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For anyone who did not hear, I was service crew for my brother-in-law David Finlay in the Australasian Safari in WA this year. Dave drove across with the bike in the week before and I flew over on the Friday before. This is my story.
Well I was up at 4:00am on Friday the 31st so that I could get to Dubbo for my 6:30 flight – damned check-in being 45 minutes before departure! Flew to Sydney and waited around for my flight to Perth. The flight across the country was nothing special but before I knew it I had arrived and was in the ute with Dave, heading for bivouac at Ascot racecourse.
I went and got signed up and then we sorted a bit out on the bike, just last-minute things that needed sorting, nothing serious. A few pics from that afternoon:
CPW KTM
Husaberg
Well if you need a service truck like this you obviously have some serious backing!
Ford? Chevy V8, does that count?
A nicely set up WRF
One of the KTM’s…
A well set up dash
Smooth is fast
The following morning was the prologue, which was about 16km of timed riding to determine the starting order. It was about 70km from bivouac and most bikes rode down, although some stuck the bikes on trailers. Dave figured he had paid to ride the entire safari and he was gonna ride it ALL!
It was dewy as anything early in the morning, and Dave headed away at about 8. The directions for spectators and crew to the spectator point were crap – not for the last time during the event. I tracked it down and managed to snap a few photos of the bikes in action.
At this stage of the game I had not sussed out the camera properly so most of the action ones are a touch blurry. They get better!
Dave
At the spectator point
Wild man Anthony Bakker
Darren Johnson on the Mad Max Husky TE450!
Dave
Token XR (L model)
Johnny G on the TTR250 – tough and fast, both the bloke and the bike
Mark McConnell
Dave
This guy looked totally out of control
WTF?
Darren’s Husky at the spectator point
Mark’s DRZ
ECKS you are a legend my man, I rate those photos, we need to sit down so I can pick your brain re the whole safari thing, and while we talk I will be buying mate
Thanks for bringing the whole Safari thing onto my puter
TB
Just going to re-post these in smaller batches as they appear not to display very well at the moment…
Prologue
The next item on the agenda was the ceremonial start and Safari show – waiting around in a park for 4 hours while the general public displayed a total lack of interest or knowledge. Then the guys got to ride through the archway into the Perth night and the event was officially under way.
Just for TB…
All the Central West NSW lads
The star, Ben Grabham
The Hummer
Nicely presented and prepared
Sad
That’s it for now, Day 1 tomorrow…
Day 1 was mostly transport, with about 100km of selectives. The selectives themselves were soft beach sand and Dave found it tough going. There were a few DNF’s – one of them was Darren on the Husky 450 with a broken chain and no spare master link. The transport section leading up to the first refuel point was badly timed and the competitors had to scoot along at 130km/h to make it in time.
Dave about to leave
My view
Refuel 1
The first riders coming in
Dave telling Darren’s crew the bad news
Then it was through to Geraldton for the bivouac
I had a crap nights sleep with the Chinese crew working on their cars all hours of the night. We ducked out to get fuel and the amount on the bowser from the guy before us was $695. Apparently there had been a heap of car competitors in getting fuel, and all of them were getting about this amount. Big dollars!
Day 2 started fairly early with a transport of about 120km. It would have been freezing on the bikes. I slipped into town and fuelled up before heading to the first refuel – bad move! I was late to the refuel and Dave went to a servo and filled up. In the meantime I arrived and as he came back through he got a shock to see me there. After that I was careful to make sure I arrived in good time for refuels and services.
So I trucked on to the Yalgoo service.
Great pictures and report ECKS, dont stop now, I dont know what I will do when its over
TB
Top Work Ecks;)
What a trip !!! I am getting the shakes just looking at the pics, AWSOME camera work mate:)
Makes me want to get my backside over there to spectate even more than ever,,,,,
Keep the story & pics coming matey
The time control
I had time for a bit of sightseeing before the first riders came in
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