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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: Competitors enter the Twighlight-Zone.
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On Friday morning the Rainforest Challenge convoy left the beautiful lake area into the long awaited Twilight Zone - the core area of the Rainforest Challenge and responsible for the title "world's toughest trophy". In two and a half days and nights the participants have to tackle approximately 50 km of jungle. The track in the north of Malaysia near the city Sik that has not been used any more for about 30 years goes through wild vegetation rivers and deep guts washed out by years of rain.
"We heard of hot springs in the middle of the jungle and thought that is the place where we want to be" so organizer Luis J.A. Wee. "The officials of the state have assisted us wherever possible. And thanks to the military and the state of Kedah we are now here" states the Malaysian organizer proudly. The tasks for the military during the RFC 2006: They travel together with the convoy and provide air surveillance to check that no participant gets lost. All trophy members, press and organization included have to report each morning and evening and communicate their current position. Should they get missing the military will send out search and rescue teams and a helicopter.
For the beginning of the Twilight Zone the organizer created an especially tough special stage in the middle of the "hardcore jungle". Through an extremely muddy area two special trial passages had to be driven. In addition to the mud several steep ascents, fallen trees and giant tree roots of the height of half the car had to be conquered. The camp was erected directly next to the track and next to a small river. In a river bend only 2m away from the stream hot springs came out of the ground. Some marks around were quickly identified by the Malaysians as fresh elephant tracks. Elephants are known to come to the springs frequently to drink the mineral rich water. So the camp was surrounded with low ropes. The explanation? At the moment elephants are usually roaming around with young elephants which are very curious and not afraid of humans. Then the older animals would follow into the camp to protect the young with potentially disastrous consequences.
Elephant visits were not reported after cautious checks on the next morning. However - several small monkeys had grouped together in some distance to and above the camp to carefully eye the situation. Relatively harmless but very annoying were the numerous leeches at the campsite. The leeches just wait in the low vegetation for a mammal to pass and will attach to it. They sense the presence of blood even from several centimeters or meters away. So while standing still you sometimes could watch an entire army of them suddenly head towards you from all directions eager to drink your blood. Leeches can have any size between 3 millimeters and 24 centimeters. As a result in the campsite almost everyone was running around with blood running somewhere out of there shoes or down the knees as the bites will not stop bleeding for about an hour after the leech falls off.
On Saturday morning the remaining teams of the RFC 2006 will finally enter the Twilight Zone. Some of them even did not drive some sections before to have time to prepare the damaged car for the Zone. Among them was the team from the Philippines with their long Landrover Defender. Their main problem is the winch which was almost unable to pull the heavy Landrover through the bad passages. As a result the team hardly managed a stage until know and was even nicknamed by Marshalls "Team DNF" (DNF stands for "did not finish"). "We now organized and mounted a stronger winch and hope to manage the twilight zone with it" so a team member. "Yesterday evening we ate everything that was packed in cans to reduce even more weight for tomorrow" he added smilingly.
Also the spectator-loved Sri Lankan team with their lovingly modified Landrover-"boat" will be going into the Twilight Zone after flipping their car over once more on the transport stage to the Twilight Zone base camp. Also for them repairs were numerous. "Until now we altogether have broken 9 halfshafts. Now we are thinking about getting a halfshaft sponsor for the next year" laughs Navin the codriver of the other vehicle from Sri Lanka. "We decided to fly in 11 more halfshafts as spares as they are incredibly expensive and difficult to get in these quantities." Spontanously asked how many of them they expected to need for the rest of the trophy the estimations ranged from "all" to "2".
There were good news until Saturday evening from the European view: the Austrian Markus Osswald (Jeep Cherokee), the Danish father and son team Skjoeld and the married couple Janaszkiewcz from Poland (Landrover Defender) have survived the last stage before the Twilight Zone without problems and started without further technical problems. "After dozens of repairs the vehicle now seems to be ready for the Twilight Zone and we hope to go through it without further technical problems" so a team member.
Together with the participants a handful of journalists and mechanics started into the Twilight Zone. However it is highly unlikely that they will have time for their normal activities: "In the last year we were mainly busy with trying to rescue ourselves and our vehicles" reports a journalist from Italy, "we did not even meet the participants." So the main part of the journalists and the convoy started on Saturday evening to drive around the Twilight Zone and establish a campsite where the participants are expected to leave the jungle again.
2006/12/05 | 06:30 CET | Editor: RFC Live-Team/js
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