RTG AlMex Daily Dispatch - FINAL - Flipbook - Page 33
27 August to
26 September 2023
Day 18 Heber City to Moab (443km)
14 September 2023
photos: Marcus rowe - gerardbrown.co.uk
with a lot to get through the organisers decided
that we needed a pre-dawn start. So, in the chilly
half-light of a high-altitude Utah morning, the
crews stumbled towards breakfast and on to the
car park, to warm their cars for the day ahead.
A few struggled to start, Steve Verrall, leading
the Classics Category, needed to poke around his
engine bay to coax the old Stuttgart lump into life.
Lee Harman and Steve Krippaehne, 1931 Ford Model A Victoria
Setting out early, Manuel and Irene Dubs, 1940 Ford Coupe
daylight was just breaking over the hills as we passed
Strawberry reservoir on our way to the first of three
regularities today. The road had been paved since the recce
and rather than the gravel we’d become accustomed to, it
featured a very smooth surface. no-one was complaining
though, as they sailed along and enjoyed the scenery before
checking in at the Time Control in the Tie fork rest Area.
The Second regularity, the Skyline drive, lived up to its
name and brought us back to reality with a challenging
route along a narrow dirt track, rising through a birch
forest and then into high, open grassland dotted with
thickets of trees.
The ponderosa Grill Time Control in Huntington, 130km
along the road, gave us a fine buffet lunch, and the sweep
crews an opportunity to fix some punctures. John pyle also
got the chance to top up his car’s cooling system after the
Chevy had overheated on the regularity.
The Buckhorn draw passage Control drew the rally
towards the third and final regularity of the day along
the San rafael river in emery County. It took us through
canyons carved out by water over billions of years.
An amazing, stratified history loomed over us in this
otherworldly landscape, a far cry from anything the rally
had seen so far.
The night halt was in Moab, on the banks of the Colorado
river. An evening boat ride was scheduled, complete with a
three-piece band, ‘The nanites’ who entertained us in fine
style as we drifted through the geology of many millennia.
Bill Shields and Alex Schoenauer, 1967 Chevrolet Camero
www.rallytheglobe.com