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RALLY: TransSyberia Rally Blog Day 1: Preparing for Chaos
Written by: Brian Ghidinelli   
07/10/2008
Charlotte, North Carolina
 
Porsche majority or not, it will take more than guts to win this race – persistence and luck will be required by the plenty. (Photo: Brian Ghidinelli) » More Photos

Forget what you know about two things: Russia and four-wheeling. On location in Moscow to cover the start of the 2008 TransSyberia Rally race from Russia to Mongolia, I realize I don’t know much about either.

Growing up with an intellectual cold-war diet of American supremacy, I wasn’t prepared for the cosmopolitan nature of Moscow. You would be forgiven for thinking you were in New York City with the high fashion and good looks of the locals. And you had better bring your wallet because life in the Russian capital ain’t cheap – Mercer Human Resources ranked it the most expensive city in the world last year and the streets are filled with a grayscale collection of expensive cars; Mercedes, Porsche, BMW and Audi are as common as Russian Ladas.

This glamorous atmosphere makes Moscow the perfect backdrop for one of the last great adventure races on Earth. Nearly 4500 miles of diverse and challenging terrain stretching from the Gobi desert to the Altai Mountains. Deep water crossings, sub-arctic alpine passes, swampy Siberian bogs, desert sand dunes and narrow forested tracks all must be conquered to reach the finish line.

If odds mean anything, you might want to bet on a Porsche. Nineteen of the thirty-one teams are driving factory-built Porsche Cayenne S TransSyberia editions and rally legend Rod Millen won the event last year driving one with navigator Kelsey Richard. While most of the top finishers were also in Cayennes, the pre-race paddock this year is full of contenders from factories and privateers alike including Suzuki Grand Vitaras, Land Rover Defenders, Toyota LandCruisers and more.

Porsche majority or not, it will take more than guts to win this race – persistence and luck will be required by the plenty. There are fourteen stages in the rally between Moscow and Ulaanbaatar, the capital of neighboring Mongolia. Last year Canadians Kees Nierop and Laurance Yap wandered off course just a few hundred meters and flew off an embankment resulting in total destruction of their Cayenne (Watch the Video HERE: Warning-Bad Language). Better add “precision” to that list of requirements.

Unlike FIA’s World Rally Championship, there are no reconnaissance runs or turn-by-turn pace notes so teams must focus up to six hours a day racing over terrain they’ve never seen while keeping one eye on the rear-view mirror. Teams use GPS navigation systems with waypoint data provided by the organizers to navigate each stage of the race. In Russia the waypoints may be less than a mile apart providing high detail where in the open expanses of Mongolia there may be more than 60 miles between waypoints. That leaves a lot of way finding up to the driver and navigator while combating physical and mental exhaustion.
Ryan Millen and his co-driver from the Baja 1000, Colin Godby. (Photo: Brian Ghidinelli) » More Photos

The rally course is a Jekyll and Hyde of contrasts: stages in Russia are as short as six miles but may be followed by hundreds of miles of transit to the base camp for the night. The longest day of the rally is stage three at 612 miles and the teams have one day off between July 11th and 25th. All entries must be road legal and there are no exemptions from traffic laws so teams looking to show up first will need a few Russian rubles to complement their luck. A few bills of cash tucked into your international driving permit is said to help keep delays to a minimum when trying to make up lost time. Parts of the rally, particularly in Russia, take place on paved roads but Mongolia is primarily dirt roads and wide-open terrain. Stages there might take five or six hours to complete with average speeds of 45 MPH and maximum speeds of 75 MPH.

After each stage, all teams transit to a single point where they stop for the night. The logistics team (the same company who handles the Paris-Dakar Rally) provides food and tire service and teams have the opportunity to make any needed repairs. Each team carries sleeping bags and pop-up pup tents but nights are not always peaceful. Strong sandstorms have caused more than one competitor to lay spread eagle in an attempt to keep the tent from flying away with them in it! Surviving the TransSyberia Rally is a great accomplishment but it just might come with an Eagle Scout badge to boot.

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