Jan 11th – Robby Gordon having a bad day

One more day in the Atacama Desert as we left Iquique for Arica. The road from Iquique (pronounced ee-kwee-kay) clims dramatically up the dunes and cliffs to deliver a fantastic view of the city the ocean. This photo was taken from what looked like the city dump on the hill overlooking the town.

The rally is really taking its toll on the vehicles and the riders and the drivers. Most of the race and support vehicles came over on one chartered ship from France so, if you want to get them home, you have to get them back to Lima for the same charter out of South America. Many of the support trucks are now towing broken down or crashed or wrecked or broken equipment – the toll on people and machines is extreme.

One other unhappy camper is Robby Gordon, the flashy, ex-Nascar, self-promoting Hummer driver and US favourite for the race. He is driving a 1000 hp Hummer but is still behind the two leading MInis. Today his woes increased when he was disqualified for some illegality in his car. He was allowed to keep going while an appeal was heard and I ended up following him for miles on the liaison up to Arica after the stage. When he pulled over to get a breath of air, I managed to stop and get a couple of pictures.