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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 Malaysian event remains incomparable.
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Even after more than 10 days of the event the Rainforest Challenge stays a class of its own and keeps being incomparable to any of the other events like rallys, trials or trophys. With the entrance into the twilight zone on Friday afternoon the difficulty of the track increased once more. The convoy went into the final jungle course to reach the first base camp that was still shared by everyone including participants, organization officials and press members. At this camp two special stages were driven that were largely dominated by mud and natural obstacles like giant tree roots, bamboo and ratten that kept beating the cars outer surfaces.
After conquering some extremely muddy passages and some big tree stumps and roots the Polish team in their Landrover found their car entangled in arm thick rattan hanging down from the trees above that had gone around the rear tires and axles and kept holding the car in spite of engine and winch power. It looked almost like an adventure or fantasy movie where the jungle suddenly became alive and grabbed the car with roots and hands from above.
Already the as "easily passable way" classified track to the Twiligh Zone base camp took its toll. Two cars from the press and organization convoy flipped over to their sides. No bigger damage was done but everyone drove even more carefully than before on the transport stages. The way into the jungle often was hardly more than some holes in the green with split bamboo and some tire tracks on the ground and seemed always to be some cm smaller than the cars' width. Often sharp 90 degree turns needed to be taken between trees and riverbeds that were impossible to drive without using the sides of the trees to turn the car around.
From the base camp the official scouting and marshal team (traditionally called x-men team on the RFC) started in the twilight zone closely followed by the participants an hour later. Depending on the conditions and constraints put on the vehicles and their drivers being alone in the jungle up to five special stages will have to be driven on the passage through the Twilight Zone. The press convoy split at the camp. 5 cars followed the teams into the Zone to get spectacular pictures (or experiences - we will not know that before Monday...) the rest went back to the camp where the convoy will be expected out of the North on the dawn of the third day of their journey.
On the way back out the jungle from the base camp also the marathonrally.com team had to experience the mighty power of the jungle. While waiting for a stuck car in front of us the track next to a small river suddenly gave away in a landslide and our car tumbled down into the river before it came to a halt lying with one side in the water. As various parts of the luggage searched their own ways flying around everywhere we unfortunately and unwillingly donated parts of our video equipment to the river inhabitants. The team was left unharmed but we unfortunately will not be able to transmit short video sequences anymore during the Rainforest Challenge from on-site.
2006/12/03 | 06:00 CET | Editor: RFC Live-Team/js
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