Desert race disaster for local racers
According to Roadworx communications, things were going swimmingly in the first of two loops comprising Saturday’s opening stage of the race and at one stage the duo was up to fourth, but with the service point almost in sight, the BMW died…and as it turned out it was out of fuel.
The Botswana 1000 Desert Race did not end very well for Young Guns member Richard Leeke and interim partner Danie Stassen as they crashed out of the competition.
‘Did Not Finish’ (DNF) are probably the last words the rally racers wanted to hear after they fell short at the Toyota Kalahari Botswana 1000 Desert Race which ended in Jwaneng in Botswana on 24 June.
With the experienced Danie alongside Richard, in the absence of regular navigator Henry Kohne (sidelined after an off-road motorcycling accident), the crew of the Speedglas Welding Helmets BMW X3 made a reasonable start in Friday’s prologue. However, some niggles cost them what might have been a fourth-place start in the fiercely competitive class T.
According to Roadworx communications, things were going swimmingly in the first of two loops comprising Saturday’s opening part of the race, and at one stage the duo was up to fourth, but with the service point almost in sight, the BMW died … and as it turned out, it was out of fuel.
The expanses of thick sand and long straights (one measuring about nine kilometres in length) negotiated absolutely flat out in sixth gear made the consumption calculations from Friday’s prologue wildly optimistic. As it turned out, the four-litre V8 had chewed through 175 litres of fuel to complete approximately 210 kilometres, consumption of 83 litres per 100 km …
Roadworx reported that after a long delay, the team managed to siphon five litres of fuel from a helpful spectator’s car and continued, reaching the service point with more than a half-hour and the prospect of catching slower traffic for the rest of the day lost for good.
The upshot of this was having to make multiple overtaking manoeuvres in thick dust during the afternoon loop, and after a number of heart-stopping near misses, the inevitable happened: they hit an off-route obstacle hard enough to damage a driveshaft. This, in turn, ripped a brake line away, which then caused a minor fire when the hydraulic fluid caught fire. With the brakes very much the worse for wear, Richard and Danie were forced to retire.
They started afresh next morning, keen to salvage some points from the Botswana excursion, with Sunday’s race, in essence, a separate event. But it wasn’t to be. Less than a kilometre from the start, it was game over, a suspected clutch problem the cause.
“The Desert Race can be cruel and boy, it showed us its cruel side this weekend,” lamented the 22-year-old Richard.
“What has made it even harder to swallow is how well things were going early on Saturday, with Danie and I getting more and more comfortable with each other and the car really on song and feeling pretty much invincible.
“We’ve got some fixing to do – none of it too major I hope – but irrespective, the Speedglas BMW will definitely be ready for the next round, which represents the halfway mark of the season. There’s no doubt that I’ve had all my bad luck crammed into the first half of the year and I’m really looking forward to a change of fortune,” concluded Richard.
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