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The final spring time race before the summer heat consumes us all is the infamous 1000 Dunes held through out the treacherous dunes of Dubai and Sharjah. Over previous years this particular event has always drawn a healthy number of entrants, not only because of the fatter purse but also because the sections used to run over into the nights…make for some very interesting modifications to the cars!

One vehicle not in need of any such modification is the Team Icon Unimog. For this specific race Atkinson Voss have come up with a larger version of their intercooler to feed the much needed cooler air into the Turbo charger. A beautiful new bonnet & front grill also had to be fabricated to accept this master piece of aluminum fabrication…. but it was well worth the effort… even though it had to warrant the temporary lack of air conditioning!

Driver & Team owner Chris Cargill accompanied by the other two team members David “The Middle Man Streaky” Chambers and Stuart ‘Animal’ Baxter turned up at the prologue event which was held this year in conjunction with Dragon Mart Shopping mal. It was probably one of the longer prologues at just over 4.5km.
Following the success of the recently held Hail Baja in Saudi Arabia we also noticed that a lot more cars bearing Saudi numbers had come across for the race. Their lack of English didn’t stop them from crawling all over the Big Red Truck though…apparently they don’t get to see T4 Lorries in Saudi!

After the all too familiar “hurry up and wait” we set off for a parade lap in front of 30 or so JCB drivers and gang of electrical workers (who had been busy moving the vital cables needed for some of lower end of Dubai off from the rally track)
Of the 24 vehicles entered we found that we’d already made up a place to 23rd in front of one of the Race Wranglers.
Following the prologue it was off to the official Ramp Start for the entire field to be flagged off by HRH Sheik Marwan. As usual the entire flock of shoppers came out to admire and take pictures of the UAE’s number one T4 entrant truck.

Friday was Race day and we arranged to meet at the Icon Workshop before heading off to the start proper. The location was at the same place as last year and we knew exactly where to go without even checking the road books.

After waiting around for an hour in the surprisingly hot morning sun we were off to a good start. The performance of new Intercooler was immediate and in no time at all we came across a number of fellow racers who don’t put as much time and effort into their hobby as Chris does.
He was really enjoying himself and was able to pick up at least five places in the first two stages. The sand was soft though so we weren’t able to get a top speed of more than 90kph down some of the sandy straights.
As they always say, “Time flies when you are having fun” and right to form we were done for the day in no time at all. Apart from the corrupt data given to us for the GPS’s there weren’t any real problems to report….. Unless you count driving a 6 tonne truck through soft sand without any power steering a problem! One of the spacers in the brand new steering column had collapsed which meant Chris was having to use every once of his strength to get around the last section and then get us back to the service stop at Sharjahs’ Boy Scout Camp. At one particular roundabout it actually required the biceps of both Chris and Streaky to pull on the steering wheel in unison.
Once back at the service park we were able to relax. Chris made a phone call to his mechanics and they agreed to come down early in the morning to fix the steering. All we had to do was empty a 25lt Jerry can of Diesel into the tank and take the empties back for filling in time for day two race. What could be easier?

Next morning we turned up bright and early to find that the service crew had fixed the steering column in record time and were now bleeding the fuel lines of the 25lts of coolant water that had mistakenly found its way into the tank the night before! What had indeed smelled of diesel were remnants of diesel mixed with water in a jerry can that had been lent out to a mate a few weeks prior!
It’s good to know that our team of mechanics had picked on the problem straight away and we didn’t waste any time trouble shooting the problems caused by having the wrong type of fuel in the tank… when the gauge on the dash reads half full!

We were off again on time to the start of SS4. A few of the top teams with high expectations had dropped out of the running overnight. Whether it be from poor preparation of simply driving too fast on the previous stages? We didn’t care much about the others and concentrated on getting the Unimog around the last six stages in one piece.
With the steering column fixed and the correct fuel in the tank we were flying again.
Through out the days 6 stages we managed to fight up to 13th position overall from 24 starters.
During stage five we were caught completely off guard by one of the Saudi boys who were obviously miles off from the track data and hopelessly lost. One minute the sand track behind us was clear…the next we had a very annoying Green Land Cruiser Pick-up buzzing around the tow hitch.
Had it not been for the sheer size of the Unimog and it’s rooster tail of dust he may not have ever found the right track!

There were still some cars running behind us in the race but we were thrilled to finish the race that many others had failed to.
Of the entire 2007 -2008 season the 1000 Dunes had again proved to be one of the hardest. Team Icon’s 1500L Unimog was again up to the task and we certainly look forward to the next race after the long hot summer.
The only improvements to the truck over the hot summer will be the fitment of some Staun bead locks and some much larger ‘Left’ & ‘Right’ Stickers for Stu’s benefit.

We would like to thank every one who has continued to offers photo’s and support to Team Icon over the past season & we certainly look forward to seeing everyone in the Sand very soon.

Other Articles:

Um Al-Quwain Rally January 19, 2008 | Update: December 15, '07 Ajman Rally Result | Ras Al Khaimah Rally 23rd & 24th November 2007 | Unimog New Look | Evo 7 new Driver | Motorbike Racing