Well, I'm a little slow getting around to the write up but anyway...
Ekali is a town near my home in Nea Makri, with an active 4x4 club. Last weekend they ran a rally event from one of the nearby villages, Stamata.
Em and I went along to see what was going on, and after a little trouble finding the village square (Greek maps aren't quite Ordnance Survey), we found the start with about 50 heavily modified 4x4's milling around and making their way to the start for the first road section.
It was nice to see, in contrast to the UK, a wide range of ages and marques all entering the competition together.
Ford Maverick
After having a look around the cars waiting for the start, and taking a few pics, we spotted a few Marshalls leaving in their 4x4's and tagged along at the back of the group, and found ourselves at one of the Special (Off Road) Stages.
We had quite a wait until the first competitors came through, but were kept entertained by a local 4x4 magazine, who had a few brand new vehicles to photograph: Mk 4 Pajero, New Freelander, Jeep Compass and one of the Suburus.
Taking photos involved driving the car into a fairly large gully and cross-axling it to get a nice wheel-waggling photo. The Freelander made a bit of a meal of getting into position, as it was let down by the lack of diff-lock and traction control - and of course 4 wheel drive, as the rear wheels only start to drive after the front have started spinning. The Pajero made it look easy, though!
Then the first racers started to come in and have a crack at the stage. It was more about speed than technical challenge, but there was one long, very steep descent into a stream that was quite tricky, and a number of fairly vicious ruts and gullies to negotiate.
It was the sort of course that would be impossible in a standard saloon, and require careful driving in your everyday 4x4, but in a heavily modded race 4x4 looked easy!
There's a load more pics in my
Mud Club Gallery, and a few videos linked below:
Landy - Rocky climbCherokee on the hill topRangie - Rocky climbZook on start lineZook in gullyCherokee - Hill descentAlaric.
