{"id":1171,"date":"2014-02-06T18:52:26","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T18:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usnomadstudio.com\/usnomads\/blog\/?page_id=1171"},"modified":"2014-04-12T15:42:49","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T15:42:49","slug":"notes-from-the-road-mar-20","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/usnomadstudio.com\/usnomads\/blog\/?page_id=1171","title":{"rendered":"Notes from the Road – MAR 20"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NOTES FROM THE ROAD<\/h2>\n
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< more recent<\/a> | 20 MAR 2014 | older ><\/a> <\/p>\n

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LEG 1: NEJAKH SOUTH LOOP<\/h5>\n


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The first day of the real competition begins as teams head south of Erfoud into the desert close to the Algerian border<\/strong><\/h6>\n


20 MARCH 2014:<\/strong> Today “counts” — it is the first “real” leg of the Rallye competition. The teams are woken up at 4am, as is the tradition, by rally founder Dominique Serra walking through the cluster of tents calling “Bon jour les filles, c’est quatre heure.” (Good morning girls, it’s 4 o’clock). Just one small problem: some Gazelles thought it would be good idea to set their alarms for 3:30! Headlamps bob between the tents, and teams are busy plotting points for the day’s first CP. The atmosphere is calm and studious until 5:00, when Ludovic Tach\u00e9 takes to the microphone for the daily briefing.

\nToday’s leg is a loop around Nejjakh, with an ideal distance of 125 km and an estimated time of 9 hours. “A short leg”, according to Ludovic. 6 checkpoints scattered across a wide area, which the Gazelles must reached in the right order to avoid being penalized! The positive side of today’s route: physical features that are easy to identify, with the Hamada du Guir plateau on one side and the Merzouga dunes on the other. Between the two, wide stretches of “reg” – rocky desert plains – as well as some camel grass to spice up the day! “The important thing is to take careful headings and pay attention to your ground clearance. This is just the start of the Rallye, you don’t want to break your vehicles!” insists Ludovic. At 6 o’clock, engines rev on the starting line as the first teams head out into the darkness.

\nThe teams are divided into 6 groups, each on a different route, in order to prevent them from following each other. “We designed different routes of equal difficulty and length” explains Ludovic Tach\u00e9, the event’s Sporting Director. At the end of the previous day’s leg, the Gazelles were given a “roadbook” with the coordinates of the first checkpoint on each route. They don’t find out which group they are in until the morning, when the starting grid is posted. They will only find out the rest of the day’s checkpoints when they reach CP1. From there they will have to plot the remainder of their day’s course.

\nBy 9:30am teams started advancing east of Erg Chebbi. There were some minor navigation issues early in the day, but overall, the Gazelles were moving well. But the afternoon proved much more difficult. Only forty teams made it back to the bivouac by 5:30pm. A sandstorm had blown up in the Nejjakh area, with winds up to 50 km\/h, reducing visibility and greatly complicating navigation. The relatively long distance between CP5 and CP6 was also a factor. During the leg a number of teams had mechanical issues as well. 47 teams were still out on the course at 8pm, and the final few didn’t get into the bivouac until 1230am — just three-and-a-half hours before wake up for the next leg!

\nThe day had been long and difficult for many of the first-time Gazelles. Rally organizers had designed it specifically as a “training” of sorts for the new teams — to demonstrate the importance of strategy in the choice of route. Between the first and second checkpoints, a strip of small dunes at the foot of the sandy mountains of Merzouga offered 2 possibilities: to go around, requiring extra kilometres, or to drive straight across, taking the chance of getting stuck or losing one’s bearings.

\nThe next stretch was largely an exercise in navigation. The long corridor between Erg Chebbi and the Hamada du Guir plateau that marks the Algerian border, the longest section of today’s route, offered no real difficulties in terms of the driving. This wide rocky plain provided clear features to steer by, such as the majestic Djebel Debouaa and the silhouette of Djebel El Begaa. However the long distance of this stretch magnified small errors in headings and many teams found themselves at the wrong checkpoints. The day was definitely not as easy as predicted!<\/p>\n


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\nFor more live coverage of Today’s event from the official Rally site: English<\/a> | Fran\u00e7ais<\/a><\/p>\n

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VIDEO: LEG 1 – THE COMPETITION BEGINS<\/h5>\n


Gazelles TV presents the first leg of the competition — The Nejakh South Loop. [Sorry for the obligatory advertisement at the start of this clip, it comes as part of the embedded resource, not our site.<\/em>]<\/p>\n