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Race buddies find their dusty road in Mongolia
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The Great Race:Vintage car heads to the 100th anniversary of the "Peking to Paris" race
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Team Yakity-Yak hit a bumpy patch this week in the Peking-to-Paris race.
Ventura mechanic Bill Erickson and his race buddy, Steve Dole of Pacific Grove, drove their 1925 Buick Roadster through a Gobi Desert dust storm on Wednesday.
"Without a GPS (global positional sensor), we'd have no idea where we were," Erickson said during a satellite phone call from Sainshand, a small camp in Mongolia where most of the racers pitched their tents Wednesday night.
The Roadster made it to the camp, but search parties were sent out Thursday to find at least four of the vintage cars that were as much as 40 kilometers off track.
Those who did reach Sainshand dug latrines and erected privacy curtains, but a powerful gust blew away one curtain while one of the participants was using the latrine, Dole said, leaving the poor soul in full view of everyone.
"If he hadn't been on the throne, it would have blown away, too," Dole wrote.
They were served cafeteria style food, but the wind took care of that, too.
"By the time I had gotten to my dining tent, my full soup bowl had blown off my tray," Dole said.
On Thursday night, the racers made it to the Mongolian capitol of Ulaan Bataar, where they stayed at the Chinggis Khaan Hotel.
Friday was supposed to be a day of rest, but many of the racers, including Erickson and Dole, spent the day repairing the damage done to their cars by the desert trek.
"The car parks of both hotels are a scene of complete carnage with most cars now reduced to dusty piles of bits," wrote British journalist Syd Stelvio, who is traveling with the racers.
On Saturday, the motorists headed out for the remote Mongolian stop of Khakorin, where they stayed in concrete yurts. For the next four days, they will camp out under the stars once again in the desert.
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