Kalahari Rally 2019 - longer, harder, tougher
I took a while, but here is my full race report from this year's Kalahari Rally
I knew Kalahari Rally 2019 would be tough, but thought I had a bit of an advantage having been there in 2018. Boy was I mistaken.
Fresh from the Tankwa Cross Country Rally. just one and a half weeks earlier, we arrived in Mahikeng ready to race. My trusty KTM 450 (Katy) was prepped, and I was fit. Our new bivouac at Mmabatho Palms Hotel had a nice pool to relax in and on Friday night the bivouac was filled with cars and bikes from South Africa, Botswana, and across Europe. Excitement was in the air, we were about to start the adventure that is the Kalahari Rally. It was great to see some new faces, and to chat with some old friends from 2018.
The Super Special on Saturday was super fast with tricky navigation, very similar to 2018, so I loved it and had a great ride, until my roadbook motor disintegrated, and I had to scroll by hand for the rest of the stage. I still managed to finish 2nd!
Saturday night took us late into the night with bike prep for the next day's marathon stage (no outside or crew support would be allowed the next two days). We put on new tyres (I still had Tankwa tyres on), new oil, filters, etc. I managed to "borrow" a roadbook from Craig Lloyd, and fitted it, ready for the marathon stage.
Sunday took us to Stage 1, Kraaipan, with a liaison , what a stage it was, with a 329 km special. At the start of the special we noticed that Johan Van Wyk's rear fuel tank came loose, so we found some wire and "maak 'n plan" with wire and straps.
The stage started with lots of river sections. The sand was soft and deep and there were massive holes in the river due to sand mining. I took my first major tumble of the rally hitting one of the "unseen" holes at speed and falling with my bike downhill into the hole. My ICO broke off, but I managed to cable tie it on for the day. Craig Lloyd was kind enough to stop and help me lift the bike up as I was not able to do it alone on the slope. As soon as he was off, even before I could start riding again, I simply fell over, again on the downhill side (I was swearing at myself big time). Next rider to come past was Gert Van Den Berg, who helped me out once again. This time I learned, and wheeled my bike to level ground before I got back on.
From there the day went smoothly, with tough riding through riverbeds. The stage was shortened/cut at some point, and we were directed on a new liaison to get to the rider bivouac for the marathon stage at Tlagameng Boere Verenig.
This was one of the coolest liaisons I have done in a long time, riding alongside Thomas and Keegan Eich, 3 abreast through the African bush as the sun was setting, sparks flying from our chain guards in the night, dodging donkeys and cows.
We managed to get to the marathon bivouac quite late, but in time, grabbed some potjie, and I started working on my bike. I managed to fix my ICO so that it would hold up for the next day.
During the stage, Craig Lloyd who lent me his spare roadbook, had a bit of a fall, and in the process, broke his roadbook. I was about to take off my (Craig's) roadbook so that Craig could fit it on his bike, when he very graciously offered that I could keep it on my bike (as not to waste time me taking it off and him fitting it), and that we can just ride together the next day, as long as we stick together. This proved to be the start of a great collaboration between the 2 of us, and the start of a great friendship. That night I marked my roadbook till about 1am, and went to bed only to get up at 03:45am!
Stage 2 was shortened (318km special was planned) quite a bit due to unforeseen mining in the Molopo river, and we had a "free liaison" (no set start time of liaison) to the start for Stage 2 at Heuningvlei. Some bikers realised that the free liaison would mean a lot of dust and a group of us stuffed our faces with breakfast and were on the liaison before 5am, well before the cars, to avoid the dust. The liaison was much tougher/rougher than expected, and soon the cars caught up with us and left us in the dust.
Heunigvlei was the first special of stage 2. It started on a pan with a CMOY (Average cap heading) and the day was super fast, long straights in deep sand tracks, I loved it. Craig and I worked together, me taking us close to the waypoints on the roadbook, and then Craig taking over as soon as we get close to a way point, taking us right to it. It was great team work, and we tag teamed all day like clockwork.
From Heuningvlei we had a liaison to Van Zylsrus where we had our first taste of Kalahari dunes on a tricky 20km dune special. This was loads of fun, and after the special we pulled into camp at Van Zylsrus, exhausted, but happy. This meant a late/long night for the crews, as the marathon stage ended at Heuningvlei. That night I finally gave Craig back his roadbook back and scrounged another one from Thomas Eich.
Stage 3 saw one of the longest days, with a 210 km liaison to Mier in the Kgalagadi, a 220km special in the Kalahari dunes along the Namibia border, and then another 210 liaison back to Van Zylsrus. This liaison was as challenging as the others (liaisons on KR 19 were in some cases just as tough as the specials).
The special started on a pan. Myself, Craig Lloyd, and Hamish Horrell decided to stick together through the dune sections in case one of us got stuck. Once we entered the big dunes, it was chaos, at least for me it was. I have never ridden dunes before, and really struggled to stay on the road book, navigate and ride thick sand, never mind finding the waypoints (it seems like we did hit all of them in the end).
It took me about 70km to understand the sand and get the hang of it, but once I did, I LOVED every second of it. I lost my air box cover somewhere in the dunes, and at some point Hamish was like "I think I saw it a few km back". I decided to make a U-turn and find it, rather than risking blowing up my engine. This took quite a bit of time, and added a few km's in the dunes for me, but I found it, and, in true rally spirit, Hamish and Craig waited for me to catch up.
The rest of the day was a blur of heat, sand, dunes and sun. I know somewhere we caught up with Mark Johnston (or did he catch up with us?), and we trudged along as a "merry posse".
Towards the end of the stage, Hamish's quad picked up some fencing wire, bringing him to an abrupt stop. After trying to help, and being a one man job, he gave us the go ahead to keep moving, and we left Hamish in the dunes, thinking we would soon see him again. (Little did I know the next time I would see Hamish would be 23:30 that night!)
About 1 km from the end of the special, Mark's bike decided to start spluttering and after adding some fuel, we soon realised it was a clogged injector and not lack of fuel. We towed Mark to the end of the first special and left in the capable hands of his crew and some helpers (Pierre Lombard, Nadene Freysen, James Ballantyne, Peter “McFlurry” Mcbride), while Craig and I hanged cable to make it to the end of the liaison, where a small 4 km special awaited us. It was vital to complete the 4 km special, otherwise we would have to take a DNF (Did not Finish) for the day. To make this time, we had to go flat out, for 210km. This was one of the toughest liaisons on the rally for me, but we made our start time with minutes to spare and smashed out the 4km special like pros. To our surprise, as we stopped at the start of the special, James Alexander from Botswana on his Yamaha WR stopped behind us (we never even knew he was behind us). I will never forget his words to John Kelly's dad who was waiting for him:
"That was the toughest, craziest thing I have ever done, it was unbelievable. I have done Iron Man, Cape Epic, I have done it all, but this is something else!!!" James had started on his liaison from Mier well after us, and went flat out (I heard figures of 160km/h thrown around, did not know a WR can do that, but James made it) all the way to make his start time, just like us at the second special.
Stage 4 was the infamous "Digtebos". The planned stage of 419km was shortened, but we still had a 430km liaison to do to the start of the stage. This was the longest liaison of the rally, and many of us started falling asleep about 20/30km before the start of the special. Digtebos did not disappoint. Tricky navigation, tight turns, loose sand, lots of thorns, it had it all. By now I was so tired, I just rode to get the stage done, but overall, enjoyed it. The liaison took us back to Mahikeng where would stay for the rest of the rally.
To me after the stage I had hit my low point on the rally. When we arrived at the bivouac we learned that one of our support vehicles had blown an engine on the way back to Mahikeng, and the support crew arrived just as we arrived in the bivouac. It was a very long, tough night of servicing, setting up tents, making plans, and marking roadbooks.
Huge was the relief when we learned that there would be NO liaison (by now we were sick and tired of liaisons) for stage 5, Skilpadshek. In 2018 this was my best, fastest and favourite stage, so I was mentally prepared for it. I started off great and had a great run up to a point where I did not mark my roadbook properly the previous night because of being too tired (lesson learned). The result is that I ended up at the bottom of a deep ravine/gulley, and just could not get the bike out of it.
I tried everything, but because of the dry grass, large rocks, and steep angle, the bike would just not grip. I eventually got it up 90% up the valley and collapsed from exhaustion and heat. That was it for me, I was ready to call it in........
As I was lying there in the grass, I heard the distant rumble of a bike. I forced myself to get up and run up out of the valley, missing the bike, but at least knowing where the track was. After about 5 minutes I heard another bike and started waving like a crazy person (which I was at this point). My saviour arrived in the form of Erwin Gorrens, a Belgian rider who had retired the race, but still was riding the route. He very graciously helped me, and we ended up dragging, pushing, and shoving my bike over rocks for about 200m to the top. Thank you Erwin, I am forever indebted to you.
As we reached the top, I was delighted to see my friends, Craig, Mark and James again (I had thought they were long gone). Craig's roadbook mount had broken clean off, and they were riding together. The "merry posse" was reunited, and the 4 us rode together for the rest of stage 5 to finish the day! What a day that was.
That night it was the quietest bivouac I had been in on a rally. Everybody was mentally and physically exhausted, and it showed. One more day left......
Stage 6 had us all parade to the Crossing Shopping centre, where the special started and ended. As expected, it was a difficult day for navigation, but the terrain was fast and fun. It was a great day. We received our finishers’ medals as we came to the finish of the special and that night we had a braai and prize giving (with some beers of course).
Kalahari 2019 was by far the toughest race I have ever done. However, I love the sport. More so, I love the spirit of RALLYE and the people who compete in it. In the words of Werner Mostertt - "When you are in the bivouac, you can walk to any competitor, and they will help you, we all help each other, even if we are competitors, we want to see each other finish."
There is nothing like it. The feeling of everybody pulling together, helping each other to achieve a communal end goal, is what makes rally special.
A massive thank you to: Garth Roberts and his team for having the vision and the guts to once again, bring rally to life in South Africa (after the Amageza).
Each and every marshal, medic, helper that worked on this event. You guys do this for the love of the sport, and it would not be possible for us to enjoy or practice our sport if it was not for you. You guys worked nonstop, and had less sleep than us competitors.
Brandvlei Fuel Distributers who had fuel at the start and finish of every special. This is a MASSIVE feat given where we were racing. It would simply not have been possible for crews to get fuel to us in these remote locations on time.
The awesome media crew and photo crew. (Awie Emc Pierre Wessels Marais Wessels Murray Louw) Mike Lloyd and Ricky Kruger for helping out my crew with all the problems and getting them back safely.
Then by biggest thanks and appreciation to my support crew and sponsors: My wife and daughter, always by my side, no matter how tough things get.
Juan Coetzee, Justin Taylor, and Trymore Tassyman Tasara from KTM Cape Town (Ashley Baud) for making sure my bike was tip top and sorted every night. Juan for working through the night, for giving us a place to stay in Bloemfontein, for arranging a lowbed for the Landy. Rally is a team sport, and it would not be possible without you guys, THANK YOU.
Then, KTM Cape Town, for their unwavering support in this endeavour, you guys are the best, and have been there to support me around every turn, my blood is as Orange as they come. THANK YOU.
Enduristan South Africa, thank you for the great gear support, I look forward to testing some more gear for you.
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