Team GWA, Paris – Dakar Rally

With deep sadness I have today withdrawn from competing in the Heroes Paris to Dakar, these are difficult times that we currently find ourselves in and I have had to put my company’s needs first and give my full focus on ensuring it’s stability for the future. Going away for three weeks at this moment is simply not an option.

I am gutted by this decision, I have put so much into this both financially & training & have sustained several injuries in doing so. This is not the end however, simply a postponement. I intend to continue to work on my bike skills and fitness, so that when I do get my chance I will be even better prepared then I am now. I wish all competitors in this years event the very best of luck and a safe return, in particular, the riders under the support of Patsy Quick’s ‘Team Desert Rose Racing’; Clive Dredge who has shown a great deal of courage & determination in being able to ride this event despite never having ridden in anything like it before, my good friend Dan Costescu from Romania who has just won the Romanian enduro championship for 2009 which is a great achievement, Jennifer Morgan, Christian Howarth & last but not least, Nick Bridger.

Had four very rewarding days back in Morocco to get some more last minute road book training in. The first two days were using GPS with the first day hampered by some unseasonal  rain that had recently fallen filling some previously dried up river beds, and making for some tricky crossings. The area we were aiming for turned out to be completely inaccessible by our off-road route and we ended up doubling back and doing a stint by road eventually getting in just before dark. The second day was a combination of fast trails, open desert and a large stone field, I spent the last few hours riding alone and arrived at our hotel shortly after Tamsin Jones & Andrew

which pleased me on my pace. The third day we used a road book from a previous Dakar event and ended in the sand dunes at Mersouga riding in the dark for the last hour which made navigation pretty tricky and me very thankful of my xenon headlights. The last day was by road book and was a previous maroc rallye stage starting with 90 km on the road followed by a deep rutted sandy trail that seemed to go on for ever. We then had a variety of fast stoney trails, some open desert plains, a boulder field and some beautiful mountain pistes. We rode 560 km in total, 370 of which were off-road and took a total of twelve hours, we only stopped the once for around half an hour to take on fuel and some very welcome refreshments.