The Oddball Rally
the Plymouth-Banjul ‘Banger Rally’

The 34 year-old VW Beetle might have sounded like a bucketful of spanners and been about as roadworthy as a runaway baggage trolley, but she certainly looked the part as she led the convoy down a West African beach with her skull-and-crossed-bones flag flapping in the wind. Her yellow paintjob, flaring ‘Baja-Bug’ wheel-arches and balloon tyres had drawn covetous stares in the isolated Mauritanian fishing hamlets just as they had among the nomad camps of Western Sahara.
We had been driving down the beach for about sixty miles and, behind us, another twenty cars were also racing to get as far as possible before the rising tide forced us to make camp in the dunes.
Back in England the old bug had been destined for the scrap-yard until self-confessed petrol-head and talented mechanic Pete Sandford had reinvented her as The Sandbug and entered her for what has been called ‘the ultimate banger challenge.’
The Plymouth-Banjul Challenge is the poor man’s Paris-Dakar. The main rules are that vehicles should cost less than ₤100 and the total team preparation budget should amount to no more than ₤15. Every year 200 teams of optimistic oddballs set out to drive – in ‘desert-prepared’ Morris Minors, decaying Land Rovers, jacked-up Mercedes, graffiti-ed Citroen 2CVs or even removals trucks and ice-cream vans – 3,500 miles through France, Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Senegal, to Banjul (capital of The Gambia).
Unlike the Paris-Dakar boys we could count on no official backup or teams of ‘fixers’ at the borders. Where the pros had eight rescue helicopters and eighteen airplanes to shuttle them and their entourage between sections, we would have no support vehicles of any kind. Instead of luxurious desert ‘bivouac’ cities for 2,200 people we had sleeping-bags and the occasional bartered tuna or a slaughtered goat to barbecue over our campfires. Added to which our journey would stretch for 500 miles farther than the Paris-Dakar.
More than a few hapless vehicles have been abandoned to the desert winds – or more often to Tuareg salvagers – since the PBC started in 2002. But, surprisingly, the vast majority of these so-called ‘bangers’ make it to The Gambia where their proud and weary owners donate them for sale at public auctions. The money raised has become a vital source of revenue for many local charities, hospitals and community projects.
The Sandbug had suffered her worst mechanical problem of the trip within a few hours of leaving the UK. As we scrutinised a shattered valve, on a 6-below-freezing Bordeaux night, it had looked as if the old bug might never see the African sun. With the help of Yasmin and Georgia (from Sheffield team ‘Beta Bells’) and a French mechanic, who was inspired by our apparently laughable plan to drive through ‘Afrique de l’ouest,’ we managed to get rolling again. By New Year’s Eve – after 3 days on the road – we had only made it as far as a gypsy bar in a village just south of Madrid.
The Gypsies ensured that we managed barely two hours sleep before we were back on the road and it was cocktail hour in the Spanish port of Sotogrande when The Sandbug finally rolled into the hotel car park. ‘The Idiots Abroad’ were unloading their ancient Land Rover amid a crowd of less likely bush-vehicles, emblazoned with team names like ‘Bodgit & Floorit’, ‘The Dukes of Hap-Hazard’ and, of course, ‘Team Piston Broke.’
We parked beside a barbaric-looking Volvo estate with a Barbie-doll screwed onto the bonnet and flames painted over the wings. Vegas and Adam from Team Bigfoot had re-christened it ‘The Flaming Whore.’ “She’ll take you all the way, burn up all your money…and then run off with a foreigner at the end of it all,” Adam explained.
The next morning almost fifty cars crossed en-masse into the ferry port of Tangier. We formed a splinter group with Beta Bells and Bigfoot and by-passed the old medina to rattle south, past Casablanca, for a couple of days in Marrakech. Then there was the great 500-mile stretch of blistering highway that led us along the skeleton coast of Western Sahara to the desert outpost of Dakhla. By the time local guide Cher had negotiated our passage through the bureaucratic minefield of Mauritanian customs – and the real minefield that lay beyond it – we had been joined by ‘The Desert Rats’ (from Isle of White), ‘The Young Ones’ (an Anglo-Irish team of veteran Africa travellers) and ‘The Wingers’ (Aussie Dave and his girlfriend Jenny).
Now we hit rough country and it would be several days before our wheels touched tarmac again. At times the going was slow and there was plenty of digging and pushing to be done in the soft sand. In other sections we were able to spread out across flat, stony hamada plains and give the cars a good burst of speed. We sand-boarded on the dunes and when we hit the coast we wake-boarded with a rope tied to the back of the car. We camped beneath the incredible canopy of Saharan stars and spent long, peaceful hours chatting around the ‘bush-telly.’ The Winger’s Scirocco had a disco glitter-ball wired to the brake-lights and it became the centre of a full-blown full-moon party halfway along that hundred-mile Mauritanian beach. We slept beneath the stars and were greeted at dawn by a couple of jackals that had been lured by the irresistible scent of barbecued sea bass.
By the time we rolled into Banjul many drivers had grown very attached to their vehicles and there was a tear in several eyes as keys were handed over. Most resented the fact that there was not a word of official thanks from anyone on behalf of the Challenge and a few felt that they could just as easily have done the trip without the help of the PBC. Even the group ‘mentor’ (representative of the PBC on the trip) had already disappeared. We decided that we, at least, had earned a few days partying and beaching under the African palms.
The Sandbug too had more than earned her keep. She sold for ₤400 (a total of almost ₤130,000 was raised for charities). So, if you ever find yourself on the banks of the Gambia River look out for West Africa’s most charismatic bush-taxi.
You’ll certainly recognise her if you see her.

taking part: PBC acknowledges that ‘some rules are made to be broken’ and the £100 price limit is only a guideline. All vehicles must be left-hand drive. (E-bay seems to be the usual hunting ground). The application form warns that: ‘The Challenge is NOT for the faint-hearted…it is NOTHING like an organised holiday.’ Julian Nowill who describes himself as ‘chief dis-organiser’ describes it laughingly as “a shambles…but a good natured one.”
See www.plymouth-banjul.co.uk.

'No money? No sense? No worries' - other reckless roadtrips.
The Mongol Rally (www.mongolrally.com) is an 8,000 mile dash across ¼ of the earth's surface in a sub-1000cc car!
The London Tashkent Rally (www.londontashkent.com) - 6,500 miles to Central Asia in a £100 vehicle.
The Russian Roulette Rally (www.slightlycliveracing.com), from Swindon to Vladivostok in a decomposing banger (must be fitted with an inspiring air horn).

The End