Perhaps the emergency equipment section of the application form for the 2002 El Chott Rallye should have set off warning bells somewhere inside my grey matter. Emergency distress rockets and strobes. The natural reaction would have been "Why do I need those on a holiday on the bike?" but such sane thoughts never crossed my mind in the enthusiasm charged build up to departure. Having being generously sponsored by Snappy Snaps, Champion Photochemistry, Kinetronics and Peppermint, I was far too busy trying to ensure I'd bring good photographic images back from the rally. My most important packing had nothing to do with the bike; I needed to be sure I had safely stowed away my new camera from Minolta, a loan digital camera from Kodak, enough traditional and digital film plus of course two pairs of sunglasses and plenty of suntan cream.

As we looked around the quayside in Genoa at the numerous rally vehicles awaiting the ferry to Tunis we were surprised that they all seemed to be so well prepared and taking it very seriously, with their blood group on vehicles and helmets; ah well another thing we forgot to do! Team Rally Virgins had the three eldest bikes in the rally and were somewhat poorly prepared in comparison to our Teutonic cousins, who seemed to have brought everything including the kitchen sink and of course spare towel for the poolside! Only now did we realise that we’d forgotten to pack one crucial thing, a support team. We’d only been off the boat 20 minutes when Rich’s XT600 started making a nasty engine noise on the dockside in Tunis - open-heart surgery on the quayside seemed to be the only option. Without a support team and all the tools necessary we began our search - “Excuse me do you speak English…. do you have a 32mm spanner…. we can borrow?”

The Rally was to start in the centre of Tunis, followed by a long liaison stage in the dark to Bir Ali Ben Khelifa, some 250kms south. As we roared off into the darkness the game plan for the Rally Virgins immediately fell apart as we went our separate ways whilst trying to finds a fuel stop, then to my horror I realised that not only was my map road book fitted upside down, it also lacked a light! Fortunately I found another bike with an El Chott 2002 sticker and followed his taillight until we arrived in our sandy campsite. Having been on a bike to the edge of the Sahara before, I was quietly confident that this rally would be a blast in the park. However, my previous trip to Morocco had left me with a different impression of sand, I didn't remember it being that white and fine!

A strange noise in the desert awoke us the following morning, heavy rain! We hurriedly packed away the tent and our kit bags and as usual left them with the wonderful Red Zac luggage support truck team. This magic truck not only looked after all our luggage but also carried several thousand tins of beer. The rally organisers still had to sort out the competitors into a speed order to try and minimise potentially dangerous overtaking manoeuvres, so that day the assorted vehicles set off in rally number order along a fast dusty stage passing close to some small villages. It was our first view of the locals as they stood along the edge of the tracks, the children waving enthusiastically from a distance and then, as we came into range, hurling stones and branches! As number 55 I set off in my rightful place, but soon noticed that 56, 57 and 58 came flying past me. Finally the penny dropped as I was plodding along through a sandy section of the track; the only way to ride over this terrain is to stand up in the pegs and give it full gas! No sooner was I up to speed than I had to stop again; there was a time control point where we had to wait for all the vehicles to come in and be rearranged into speed order before we were sent off again on a much longer and more adventurous section.

Team Rally Virgins had had a trouble free morning and were feeling good despite the rain, so it was with horror that we noticed Kev’s BMW had sustained a puncture on that first timed section and we had a just 15 minutes to change it. Kev had done his research and been told that rally racers don’t use inner tubes but fit special puncture proof mousses, so he did exactly as advised and sure enough still had a puncture after 30kms! We had been so confident that he wasn’t carrying a spare tube; action stations Team Rally Virgins - time to ask around! Within half an hour of starting again the Virgins were back together again as, yes, Kev had another puncture!

In the initial stages the routes took us along fast rocky and dusty tracks, which were broken up only by the occasional jump and frequent rivers of blown sand. However, as the hours and days went by we began to grow in confidence and treat the sandy interludes with little respect, simply powering through the soft powder and on again, chasing the merest hint of a dust trail on the horizon, a competitor to catch.

The rally prides itself on its mixture of navigation, endurance & vehicle control. During the first few days ‘the Virgins’ made some gargantuan navigational errors, which cost us many penalty hours. We reached a checkpoint high on a mountainside only to discover that the checkpoint had been cancelled; sadly the information hadn’t filtered down to us as we spent ages scouring the rocky landscape for an exit from the precarious position. Eventually we decided to take a ‘short-cut’ and try to cross a steep rocky valley. The navigational blunders landed us back in the campsite after dark again, this time on the Algerian border at the sunken city of Alt-Termerza. The feeling of elation on having reached the end of the first day of the rally proper was soon overtaken by reality; once dismounted we discovered that the lead riders had already eaten, had their bikes serviced for them, had a hot shower and were already in the midst of the most vital preparation for following day, sleeping.

Exhaustion was a concept the Virgins began to comprehend soon after the rally began. With no support team the reality of riding all day and then having to fix our bikes, put the tent up, cut and stick all the pages of the road book together as well as program the GPS data for the following day, all before dinner, were routines which in our naivety we simply had not thought about, and worse was to come; what we didn't hitherto realise was that this had been the easy stuff, the organisers were simply warming us up for bigger challenges ahead! Then by great good fortune we met an incredibly generous man by the name of Thomas Foege. Thomas was running the BMW Enduro Racing team, supporting his son Tim who was riding a very special BMW F650. Thomas spoke wonderful English, had a terrific sense of humour, and well understood how we were feeling - absolutely wrecked following long days out in the desert with no support team. After a few days it became apparent that Thomas had adopted the Brits on the rally as his 'B' team. We'd arrive at the campsite hours after the lead riders to find that Thomas had already reserved us an area where we could pitch our solitary tent, and was always on hand to provide support and encouragement when spirits were low.

Richard Williams, Will Penrice & Kev Copleston

Initially I was able to surf up and over the sand dunes, but they gradually got bigger and bigger, until finally I ground to a halt. This is the scenario: you are stuck with a bike half buried in white powder sand that, in places, engulfs your legs beyond the boots and up to your knees as you dismount from the bike. The first ten or so times you get bogged down in the stuff you have enough energy to pull the back wheel and use the engine to power to the crest of the dune before remounting and surfing on towards your next dismount. Alternatively, if the dune is too daunting and you are far from the crest, pick up the front wheel and drag the bike until it faces downhill so that you can get going again to try and gain some momentum so as to attack the next dune that is not going to beat you! This pattern was set for the rest of the rally!

Your mind plays wicked tricks on you in the sand, telling you with complete confidence that there is a logical pattern to the way the sand looks and to how hard it is. Confidence is soon shattered as a dune that appeared so innocuous turns out to be a dry version of a bog! Each and every dismount, some voluntary but more often not, becomes increasingly difficult to recover from, mouthfuls of sand became a normal occurrence but more ominously so does the gradual ebb of energy needed to kick start the bike, a machine which had many names not many of which are repeatable!

Following an unexpectedly harsh dismount in complete isolation, feelings slipped beyond the point of swearing at the bike and I just wanting to be away from this sand. I climbed to the crest of the dune to place my helmet there as a warning to any vehicle that may have tried to follow my tracks. To my amusement and instant relief I saw the two other rally virgins struggling vainly with their machines on neighbouring dunes!

Kev fighting a battle and a half !

Little did I know then as I swore at my bike that she was to have the last laugh. Attempting to get through the dunes, the bike was subjected to a near constant thrashing in the heat of the desert. Towards the end of a long stage I thought I'd found a shortcut away from the dunes across a dried Lakebed towards that day's final time control, forgetting that it had rained some days earlier. I set off at a good pace, thinking how I was going to make up several places and be back in time to enjoy an early beer. Unfortunately some 3kms across the lake the ground became softer and softer, until I was left in 1st gear using full power and only moving at walking pace. It was here that the bike gave up and refused to start for two long hours. The writing was on the wall. This was frustration enough, which only increased as bikes became available when riders sustained injuries but were unwilling to provide their machine for someone else to continue their rally on! It was supposed to be me that contemplated giving up, but the bike beat me to it as the temperature soared and her piston rings gave way. It was a very long afternoon as I sat there trying to find some shade in the narrow shadow of the bike. In the distance I could see other vehicles battling through the dunes and emerging along a track some 2kms ahead of where I was and on to the finish line. When finally the kick-start sparked the engine back into life I was horrified to find that I was left with a bike that sounded like a bag of spanners and looked as if it was coal powered as she pumped copious quantities of oily smoke out of the exhaust.

A hastily arranged appointment with the UK’s premier Yamaha off road surgeon general, David Lambeth, confirmed that my rally was over as any further serious exertion for the bike would prove fatal and even more costly to repair. Depressed as I was with the top end of my engine blowing up, on a late return to the campsite I couldn’t help feeling sorry for those who were still stuck out in the dunes firing off their flares for help. Poor Gerhard didn’t get back into the campsite until 3am having been recovered from the deep dunes!

I spent the next couple of days based on the roof of an Ex East German army IFA truck, rolling through the desert following the bikes and picking up the broken pieces. Being in an 8 ton truck gliding through the dunes with several pallets of beer on board gave me a completely different view of the rally. I witnessed many riders who were sharing those ‘emotional times’ in the dunes.

On the evening before the final day of competition Kev's BMW was missing in action, but he finally emerged on another coal powered motorcycle! He was determined to compete to the end whatever the cost, and that sealed it for me, I was going to ride my bike on the final day ignoring all the sound advice I'd been given; I needed to complete more checkpoints in order to be considered a finisher.

We consulted with the organisers to ensure that the short last stage, finishing in the camel racing stadium in Douz, would be possible for a pair of elderly poorly bikes. Naturally they indicated that the stage was “easy”. The morning arrived, and we sat on the start line faced by a daunting dune ahead a route lined with spectators and a GPS point to find some 15kms straight across more dunes before returning back to the finish across yes more sand. My heart sank as we smoked off into the dunes, aware that the bike may well expire at any time. Fortunately we all emerged at the final time control and crossed the finish line in engine smoking formation. Relief, its over and the virgins all got to the end; but as virgins no more we fully comprehend that a desert rally is not for the unprepared!

The final leg of the rally, our return to Europe, proved to be the cruellest, for it was here that our saviour and mentor Thomas Foege was tragically killed in an accident at Genoa port. Thomas had incredible enthusiasm for people, life and motor sport. He will be sadly missed by all who knew him.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

I would like to thank all my sponsors who contributed to making my participation in the rally possible:

Snappy Snaps, Champion Photochemistry, Kinetronics Corporation (USA), Peppermint (Japan), Kodak UK Ltd.& Minolta UK Ltd.