We’re back from racing the fifth round of the Baja World Championship in Qatar, we just thought we'd drop an update on how we got on.
Our rally bikes were packed up in wooden crates and flown out to the service park at the Lusail International Circuit in Qatar, we then flew out to meet them a few weeks later. Being a world championship round, it was a full on set up, especially with the biggest teams in the world competing at this event. We built the bikes up using the small amount of tools we were able to pack and they were ready to go. Before the Baja started, we attended an opening ceremony, we rode up onto the starters stage together, all a bit surreal for us.
The race was set up over three days;
Day 1 Prologue – Total 76km; A smaller day made up from 66km of liaison and a 10km special stage, to set the riders up in timed order for the following day, so a nice easy start to the event. Both of us had a few issues with the paper roadbooks at the start, Carl managed to tear his in half! And Craig's rollers were slipping, which meant he couldn’t read the navigations notes! We managed to meet up at the start of the stage, Carl set of first, with Craig shortly behind him. With Carl leading out and Craig with no navigation, we rode steadily together through the 10km stage. We got back to the service park and sorted the roadbooks and fueled the bikes up ready for the following days bigger stage.
Day 2 – Total 407km; The day was made up of 161km of liaison and a 245km special stage. It was also set over two roadbooks, we had a 30min neutralization zone to swap the roadbooks over halfway through the day. We agreed that we would try and ride the day together, following our race out in Morocco where riding together didn’t quite work out, we had a new plan and it worked well. The majority of the stage was made up of fast sandy gravel tracks, the navigation was pretty difficult, many riders agreed with us. Lots of information coming up off the roadbook. But we got through it, no issues and hit all the waypoints which meant we didn’t incur any penalties. We got back to the service park, we were only allowed to work on the bikes for two hours, to check them over and get them ready for the second day. They then go into Parc Ferme, where you’re not allowed to touch them, if you’re late or do go back into Parc Ferme, time penalties are added.
Day 3 – Total 412km; The day was made up of 161km of liaison and a 252km special stage. It was set in one roadbook, so it was quite a big roll to load into the roadbook. The special stage started off much the same as the day prior, fast sandy tracks. 80km from the end, the sand dunes started appearing and we ended up deep into them. Navigation was difficult in the dunes, we ended up missing a couple of waypoints which cost us a 30min time penalty. The heat during the day was up to 40deg, so riding around trying to find the two waypoints in deep sand was difficult, we decided to cut our losses and move on. We rolled into the finish of the stage side by side, just as we planned, both of us absolutely buzzing. We’ve never been overly fussed about the results, it’s always about both of us finishing in a good shape. But, we did finish in 13th and 14th place in our class, so we were very happy to come away with that!
It was an awesome adventure out in Qatar, we loved every minute of it!
Carl & Craig
Searles2dakar
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