Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge: The Bivouac

In which Sid takes up residence in the Bug-alow and tours the service area with Doris.

The rally raid works on a clover leaf system. It left Yas on the first morning, and runs mostly from the “Bivouac” before having a final stage back to Abu Dhabi.

The Bivouac is a flat, solid-underfoot, sandy area hidden strategically behind the hill that the Qasr Al Sarab Hotel has been built on.

The support crew vehicles rattle suspiciously into the site as experienced participants have brought five days’ worth of beer – it is not otherwise available, but not objected to either.  Sand gets every where, especially if you have been running up and down the dunes, so the first duty is to empty your boots out, then work out where you have been billeted, then crack open a bottle.

The bivouac looks like a small town on a salt flat, with accommodation for the 100 or so competitors, their teams, the sweeps, medics, marshals,  control team… 500+ people in total.

As ever with the UAE this is carefully stratified. There were large canvas tents which Sid didn’t look into, but might have been for Bivouac catering/logistics staff and control marshals. Sweeps and marshals slept in Portakabin twin rooms with communal showers. (The fold out beds had been folded a few times too often but there is absolutely no incentive for the Indian lads putting them up to report a failed bed.) The more cared-for officials had Portakabins with a private bathroom. Control room staff slept in the staff accommodation.  FIA officials and those crew who wanted to pay for it were in the extremely fantastic Qasr Al Sarab hotel. And many marshals manning the early-morning controls opted to camp out rather than drive out.

 

The Sweeps’ corner was set out in a square so that people could sit out all night drinking beer and talking expletive deleted very loudly. Quite like a marina in that respect.

  

At first we were not keen to share with the bugs. Sid killed about two dozen before realising there was no blood, so they were not camel ticks or bed bugs. After that we got on fine with the beetles who took up very little room.

And sharing the beetles’ room with Sid and Ian was fine, we fell asleep and did not hear the other snore – unless woken by the jet wash and its machinery that was just behind us. It ran at any time of night a crew decided to clean their vehicle. Thanks, lads (bagggadaggadaggadaggadagga etc) although in their defence it is hard to remember that people might be so weird as to camp in what looks like a converted shipping container.

The catering was lavish, where lavish means there are second helpings if you feel the need, and a cornucopia lunch bag as well. It was all buffet style and for the logistics wallahs this meant mounded plates of everything. The many nationalities and tastes were catered for. The  Arabian tentage was delightful. Here we have Paul, Ian, Matt and Juan at breakfast. Juan was a guest from the Peruvian ASN who are buying training from the Emirates Motor Sports Organisation.

This Commemorative Photo has local hero Nasser Al Attiyah (Prodrive BRX Toyota Gazoo) with all the sweeps.  He even signed the 18th birthday card for one of the marshals. Elliot’s card was the map of that day’s stage that had left and returned to the desert bivvy.

 

By the time the sweeps get back and the control room shut down each day the sun will have set and much of the fettling will have been done. But the bigger teams will use all the time available for checking, rebuilding, replacing and making changes that their data say might improve performance – there is no parc ferme here, and however catastrophic your day has been you are always allowed to start tomorrow if you can get your vehicle going.

A stroll around the service area is always fun.  We saw four or five Audi technicians on their lap tops in their travelling office. The Audi has the green light on, so is safe.

 

The X Raid Mini has been put to bed.

 

The Prodrive guys are still hard at it on Loeb’s Bahrain-sponsored Bahrain Raid Extreme.

This yellow truck is the one Sweep Two pulled off the dune and shepherded to the road. With the front off you can see all the suspension, and nothing in front of the cab except cooling. It is mid engined and the back is dominated by 900 litre fuel tanks.

   

The bikes were mostly KTMs but we also saw GasGas and Husqvarna. The bikers do their own navigation from a road book that scrolls on an electric drum, an updated version of Jenks device for the Mille Miglia. These boys are tough, three plus hours mostly standing up over the dunes. The KTMs are beefy with a long stroke 450cc single cylinder injected engine and 48mm forks. Really quite sturdy; a lot of car MacPherson struts are smaller. The 16 litre rear fuel tank is solid enough to double up as a sub-frame.

 

Wandering around the service park at night brings home the madness of the whole adventure.