Getting Ready

It’s the end of February.  So, 3 months before we fly out.  Not sure when the car leaves but well before then I hope.

Our car, a 1973 Datsun 240Z,  has an interesting background - it was built for the 1995 London to Mexico rally and in the hands of Ross Dunkerton (5 times Australian Rally Champion) came 2^nd.  The car also competed in rallies from Panama to Alaska in 1997, and a Sydney to London in 2000 before being bought by Mark in 2013.

The Z in the 2014 Sydney to London Rally

We went down (to Sydney) last week to pick it up from Stewart Wilkins who has had it since the Alpine rally.    While you might expect the car to already be “rally ready”, there are a few things that had to be done for Peking to Paris (or P2P as I call it now).  

It has been built to strictly comply with CAMS and FIA rules but the P2P regulations specifically ban shock absorbers with external canisters and fibre glass panels. So, they had to go.  The diff cooler is also gone.  It took up a bit of space and given we are desperately short of space – it’s gone.

We have a new GPS as specified by the organisers and a tracker.  I’ll let everyone know the details of that when its setup but basically the car will be trackable on the internet with updates every couple of minutes. I have a new tripmeter, a Monit.  The faithful old Terratrip is no more. Best feature of the Monit is that it is also a fuel gauge.  It’s also GPS enabled, so promises to be accurate.

The biggest change (to Mark's dismay) is probably the reduction in horsepower.  The engine has been changed to run on low octane fuel which is the only fuel available in places like Mongolia and this has sapped more horsepower than was ever expected.

We had a practice pack on Wednesday as we prepared the shipping list and it’s hard not to get a bit excited.  The cause of our space problem (besides it being a small car) is that we have to camp out each night on the way across Mongolia and sleeping bags, tents etc take space!

So this week we will do some on road testing then it’s back to Stewart for a final spanner check then --- the car is ready.

What's it all about?

The 2016 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge starts from the Great Wall outside Beijing on Sunday, June 12th, and finishes with a drive into Paris on Sunday, 17 July. The route will cross 10 countries, including China, Mongolia and Russia, and cover nearly 14,000km.

(Click for a look at a bigger map).

The organisers have billed it as "The Greatest Motoring Adventure in Historic Rallying" with 120 cars now taking part, including Mark Pickering and his co-driver/navigator Dave Boddy, from Newcastle (Australia).

When Dave gets a chance (which mightn't be too often), he will bring news of how they, their car (1973 Datsun 240z)  and the event are going....