Breslau Rally 2013, Day 8

The Breslau Rally 2013 is almost over. Just a little while ago the first of the cars and trucks began to arrive at the Finish.

The Starting Line was in the town of Zagan today. Quite a crowd came out to watch the parade of motorcycles, quads, SSVs, cars and trucks.

The “Gigglepin” Defender of James Marsden and Chris Abel at the Start,

The Svoboda Tatra,

The last Special Stages of the rally took place in the woods around the town.

A Dutch Landrover overturned, but no one was hurt.

The favorites to win in the car category, Bretons Cedric Porcher and Damien Kermorvant.

The Svoboda Tatra made a big splash.

Sylvain and Gaby at the same crossing.

They arrived a little while ago. Their tie rod kuckle broke just 200m from the end of the Special, and they had to do a makeshift repair to reach the Finish Line.

Same day Update: Here’s a photo of the jerry-rigged knuckle.

As the last of the racers continue arriving, we’ve started packing up to leave. We have over 1000 km ahead of us since we have to unload part of the team before returning home ourselves. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to stay for the winner’s party this evening. We’ll be driving through the night taking turns at the wheel. We’ll post more news when we get back.

Breslau Rally 2013, Day 7

Yesterday was Day 7 of the Breslau Rally, the longest day, known as “Hannibal,” with 11 timed Special Stages. Sylvain and Gaby didn’t arrive at the bivouac until almost midnight, so today’s report was delayed.

We don’t have any pictures of the action since we spent the day on the road moving all the equipment from Drawsko Pomorskie to the camp at Zagan. We got into Zagan around 15:30. Around 17:00 Sylvain called. The oil sump was fissured and he needed the soldering gear.

In a few minutes, we were underway. He was about 30 km away in Jasień, so it took us about a half an hour to get there.

In less than an hour he had fixed the problem and was headed back to the next Special. We went back to camp to wait. About two hours later, Sylvain called again. The alternator wasn’t working, and he was without power. We sent a car over with a spare battery and alternator to fix the problem.

Unfortunately, the power had failed during one the timed Specials, so they lost quite a bit of time and they missed one of the Check Points. As the hours grew later and it became dark, negotiating the course became more difficult and navigating was tricky. They had some trouble locating one of the final Check Points according to the heading in the roadbook and ended up losing more time.

With all the accumulated problems, they finished in 38th position for the day.

Today is the final stage. It’s a nice morning in Zagan, and we’ll be riding again with the press team so we should find some good photo spots. We’ll post the next update once the race is over.