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This is the single-news section of the
marathonrally.com rally-live special of the Rainforest Challenge 2006. To navigate please use the upper or right Navigation Bar.
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Rainforest Challenge: Adventourous first jungle passages at the RFC
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As reported the spirit of the Rainforest Challenge largely is based on the transport stages. They harldy count for the final standings but are the biggest part of the driving kilometers. Directly after the jungle stages on Monday the participants had to go on a night transfer stage to reach the next camp. On the map the distance just was around 6 km but almost all of them should need the entire night and the next morning to reach the next camp. "It was absolutely incredible" so the Austrian Markus Osswald on Tuesday afternoon. "We destroyed our radiator two times on the stage but were able to fix it. An addition we had to change a tire during the night. The stage was so great I am definitely going to drive it again privately after the rainforest challenge".
Also the Danish father-son team Skoejld was impressen. "Unbelievable. We had to winch ourselves uphill for more than 5 hours then 4 hours down the hills on the other side again. Then we had to cross wilderniss for about 2 km - with big knives and the engine power we had to find our way. Every pedestrian was faster than any car on this stage".
Both teams from Sri Lanka who had prepared their landrovers with passion and a lot of time were struck with bad luck. Apparently the changes were too grave as both teams had to quit the stage after numerous failing parts and had to return to the camp. "We worked the whole night and half a day, did not sleep or eat in this time at all" told us a team member, "but in the end we made it". Both Landrovers arrived on Tuesday afternoon in the area of the second stage but were unable to start into the special stage.
The special stages on Tuesday consisted of two smaller parts both together about 900 m long and RFC-like marked in trial fashion. In the first part a small river had to be crossed then a steep hill needed to be crossed beetween narrow palms. After a short parking stunt that had to be performed on a large tree stump the cars had to continue into a riverbed and a winding passage between trees.
The participants' brutal handling of their heavily modified cars is the astonishing part of the event. As a result the damage quota is also high. As the camps of the participants are widely spread an ghostly atmoshphere is created by the numerous nightly welding actions.
The jungle atmosphere and the team spirit are the exceptional parts of the event in addition to the sports competition. At camp fires with drums and songs the local Malaysian teams are cheering at everyone who joins the joyful group. The international get-together of the teams and participants form new friendships within no time at all. In between everyone needs to pay attention that the personal luggage or sleeping is not taken over by snakes or other animals.
"Sure, in the first days the Rainforest Challenge might seem to look like a small trial event with big transfer passages" reports Journalist Travis Krause who is from South Africa and was participant himself for three years. "But it is the jungle and the amazing adventure that year after year draws competitors from all over the world to Malaysia. Not to forget the second part of the RFC of course - the "Twilight-Zone". Those is indeed the toughest thing that can happen to a motorsport enthusiast in only in short amount of time."
To not forget the sportivr character of the event: due to our own calculations the leading car is the local team and winner of the previous year Tan Eng Joo with his Jeep CJ in front of Whong Kock Pin (Malaysia, Jeep CJ) and Chen Yan from China (also Jeep CJ). Both Jeep Cherokee from Austria and Danmark are still in the medium standingd in spite of various defects while the Landrover Defender from Poland has lost his position due to numerous problems.
The quota of cars that are no longer in the competition is quite high. Already during the prologue claimed the first victims. The first jungle stage even increased this number further. The Landrover team from the Philippines as an example is still in the Challenger however no longer competes in the special stages. The (almost) always happy Asians wanted to start with an almost standard Defender 110 - and already failed on the first winching hill.
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