Kalahari rally 2018. And why I wanted to race it

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Sep 25, 2009
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Location
kempton park
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BMW (all models)
I have been riding dirt bikes since age of 5 , and except for the first 5 years after starting to work where I could not afford a bike , I have been riding now for almost 35 years of my life

Yet I never had the opportunity to go racing until I started track days on my first super bike in 2004. I did the odd regional super bike race for 3 years, but shortly after the birth of my son , I had quite a big crash in a race at Kyalami that ended me up in theater with an emergency operation on my knee.
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So with a lot of pressure from family and friends I sold my race bike and purchased a BMW GS 1200 Adventure.
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Well a new flame was ignited inside of me. A longing to go and explore. And explore I did.
I went in search of every gravel track or railroad service road I could find in Gauteng

When time allowed I also went on extended trips to Namibia, Botswana (Kubu island) Lesotho (sani pass) , eastern and western Cape , and my favorite Northern Cape
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About a year ago I purchased Joey Evans book Para to Dakar at Cape Town Airport on the way back to JHB. 3 Days later I had finished reading it and suddenly had this massive urge to go racing again, but on dirt bikes and hopefully in a Rally

Shortly thereafter I saw the first advert for the Kalahari rally and immediately knew what I wanted to do in 2018.
I started training to get myself back in shape and did my first GXCC race in February
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That first race was quite a shock to my body and I knew I would have to increase my training and time spent on the bike on weekends

I also entered the Botswana 1000 desert race , because Joey Evans also did it in his book
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The thick sand and thorns almost destroyed me , yet I managed to finish 36th overall after 3 days in the desert

As part of my preparation I also did the Pongola 500 on my Husqvarna 701 Rally bike and joined Thomas Eich from Omega Fibre on a 2 day Roadbook Training weekend
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If ever you doubt whether you would want to try rally Navigation riding, go and do this weekend with Omega. It was massive fun and I learned a lot

Well unto Kalahari rally
The day had finally arrived
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Scrutineering and all checks done , first roadbook received and I was ready for the prologue on Sunday
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Roadbook marking would become a daily ritual, often until very late at night
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Day 1 Prologue:70km

Started the race and quickly got the nerves to settle down. Started increasing my speed and at about 50km’s my bike stopped. After about 10minutes realized that I forgot to open my auxiliary tanks taps and so ran out of fuel
Quickly opened them and carried on
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I had forgotten to properly mark my STOPS and Speeding zones on Roadbook and missed almost all of them. Got a 1.5 hour penalty for those mistakes, meaning tomorrow I would start 2nd last. Luckily the prologues times will not be part of our overall time for rally
So I went back and properly started highlighting and coloring my stops and speed zones for rest of rally

Day 2: 221km Liaison and 208km Special

Today’s special was mostly on agriculture farmland next to ploughed fields and fences similar to GXCC racing with navigation not to difficult.
To my own surprise I finished 3rd overall
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Day 3: Special 208km , Liaison 74km , another special 287km and then final Liaison 244km

A very long day. Started at 6:45am and only finished at 7:30pm. During the 2nd special we were racing on sandy tracks in between thick thorn bushes. Felt a sharp pain in my left arm and noticed a long camel thorn tree thorn standing straight up lodged into my arm. I pulled it out whilst at speed and finished the stage with a bleeding arm

Still 3rd overall

Day 4: Special 327km and Liaison 76km
A very difficult day with extremely tough navigation, very sandy technical riding in the Digtebos area. I now know why they call it Digtebos.
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With about 50km to go off special I again felt a very sharp intense pain again on my left arm as I was speeding past a thorn bush growing unto the track.

The pain kept on intensifying and as I got back to bivouac in the dark I knew there was something large lodged into my arm muscle
Off to the doctor and half an hour later out came a 4cm sekelbos thorn. First set of stitches
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We again only finished the stage in the dark due to the low speeds of the stage.
Still 3rd overall

Day 5: Liaison 39km , Special 238km

Day started extremely fast next to long stretches of fence averaging speeds between 160-170km/h at times.
At km 50 I hit a rut at about 120km/h
Got flung up into the air and as I came crashing down on top of my navigation tower , the bike turned left into a bob wire fence
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My daily ritual prayers for protection I believe saved me if you see how close those bobwire marks came to my throat on the side of my helmet.

As I jumped up and realized nothing was broken, all I could feel and see was lots of blood. My nose was bleeding severely so I assumed it must be from there
I started removing my bike from entangled bobwire and picking it up.
My bars was bent , my rally screen and panels broken. Out came the duck tape and cable ties and I started patching up my bike.
Loosened the triple clamps to straighten my handle bars.
Only then I realized that my left glove was soaked in blood
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Rally control had picked up that I crashed via my onboard tracking device showing a sudden speed decrease and no movement
A paramedic was dispatched already to meet up with me after I telephonically contacted rally control to say I am sort of ok and will try to continue
Took out my first aid kit and bandaged up my cut as best I could before I started riding again
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After meeting first paramedic who patched me up proper , a paramedic was placed about every 20-30 km’s to assess me.
Hat’s off to the rally organization

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Carried on riding but at Km 161 my motor seized due to an unknown punctured radiator that I did not know of after my crash

Went back to doctor 2nd day in a row for more stitches
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So with only one day to go my rally seemed over
At riders briefing that evening I asked rally control permission to finish rally tomorrow on a different bike. I had already received a “cut and run” penalty for abandoning today’s stage , so another penalty for changing bikes would make no difference to my results anymore
At about 8:30pm we started driving back to JHB to fetch my husky 501.
Arrived back at 3am Friday morning and started prepping bike. So with no roadbook holder on my bike , rally control decided to give me a gps with route and asked me to act as a sweeper and assist the back markers whom was struggling with navigation to finish the last day , as long as I do not overtake any of them

So I managed to finish my first Kalahari rally 11th overall with all my penalties, but that did not matter as I was more excited about just finishing
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So will I go back
I would say definitely yes , but on a lighter bike and I would race less aggressively next time

See you at Kalahari rally 2019

For the record the oldest finisher was Joe at 67 years old on a Yamaha wr 450

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