We're now under four months out from the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge.
I'd been keeping up an ongoing email exchange from Japan with the rally preparation company in England
looking after our car…
On 25 January, I was planning to fly back to England once again, to do the final check and final test run before shipping the car out to the start in Peking…
But!!! Yet another new pinch showed up!!
In January 2024, ships came under attack in the Red Sea, throwing global shipping into chaos… and the problem this created for us was —
this conflict pushed back the shipping schedule for the Peking-to-Paris entrants' cars heading to China. To avoid the Red Sea region, the shipping company changed, the route changed, and the longer transit time meant our car risked arriving in China far too late!
The original schedule was already tight enough as it was, and now suddenly having to finish the car a full ten days earlier — total pinch!!!
Even so, let's do whatever we possibly can! And off to England I went… yes, only about a month
after my cancer surgery, but this too, a pinch is a chance!
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Maybe the sheer desperation of us going all that way just for this got through to them (laughs),
or, well, at this point, of course we'd give everything we had left.
Even so… somehow it felt like nothing had really changed since the last visit… (ugh)
The schedule down to shipping to Peking was now so tight
that even our own meeting time felt like it was cutting into it!
Here's what we covered in this meeting…
- Ordered one wheel spinner each for the left and right side, adding them to the spares list, and requested a quote
- Asked the shipping company to submit the car's packing list by the end of January.
- Requested a search for a new emergency jacket, hammer, and other items brought from Japan last time, which have since gone missing
- Also requested a search for three water bags that had been loaded at the end of the Sahara Challenge (why do these things keep vanishing??)
- Requested a modification so the power lead for mounting the Garmin dash mount, on a new bracket on the driver's side of the dashboard, can be connected to the 12V power supply
- Fitting a RAM base for the camera and running the braided cable through the center of the car
- Positioning the rally plate and door stickers exactly as shown in the photos, and checking with the organizer whether we can keep our number from previous events
- Providing a list of items we'll still need to buy once we're in China.
- Mounting the camera mount on the roll cage between the seats, wiring it to power using the included braided cable.
- Providing instructions on how to adjust the brakes, including how often that adjustment should be done.
- Fitting a drink bottle holder.
- Confirmed that the trunk has been measured, with the jack and spare kept in the cabin with the driver, and the driver's luggage placed in the trunk.
The other two cars we'll be fighting alongside seem to be getting ready smoothly, moving steadily toward shipping. Ahhh… how much longer is this rollercoaster of nerves going to keep going.
No, there's simply no room to compromise if we're aiming to finish without trouble in the real event. From here on, we promised to stay in close, detailed contact about the arrival and progress of the gearbox, wheels, hubs, drums, and wheels.
To be continued!!!!