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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: The adventure started on Tuesday
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The legendary camel trophy is dead - the Rainforest Challenge lives! On Monday morning the real challenge started with the first real Malaysian jungle stages. But what was this? Disappointment was close after several meters of regarding the special stages. Small stages marked everywhere with red plastic tape - should this be already all of it? "No" calms the organizer Luis J. A. Wee, "the first day in the jungle is always a second kind of prologue. We are testing the competitors here to see how they are performing. If this is a "1" on the scale it is going to get to "4" in the later stages. If they do not make it here they will never make it into the twilight zone."
And even if the first stages did not look difficult at first they contained some tough tricky passages. In four different sections the participants had to tackle steep and slippery ascents, cross rivers and drive over large rocks in riverbeds. After the first vehicles passed the difference beween newcomers and experienced teams became quite obvious. Already at the first ascent two participants destroyed their engines as they both tried to go up with full speed until the cooling gave away in big clouds of smoke. The smart teams slowly approached the hill as far as possible and winched themselfes up the hill. In another section you had to tackle a tricky session in a small hill and to use both winches front and rear at the same time to turn your car around.
The Monday gave a small impression of the things to come during the RFC 2006. Also in terms of scenary and vegatation. For the last time the jungle passages could be reached via normal streets and so be accessed by spectators - already on the evening it became clear what is about to come. In a big convai the press vehicles started in front to reach the night's camp. The word "camp" however was disputed in this context by spoiled rally and trophy fans. In the middle a small jungle path with deep gullies and signs of water the convoi stopped and the camp was about to set up. "Camp? Which camp?" asked the new members on the RFC press team, "there is only the river and two meter high vegetation on each side". The solution was near. With two Landcruisers, several big knives and manpower a flat area was created to set the tents up.
Much harder than the press the participants were caught by reality. The first real challenge after the special stages started as the task was to reach the next camp on a special 7 km route. On the way the participants had to cross no less than about a dozen rivers and climb several mountains each one about 200m high and not reachable without winching. In addition hundreds of small bushes, trees and big rocks had to be fought. As a result no one reached the next camp before the next morning. All teams starting into the stage on the later afternoon had to camp outside on the track. The rest had to wait until Tuesday morning and stayed in the official camp.
On Tuesday morning the first teams were initially expected in the early morning however this had to be corrected to the middle of the afternoon. And this only for 7 km and even without any rain. As fast as the conditions change the plans have to change. "We have to adapt ourselves to nature - not vice-versa" comments organizer Luis J.A. Wee.
From the competitive point of view there is not much to report yet - also the standings can not be updated at the moment as their are no intermediate results available. Traditionally this will not change much until the ending of the trophy. For the "old experienced" Rainforest participants and press members there is a special surprise. In addition to being far North in the Kedah region this year there has been absolutely no rain so far. Since the beginning of the trophy on Saturday not a single drop of rain fell on the ground in the stages. This has the effect that the passages become more dry and more harmless. Just imagine what would have been the result if it had intensively rained down during the transport stage for which the teams needed about 13 hours in dry conditions...
With a humidity of about 100% and temperatures around 40 degrees C in the sun the weather is quite nice so far - and very tedious: From the early morning until the evening even without rain everything is wet due to sweating. As a result there is no big difference between swimming with or without clothes in one of the numerous rivers. At the moment this is still possible. The water is clear, clean and free of dangerous animals. This will change in the coming days when the trophy enters the so called twilight zone that was abandoned 35 years ago by wood loggers. Here the jungle will still be at its wildest with free roaming land- and watersnakes, armies of leaches, spiders, tigers, agressive fish and apes and even wild elephants. While they will be avoiding the loud engine noises during the day they will close in fast when the participants will have to camp at night in the twilight zone.
2006/11/28 | 15:00 CET | Editor: RFC Live-Team/js
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