the dirt and rocks. First a big courtyard where they’d serve food with tables where you could eat. That would double as a place for driver meetings each night.
Walk through that into aisles between endless tents set up. There weren’t just any tents. They were legit “Arabian Nights” kinds of tents. Inside them there were carpets on the dirt and elaborate Arabic designs on the ceiling and walls. We had a “luxury” tent. It had a toilet, and sink, and a shower – all separated by fancy curtains. Yes, hot water. For the drains they just dug holes in the ground and let the drain water soak in. The beds were real beds – comfortable.
It’s late – get some sleep – the real race starts tomorrow…