Just had a few pictures through from Steven in Istanbul of Lola on the lift to have her fluids changed. I’d forgotten the new exhaust had meant disconnected heat: have texted Hayden to ask how that worked out in the unexpected snow.

 

Also seen here is the box containing the other spare generator that Tracey sent from San Francisco. The boys have a pair of tyres waiting in Turkey too, no doubt they will fit them.

With less than a week to go until we see Team Lola in Paris, I’m sure that many of their fellow competitors are just hoping their machines can make it the last few thousand kilometres. There’s some cracking rebuild costs ahead of more than a few entrants: vintage cars are on another level when it comes to serious repair bills.

Looks like there is a lot of rain waiting for the rally as it runs through Greece and up into Italy. Good job we’re in a tin top.

There’ll be some sighs of relief once the cars cross the Italian border into France! It’s been a hell of a month.

Team Lola Racing have been quiet of late, so not much in the way of team news to share. The rally has been tough going, driving through heavy rain, freezing fog and snow, which explains some of the radio silence, and I have seen a few pics of the WEVO head honcho propping up various bars, which probably explains the rest! Here’s a pic SH sent me of Hayden changing the generator, apparently just after he got out of the shower:

Some negativity entered the Peking-Paris as the teams left Iran. A few schoolkids started throwing stones at the leading cars while they passed, breaking a screen or two and clobbering one lady on the head. The sporadic target practice carried on into Turkey. Fun-loving groups of local kids on scooters turned out not to be so friendly, after they managed to box one Rolls-Royce driver in and steal currency, passports, travel documents, the lot.

To cap this unpleasantness, a female competitor was molested by two guys in a filling station, while outside, a gang robbed her husband. This is the sort of stuff you know goes on, but hope will not tarnish a positive event such as this one. Unfortunately, it takes all kinds to fill this world of ours. Here’s a happier pic from the Model A Blog.

Skytag reports Lola as en route to tonight’s stopover at Abant Lake in Turkey, with tomorrow a much lighter travel and liaison day. No results  from the treacherous time trials held yesterday as yet, but reports away from the ‘everything is running along nicely’ main rally website say that many competitors found it all a bit too much to ask, given absolutely desperate weather on the ground and the oppressive shadow of recent events. These are hardy folks, but there seems little sense in forcing the word ‘fool’ before that description, if it is indeed how this has all played out. We wait to hear.

At this stage, I’m just looking forward to an update saying Lola and the boys are all OK. I have the texts sent, just waiting for them to come back into a cell phone service zone.

I’ve just had a text from Hayden, which can only mean that the boys are now in Turkey, and possibly enjoying a tipple. My money’s on red wine for the Aussie.

 

Checking the Skytag site, they are indeed in Turkey, en route to Erzurum and having just clocked up 10,600 kilometres in total so far, with 3,800 left to go. The duo seem to be in convoy with Chuck and Lloyd in the 1949 Cadillac. Other cars we are tracking are not yet popping up on the satellite site, so must still be clearing the border.

The main rally site reports that Iran was enjoyable, so I’m looking forward to hearing what our boys have to say on the experience. The photo above shows them running through the first section of Turkmenistan/Iran “No Man’s Land”. The pic below shows their emergency road-welded rear arms versus the arms that Alan at The Stables had reinforced and sent out on the same day.

Blog reports elsewhere say the rally weathered a bit of a storm by the Caspian Sea, which cleared while crossing the mountains en route to Tabriz. Coming through the 2,800 metre mountain pass was ‘like running through Switzerland’, with acres of pine forests flourishing in the cool damp mountain climate. As the altitude fell away, the temperatures climbed and the landscape soon dried out into desert again.

Timed events have been cancelled on the last two days, once for exhaustion and once for fog, so Hayden’s prediction that it would finish as it was on the entry to Iran looks more prudent by the day. On the upside, friend of Team Lola Racing, Garrick Staples in his #106 Beetle has fixed a broken crank and is back with the rally, and the Aston duo have managed to repair a clutch problem, meaning the car is still in the hunt.

Hayden’s text is a summary of his thoughts on the ‘Stans they spent two weeks driving through. Here you go:

Misunderstanding the ‘Stans.

As we pulled out of Turkmenistan and waited in the arrivals hall to Iran, I had time to consider what I did not know about the three ‘Stans and how little my expectations could have been met by what I saw through the windscreen.

In general, Uzbekistan appeared to have the most universal level of development and visitworthiness: Tashkent and Samarkand being cities I would visit again as a tourist.

Kazakhstan had some beautiful scenery, but horrible roads. Turkmenistan was really a flat desert, roads were not as bad as Kazakhstan, but not much to see until we headed into the mountains dividing Iran from Turkmenistan, which give me great hope for Iran. This spectacular mountain divide – about 2000m through the pass – was the first of several we are scheduled to encounter in Iran.

Apparently, the wealth in both Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan is in the oil and minerals, so quite invisible during our travels across the rural areas of these nations. Uzbekistan has a more clearly developed rural infrastructure, with commercialised farming and many neat smallholdings and lots of cotton fields. Some small irrigated sections of Turkmenistan supported corn, and a vast but broken aqueduct system was on display in Kazakh, clearly left over from the days of the USSR.

Thanks to virtually nil Internet access, updates from the 2010 Peking to Paris rally have been scant of late, but I had a few texts from Hayden this weekend which I am happy to relay. I’ve spent a few hours scouting around the blogs, Flickr and Facebook sites to find some pics to go with it – found a few of Lola, with some great general shots too. Here’s one of Lola and Chuck Schwager’s 1949 Cadillac filling up:

Big shout out to Chuck and Lloyd: the Number 86 Cadillac boys (we all know I love an old Cadillac), the Model A crew, the Aston team and Southlands Farm Cottages on Flickr for helping to fill out this post with some pics. Click on the links to hear their stories and see some fabulous images.

Here’s Hayden.

Thursday September 30th (a replacement generator was flown in to Tashkent):

Samarkand is great. Tashkent was great! Will swap the generator in the morning. I did the LH valves this morning, purred along today, will do the RH bank tomorrow, will also change air filters and perhaps even oil again. The oil sure is dirty, so there must have been lot of gunge in the motor after Mongolia and some more dirt roads in Russia and KZ.

Uzbekistan has been a total surprise. I am slightly ashamed to know so little of a nation that has been so highly developed for so long. We colonials always seem to think that the modern world was created in the late 18th century: hard to shrug off. Beautiful place.

Friday October 1st:

Went clubbing in Almaty, late night dancing etc. Girls were super-westernised, most less tastefully dressed than you would see in a Leeds nightclub, major contradiction for a Muslim nation. The whole ‘religion versus globalisation’ is a interesting topic. I am sitting in a glorious park in the center of University Avenue, Samarkand and contemplating exactly that as it goes twilight, no sense of threat or insecurity while wandering around the city on my own.

Saturday October 2nd (08.35 UK):

Made it into Turkmenistan. What was supposed to be the most arduous and potentially most time-consuming border crossing, ended up being one of the most efficient. Looking forward to a beer and swim, assuming the hotel has either.

The Turkish generator now powering Lola’s electrics is working fine, everything is running sweetly. I don’t want to jinx it, so that’s all I am saying.

At the border we heard the 106 VW is limping along with CV issues, so I might be called to the spanners again later to help with that. I am still not in a viable Internet bucket area, so will stick with text.

Saturday October 2nd (12.24 UK):

Hotel update! We have been checked into the local sanitarium in Turkmenabat. Total dive, very very funny, but they do have cold beer. Swim will have to wait – just a muddy fountain.

I have stayed in worse, but not much. Having said that, the absolute worst was in Vallejo, CA. The photos of medical procedures, fleas, ticks and vaporisators on the walls here are also scary!

We are bussing to a dinner, I  am sure it will be one to remember.

Sunday 3rd October:

We are into Ashgabat now, weird city with a lot of new construction. Some is very Euro, some is very Muslim. This is our last night of booze before Iran, and the prices are inflated; to say the least. On the upside, I did pay 36 Turk Menats for 59 litres of fuel. Roughly this translates to about US$14.50 for 13 imperial gallons.

Today we did 630 km on pretty good roads, managed exactly 10 litres/100km. Not bad for carbs covered in mud, and a motor with 8500 very hard kms logged on it. I’ll be interested when you (me – JG) drive it after Paris and see what it feels like; I’ll be much too familiar with all the shortcomings and foibles by the time we arrive.

I can’t see where we can make up lost time without someone else having a problem, but the organisers insist there are enough competitive elements for the results to be reordered before Paris. Regardless, the time lost when the poor 356 could only be pounded across Mongolia at a certain speed is unlikely to be recovered.

We managed to start a good rumour about a secret passage control this morning, after the route book revealed an easy and obvious short cut that many took – but not us. It’s all gaming, my hope is to finish gold. Given Steven’s vertical learning curve and the three cars ahead of us in our class, I think that will be quite an achievement.

OK, back to JG talking.

The cars Lola is lying behind are all fully rally-prepared specials. The leading 1964 EH Holden, run by Gerry Crown and Matt Bryson, is a serious rally saloon chassis and a previous competitor.  Gerry is currently letting Matt drive and resting an injured wrist, but expects to be back behind the wheel from tomorrow. Joint first is another Holden, this one also serious! Greg and Liz Newton’s car is pretty tough stuff. I’ve found some good video of the pair but the link is down at present. I’ll sort it later.

Ahmet Ongun (himself a serial Classic Porsche owner) and Erdal Tokcan in their separate-chassis 1967 Anadol are lying second. The Anadol is a glassfibre-bodied car, built in the team’s native Turkey over five years, supported by UK manufacturer Reliant. The car is powered by a sturdy old 1600cc Ford engine.

The wicked Aston Martin DB5 of Adrian Gosen and Andrew Honeychurch is currently lying third. A&A have had a few technical problems, just like Team Lola Racing, but they are maintaining a solid grip on that third position in class: 3 minutes off the leader and 3 mins ahead of us.

Tomorrow the boys cross the border into Iran, followed by a lengthy 600-kilometre drive to Gorgan. Let’s hope the border guards don’t play silly buggers.

After a rest weekend in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Lola and her intrepid duo are off again in the 2010 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge.

According to Hayden’s latest text, Almaty was about as restful as hanging from a speeding horse by the stirrups. H says:

“A lot of cars needed work in Almaty, many old cars had a lot of broken spring problems. I did a lot of basic service, but the big job was the swing axle tubes.

Interesting to see the skid pan/undertray removed, a huge amount of force has been borne by the skid, morphed and shaped in a way that is pretty telling of the terrain.

Did other stuff like oil and filter, plugs, points, mostly preventative, although I did choose the hotter plugs to make it run a little better on the awful gas.

I did not get to do the valve adjustment, so will do that in the next day or so, I had to prioritize. Garrick Staples from the VW convertible – number 106 – helped me all day, so that was great.

Car is clicking along this morning, 730km day that will be a nice bed-in of all the new parts. Still need to do some washing, but that can happen tonight.

Alan did a fantastic job getting us new axle tubes. Between 9.30 and 3.30 he found parts, put the kit together, took them to fabrication, had them boxed and reinforced, and got them to WEVO so Tracey could call in a 3.30 collection. Really this rally could not be done without the cooperation of all of you.”

All I can say is that anyone who knows these two would be happy to help out. It’s hard to imagine a more genuine pair of Porsche enthusiasts.

WEVO for the win!