Cars unsuitable for a gruelling rally may enter free of charge: fire engines, hearses, ambulances, or cars older than 30 years.
2011 Budapest to Bamako Rally
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office outlined the terrorism threat for the Sahara Region and suggested that there is a high-level threat of kidnap in certain areas of the Sahel, some of these areas the rally would be travelling through. The risk, and the inability to correctly insure the event, led to its cancelation.
Alastair, keen to stretch his driving legs, contacted Hayden Burvill, an Australian that he met on the Peking to Paris Rally. He invited Hayden to be his co-driver in the Budapest to Bamako Rally, which starts outside Budapest’s famous parliament building on January 15th 2011. The route will take the competitors through Austria, Italy, France and Spain, along the coast. Teams drive on paved and off-road sections through Morocco, Mauritania and Mali before reaching Bamako. The rally is the world’s largest amateur competition, which prides itself on a love of spirit and adventure. For this reason, cars unsuitable for a gruelling rally may enter free of charge: fire engines, hearses, ambulances, or cars older than 30 years. This, of course, sparked Alastair’s interest – Mr. Unsuitable himself.
Alastair will be taking his trusted Peugeot 205 Rallye, aka the ‘puddle jumper’, which helped him win the 2009 London to Casablanca. Alastair’s seventeen year old Peugeot has quite a history behind it before Alastair got behind the wheel. It is a French left-hand drive 1300cc hatch-back that was used as a reccy car at the Peugeot Sports works. It was then used by Richard Burns as a road car. Alastair took her to the World Cup Rally in 2002 and won convincingly. He has taken part in the World Cup rallies five times in the Peugeot, winning four times.
Alastair is keen to get back behind the wheel following his success at the Peking to Paris in October. Following the rally he took part in a small rally in France called the Beaujolais Classic Rally Tour in late November. He competed in his BMW 700, which was bought especially for Liège-Brescia-Liège in 2008. Alastair finished 3rd overall in the rally, 2nd in class, not bad for a 700cc. Alastair, supported by some great navigation from Catriona, managed to use the car’s small size to an advantage on the course’s snow and ice.
