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"13. Rally Dresden - Wroclaw" 28.06.2007, Bad Kreuznach 07:00h km 110.810 -111.385, Day 575 km, Total 575 km In Germany we have a tradition that the on „Fathers Day“ the men enjoy themselves with drinking lots of alcohol, eating unhealthy food and walking through the countryside with a handcart to carry all the stuff. This year I spent myself a Fathers Day with a duration of 11 days whilst the Rally Dresden – Wroclaw in Poland. I was support truck of the Rhino-Team.
To be in time at the meeting point on the rest-area of the Würzburg motorway I had to get up early. Even though I had calculated enough time to manage the distance I just arrived on the minute at 10:00h because I had several traffic jams. From here we started in a convoy to Dresden, where we set up our camp at 16:00h.
Because of the trucks with long trailers it was a wise decision to start that early because they needed a lot of space – which was no problem at such an early arrival, most of the other teams arrived later or the next day. The rest of the evening was reserved for„socialysing“!
29.06.2007, Dresden km 111.385, Day 0 km, Total 575 km The health situation is getting critical: The latest in the evening the people are suffering from sever “under-hop“-ing, next morning the leather-allergy is back! There was not that much to do and so the training for the “winch”-people (co-drivers job whilst the race) took place. In the morning a technical check took place for the participating vehicles, in the afternoon Lutz and me went on his Quad for a sightseeing trip to Dresden, where we had a look at the main points of interest.
After +/- 4 hours we went back to the camp which now was pretty much filled. In the evening we had due to interest wine, beer from the barrel and delicious meet from the BBQ.
30.06.2007, Dresden km 111.385, Day 0 km, Total 575 km At 11:00h was the show-start on the historical Augustus bridge in Dresden, which last because of the enormous amount of vehicles even longer than 13:00h. The Dakar-driver Jutta Kleinschmitt and the major of Dresden were the official starter-team in front of the beautiful scenario of Dresden.
From here the vehicles drove to an industrial area, where they had created a course for the “Prolog” (each vehicle had to pass three times the course of 4 km to define the row of starting for the next day). A “nice“ water hole, several steep ramps, a steep turn plus lots of holes to bend the trucks and cars to their extremes! Even experienced off-road-motorcycle drivers thought that it is impossible for cars and even more for trucks to pass this bending section. The German Truck-Trail Champion Udo Heidenreich managed with his Unimog a total time better than any car and even better than most of the motorcycles – a really impressive demonstration of his driving capabilities. Of course there were several others who tried to catch up with him with their Mogs or Ural trucks. Let’s hope that their vehicles will last as well for the next following 7 days!
The real hard ones - the Buggies! (thanks to Willem who supplied the photo, on his page you can find even more pictures: http://breslau2007.cap88.info )
Due to a hang over caused by the socializing from the previous day plus the case that I had to get up very early I went to bed very early (I had offered Christopher alias „Wasserhasser“ to pull his trailer to the next camp. His own Hanomag AL 28 plus 4 motorcycles on the trailer would have meant for him a much longer driving time.).
1.07.2007, Dresden – Poland, Zgorzelec km 111.501, Day 116 km, Total 691 km After long and good sleep I started with the one-axle trailer, Carsten - one of the motorcycle drivers - joined as the navigator. They had two camps in the Roadbook and so I stopped at the first one but after the rest of the Rhino-Team had arrived at the „real“ Camp they guided me be telephone to that location. Start was at a supermarket, a visitors point at a motocross-area. Because it was dry it was extremely dusty as you can see on some of the pictures.
First damages had happened.
In the evening again nice meeting around the fire.
02.07.2007, Zgorzelec - Trzebien km 111.570, Day 69 km, Total 760 km We had to get up at 07:00h because the competition vehicles had to start early. For the assistance cars it was a boring drive: some traffic jams on the road, long rests because some needed to fill up their water tanks, ... . Finally we arrived at the new location which was on a training area from the army. The set-up of the camp did not take long and when after 3 additional hours the competition truck arrived we did as usually technical inspection. No major problems, just re-tighten some screws and renew the thread of the air-compressor. Today we went to bed already at 24h.
03.07.2007, Trzebien km 111.634, Day 64 km, Total 824 km The third part of the Rally. We drove with Big Foot and LJ of Michel to the photo point. Otti was driver on a race-truck (Team „Günther“), being part of the group „Elephant“. The photo point was excellent because the vehicles had to pass here a river which resulted in some impressive photos as you can see.
04.07.07, Trezbien – Recz km 111.954, Day 320 km, Total 1.144 km In a convoy of 4 trucks we drove to the new camp which was not that convenient to do because the street was sometimes in a miserable condition. Because in our convoy the big beasts were in, we needed roundabout 6 hours. After we had finished to set up the camp at 17:00h, we set together and enjoyed ourselves. But for the rally-teams is was a nightmare, more than 400 km offroad! Because an early arrival was very unlikely we decided to go to bed early to be ready for the service in the night. So we went to bed at 20:00h and when I woke up it was 07:30h!
04.07.07, Trezbien – Recz km 112.001, Day 47 km, Total 1.191 km Dieter, Lutz and the „winch-man “ Torsten arrived at 8:30h. As they told us there was a mood hole just before the 3rd check point and nearly every truck got stuck in it. Unfortunately this applied as well for the Rhino-Team, which caused a stop from 23:00h till 04:00h before all the other trucks in front of them had got free and they had pulled themselves out as well! We immediately hit onto the truck for service whilst Dieter and Lutz tried to get at least some hours of sleep. We then drove to the photo point. A really nice location:
05.07.07, Recz km 112.001, Day 0 km, Total 1.191 km My big Day! Today I am the winch-man and due to the impressions of the mud holes I had fixed a snorkel to my helmet:
As you can see another technical inspection and we are paying lots of attention to the fluids!
Here some impressions of one of the worse passages.
It is really unbelievable what a KAT 1 truck can handle. Thanks to Dieter and Lutz to offer me the chance to get this experience! Unfortunately I was not able to take shots myself from the “non” photo-points because it is a competition and not a photo trip. But I can assure you that as a person with normal driving experience you cannot believe that a truck can manage these terrain. A short note: Two years ago a French Renault truck team which previously had joined the Rally Paris – Dakar joined afterwards the “Breslau” Rally – they gave up after some days because they hadn’t expected such a hard rally with that many winch actions etc.. The „Breslau“ is compared to the Dakar a non-high-speed but tactic but extremely difficult if not more difficult than the Dakar. But unfortunately it seems not to be that interesting for the majority of the people in front of the television as the Dakar!
06.07.07, Recz km 112.001, Day 0 km, Total 1.191 km Because of health problems I wasn’t able to join the start but have added a photo of the start from a team-member.
In the evening we had a big party and the team “Elephant” received the price for the third place in the group “trucks”.
07.07.07, Recz – Scczecin- Gera km 112.502, Day 501 km, Total 1.692 km A photo from Anja Denier, the team-leader and as far as I know the only woman driving such a big beast! An impressive person and driver!
We had packed most of the stuff the previous day and so we were able to leave quite early (10:00h). Lutz, Frank, Volker and myself made a tourists stop in the old “Hanse”-town Szczecin.
In the evening everybody met again in Gera at Otti and Kathi. (Except for Dieter and his girl friend Kerstin, they enjoyed some more days-off in Poland.)
08.07.07, Gera – Bad Kreuznach km 112.912, Day 410 km, Total 2.102 km I left with a heavy flew the last kilometres back to home. Thanks to everybody of the team, especially of course to Dieter und Lutz for the unique experience, but as well Otti and Kathi, Michel, Andreas, Frank, Kerstin, Volker and Stefan, Chris and Kücken. It was very nice as well to see the faces behind the names in various forums – again or for the first time and to have a chat (they know whom I am talking about!). I am definitely looking forward for the „Breslau“ 2008!
Who wants to see more pictures or videos please refer as well to forum "LKW-Allrad" or to "Marathonrallye".
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