Day 25/26 - It's definitely an endurance event, but for the wrong reasons!

The crossing into Iran was relatively quick and uneventful for Clive and Ces.   Apparently, only a skeleton staff was on duty, so the first few cars breezed through, but then a backlog quickly built up.   As a consequence, some of the later cars didn't get over the border until 5:00pm ... and then had a 6 hour drive to the hotel (of which more later).  

Because of these delays, Monday's two long-awaited timed stages were cancelled.

During the morning and the border crossing, Clive was still feeling really rough and he painted a wonderful image of the dangers (to one's trousers and shoes) of using a squat toilet when one's bowels are out of control!!  

If you've been following the official P2P website, you will have read Syd Stelvio's report about the wonderful welcome that the participants received in Iran.   Clive's opening words in his report were that Syd was on a different rally to many of the participants (or perhaps Syd had yet to hear from all participants when his update was written ... we'll find out tonight ... Peter).  

Clive and Ces had no problems between the border and the hotel in Gorgan and it is true that the police were handing out flowers.   But at the same time, a female participant was hit by a rock thrown by onlookers, a male participant was hit in the chest by a bottle, and an Australian crew was robbed by 8 guys on motorbikes.  This was bad enough, but then they would have arrived at the hotel in Gorgan to discover that all P2P rooms had been cancelled.  (According to the official site, the cancellations related to the schedule/itinerary of the President of Iran ... Peter).

After much too-ing and fro-ing, Clive and Ces got to share a room, well, the floor of a room, with 6 others (a combination of competitors and film crew).   By that time, Clive's border-barf had gone, but he was so knackered from the previous 24 hours that he slept like a baby (he didn't mention the use of a nappy ... Peter).  

With no timed stages today, and another grotty hotel this evening, Clive is not happy with the way the P2P has played out in the last week.   He said:

"It's hard on the cars and crews ... endless boring transport sections ... separated by different shitty hotels ... few speed stages ... and half of those end up being cancelled anyway.   It's definitely an endurance event ... but for the wrong reasons!"

"Without timed stages ... or some sort of test ... I can't move up the leaderboard ... I didn't pay tens of thousands just to (expletive deleted) participate ... I'm here to compete!"

As for the Chevy, it continues to run well.   Clive dumped 40 litres from the sandy tank and that seems to have solved the fuel problem.  Now all they need are lots of timed stage so that Fugly can flex his muscles.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is another 580-odd kms and, fingers crossed, 2 timed stages. 

For and on behalf of Clive and Ces

PS:  I had considered downloading some images for this ... but when I googled Iran on the internet ... I found some very disturbing images ... so I concluded that it would be wiser to wait until the crews were well clear of Iran ... Peter