An Iceland "Baja 1000"
by petesoffroad
For my desktop background I have a pic I took in Iceland which fits brilliantly my idea of somewhere to go Off Road.
Looking at this gave me the idea that the most fantastic off road race could be organised in your country, something like the Baja 1000: an A to B race; no laps, just the one run, and preferably no recces and pace notes either. This nonsense has ruined off road racing elsewhere.
Iceland is brilliantly positioned half way between Europe and America to draw teams from both places. A major event such as this should bring in a heap of money for a country with only 300,000 people.
I realise the law there is that no driving should be done OFF the roads, but the actual roads in the interior are the sort of surfaces most racers would be expecting anyway.
In fact it's impossible for all but the first one or two in any real off road race to drive on un-made surfaces; the rest find they're on a track made by the front runners.
So your ash and gravel surfaces in the interior would be perfect. More, as the number of hard driven cars passing over them grows, these tracks will quickly deteriorate into surfaces much like one would find in pure off road conditions anyway.
Naturally this will mean a lot of expense to reinstate the tracks afterwards, which is what forest stage rallies have to deal with, and the entry fees have to take this into account.
I feel it is important to ensure that the conditions make it not possible to enter typical World Rally cars. Ground clearance requirements will have to make these cars ineligible, or the whole thing is immediately hijacked by the big money teams. This has to be a race for real OFF road racers, including the single seat 2wd cars which dominate in the USA. A lot of Europeans seem to think that if you don't have 4x4 you're some sort of pretend racer. They will get a shock when confronted with those cars.
I say this in support for my views on heavy and clumsy machines, which you are well aware of !
I can imagine that river crossings in the interior will be a major point of concern and support at the worst of these will be essential. Iceland though has many enthusiasts with vehicles perfectly suited to support roles here and I would hope the chance to be involved would appeal greatly.
Distance is an interesting question. The first thought is to make it as long and tough as possible, but then you're into Dakar type events, held over many days and with the whole circus inevitably having to move from place to place like a WRC event.
This is not really a race. As soon as you introduce stop/start situations it ceases to be a proper race, just another rally. This is what they get with long distance events in Australia too. They sound tough, but letting people stop, rest, eat, make repairs etc turns them into something different.
A start-drive-stop race is the only kind of event I would be interested in seeing, although there is absolutely no reason why some other organiser should not try to run a WRC or Dakar type event too.
Therefore it's probably realistic to emulate the Baja 1000: drive from A to B, non-stop if possible, as quick as you can.
This is the kind of event I always enjoyed when racing, though I never did anything so long, but it's what I'd like to see. 1000 km is probably also realistic for a first event. 1000 miles would be asking a lot more; perhaps that could come eventually, though whether it could be fitted into your roads network in the interior might be another question.
The long daylight hours in summer are a real bonus, meaning that a large number of entrants should be able to take part without running into darkness and it's extra hazards. I know the Baja runs part in the dark and the Americans may want that, but it must mean that some have more darkness than others to cope with; a bit unfair.
Of course there is the possibility of running an event in spring when everyone would have to drive a lot of the way on snow, as well as with some darkness, but I think to start with a summer event would be sensible.
So what do you say ? Would the people and government of Iceland buy such an idea, do you think ?
Peter Phillpotts
