Chennai to Vellore - The Rally Begins - 5th August
Wake at 5:30am; this isn't good - 1 1/2 hours sleep before our first day in the TukTuk....
We meet at the Orphanage again, and discover our chariot waiting replendid in its glorious paint job and fitted fridge; After a few minutes of attempting to start it - it fires up and we soon discover how approximate the controls are - flick the clutch cum gearlever up for first - and down for 2nd, 3rd and 4th. A lever conveniently placed under the dashboard offers the same gears in reverse.
We toddle round the dirt carpark donuting and generally being arses - with the inevitable conclusion that Dirk ruins the brakes - fluid leaking rapidly from the rear drum - no problem, a handy 'technician' lifts up the side, shoves a jack under and pulls it apart - blows into hollow screw and all is right with the lady. Meanwhile Team Hassan manage to be victims of 2 crashes whilst stationary within 5 seconds....this is a sign of things to come.
We spend a little time pimping up the beast with our own special blend of english humour before lining up for the off.
More chatter from the many officials who have been involved, and the roads are blocked by the police to allow us out in groups of 10. We are both in the third group and roll onto the road full of trepidation.
Rightly so it would seem, the group lead TukTuk manages to colide with a wall within 20 yards from the orphanage, barely walking speed, managed to mangle the windowscreen and roof - these things don't appear to be built with anything resembling safety in mind.
Drama over, and with the sad victims safely collected and treated by the medical team we head on down the road towards the Formula 3 circut which has been identified as a suitable driver training ground - quite handy since it is about 20 miles away and we have to drive there.
Dirk drives, erratically at first, a few crunches from the gearbox and moments where he totally fails to slow down due to the odd braking mechanism - but the beast is soon tamed and we make fair progress; team hassan is behind, out of sight as we (slowely) eat up the miles.
The engine dies....and the lady stops - in the middle of the highway with a lorry frantically honking behind us, we hop out and push her into the verge - after a quick review of the situation we identify it to be a lack of fuel - we should have realised it was running on vapours. Looking around we assess the situation; india is a nation of watchers, and soon we have a merry croud of wobbly headed individuals - we learn the nearest petrol station is 1/2 mile behind us and Dirk offered to do the deed whilst Max guards the gear. He hated every wobbly headed moment.
Walking alone, in very dodgy bright red shorts, yellow T-shirt and a straw hat through a slum in India is an interesting experience - should i be worried, concerned or just stride along positively - as it turns out i had nothing to worry about - anyone who noticed me would offer a smile or maybe even take a moment from standing around or holding a stick to ask me where i came from.
I eventually find the petrol station along with all our fellow competitors - they appeared to be smarter then us and were patiently queuing up for fuel. Daisy says he has received a call from Max, a kindly team has sold him 2 liters of fuel and he is raring to go, I flag down a departing TukTuk and rejoin the team.
We eventually find the race circuit and partake in a few laps of the track, leaning into the corners and reaching a mind bending 33 mph - spirits are high and beard man dons his superhero clothing and stands on the roof for a higly amuzing if not exactly safe lap.
We are finally ejected from the track and head on to Vellore; we are travelling along very good highways which are nice and wide - Max is now in the driving seat and Dog has taken over from Daisy. Dog clearly thinks he is king of the road as he straddles the middle lane occassionaly going out of his way to cut up a lorry.
The drive is quite uneventful, there is none of the chaos of Chennai and barring the occassional stop to allow the Dukes to catch up or grab a drink we make it into Vellore in good time.
We meet up with the other teams and start hearing about other events; beard man after leaving the track lost a wheel and ended up skidding wildly accross the road, another team rolled their beast but fortunatly no one has been hurt and on the whole everyone is buzzing from the first day of driving.
On this eve we dinned alone in our luxury hotel room and got an abundance of room service whilst watching the Charity Shield on TV...it's all good.
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