After an amazingly successful test run in 2004 with six teams, the mother of motoring adventures is preparing to roll out for a second time. The challenge is to drive a car with an engine smaller than one litre, from the east end of London to the east end of the world: Mongolia.
But the Mongol Rally 2005 is no re-run; on 30 July, around 70 teams made up of two drivers and a car most people wouldn’t rely on to get to work will leave from the launch party in London to face an even tougher task. The route has been revised to take in a more challenging course through more countries, including Central Asia’s finest mountains; the central Tian Shan mountain range in Kyrgyzstan. The mountains here are geologically young, resulting in physical terrain marked by sharply uplifted peaks separated by deep valleys - just one of the hot spots of the rally!
The Mongolian Ambassador to the UK waved off last year’s teams on a mild summer evening as they set off to take on a true beast. Three weeks later, a few cars down and very dusty they reached their destination, becoming the first to complete the Mongol Rally. This year’s rally is expected to take a similar amount of time and will also culminate with a black tie ball to celebrate the finish in the capital of Mongolia, Ulaan Baatar.
The Mongol Rally is a charity event with each team raising £1000. The huge amount of money expected to be raised will once again be donated to ‘Send a Cow’, an innovative organisation based in Bath that combats poverty in Africa by supplying poor rural communities with livestock, training and advice to help them become more self-reliant (see www.sendacow.org.uk for more details). The Rally is also working with the Mongolian Embassy to find a beneficial use for the rally cars that make it to Mongolia.
Speaking about the forthcoming event, organiser Tom Morgan said, “I can’t wait. Last year’s rally was incredible; storming through the Kazakh desert covered in dirt with no roads and no real idea of where you are or where you’re going is quite an experience. This year we’ve made the route even better with more off-road action and it goes through even more countries.”
“The ‘crap car’ concept behind the rally works really well,” he continued. “Granted some of the teams won’t make it, but you can’t call it an adventure if you’re in a big 4×4 and the only thing that can go wrong is forgetting to fill the tank. The Mongol Rally is about adventure - there are too many travel guides telling you ‘everything you need to know’ about more or less everywhere on our planet, there is no mystery left in the world. Space exploration is slightly out of most mortal’s budgets, so to experience adventure you’ve got to make things a bit difficult for yourself; hence the Mongol Rally was born.”
Asked about the 2004 rally, one competetor said, “I’ve done a lot of travelling but I’ve never felt so adventurous and so free as I did driving to Mongolia. If you want to break loose and spend a month living on your own wits then I know of nothing else like it.”
Notes to Editors:
- Mongol Rally is a non-profit organisation run by volunteers
- The event came about after event organiser, Tom Morgan, bought a car in Prague and decided to try and drive it to Mongolia. He did not make it this time but the seeds of Mongol Rally had been sown
- Just 6 cars took part in the rally last year. This July up to 70 teams (140 people) are expected to set out for Mongolia in cars powered by an engine of 1 litre or less
- Participants are not spoon fed by Rally organisers; those who sign up receive limited guidance from the organisers and have to organise their own campaigns
- The Mongol Rally is an ambassador for independent travel
Contacts and further information:
See our event website www.mongolrally.com for more details.
