Australasian Safari 2011: A Reflection

A lot of time’s gone by since the Australasian Safari… and a lot has happened since we said goodbye to our fellow racers and friends at the finish line in Kalgoorlie.

But you never trusted this site to be timely, anyway did you?

I could give you a stat sheet on who was there, who was riding what and who won, but if you wanted that information you would have found it somewhere else a long time ago.

So here’s a quick reflection on what transpired in the Team OAT camp.

•••

We picked up our service crew at Perth International on September 20^th.  Okay, so it was one guy.  Fresh off the jet from Albuquerque, New Mexico, our friend Rodger is a beer-swilling, spanner-swinging badass that we were confident could carry the team in the service department.

Magnus ran in to the terminal to find him while I was left in the truck to argue with the TSA officers about whether or not the massive Isuzu would fit in short-term parking.

Later that day we met the three other riders we would be supporting for the week, heavy-set Aussie blokes from Melbourne with enough body armor in their luggage to start a war with Sparta.

Our team assembled, we piled in the Isuzu and motored to the bike/car show and ceremonial start- followed by the KTM Kickoff Party at the Breakwater Club.

Most in attendance were rocking sport coats and heeled shoes… we rolled up covered in grease, but were allowed in with a quick flash of the team logos on our jackets.

While most other teams had spent the day polishing their helmets and signing autographs we had been flat-out for the last three days putting bikes together… and Magnus’ race bike didn’t even have tires on it yet.  Rally racing legends Cyril Despres and Ben Grabham were there, among others, and Despres’ race bike was toted out for the admiration of onlookers.  When Magnus saw the $130,000 work of art, he got inspired demanded his race bike look at least as cool by the end of the next day… so it was an early night for Rodger and I, leaving before last call for once in the hopes of starting another big day with just a mild hangover.

•••

The actual start of the race was over a hundred kilometers north of where the party had taken place, so the day before the prologue (pre-race race that determines everybody’s starting position) we packed up and boogied to the town of Geraldton with motorcycles in tow.  It was the first time I had seen the cab of the Isuzu full… and I hope the last.  There may be enough seat belts for six men, but no cab is ventilated enough to support those oxygen consumption/fart expulsion ratios.

•••

Once racing action got underway, Safari truly evolves from just an “event” to an experience.  Helicopters sawing the air overhead, power tools wailing all through the night, radios going ballistic and engines roaring like dragons create a sensory-overland that rivals Japanese game shows combined with that first scene in “Saving Private Ryan”.

It’s enough to make any motorhead think he may very well have died and gone to heaven… I’d take a rally-spec Husaberg 570 over seventy two virgins any day.

•••

But desert racing isn’t all money for nothing and chicks for free.  This shit’s dangerous… which we learned all too well on Day 2 of the seven day event.  While waiting at a checkpoint for our racer to show up, Roger and I heard some chatter on the radio that was most disconcerting indeed.

Bike 22, our rider in the field, had washed out and couldn’t finish the stage.  And more, he was being evacuated by helicopter and rushed to Meekathara Hospital- five hundred kilometers away.

Shit.

I had seen Magnus ride over, around, and through obstacles I couldn’t even look at without falling off.  To hear about him coming off was disconcerting to say the least, but nothing could prepare us from what we saw at the hospital.  After the six-hour punt across the desert, Rodger and I rocked up on the outpost medical center and rang the doorbell.  The nurse knew who we wanted to see as soon as she spotted our truck, and we followed her to the bed our racer was lying on, looking worse than Gary Busey in a mug shot.  We could barely hear his voice over the heart monitor, but he was conscious enough to greet us with his typical candor; “You’re a long way from tonight’s rally point.”

“Thought you might want this” I said as I dropped some civilian clothes on the table.  Rodger and I were otherwise pretty speechless.  What do you say?  “Hey man, ya look like shit!”?

Mags told us to carry on supporting the rest of the riders, and to expect him at the event’s closing ceremony and afterparty in just under a week.  Orders taken, we headed for the door and prepared for the massive drive ahead.  As I hit the threshold Magnus summoned the strength for one more comment;

“Andrew.  Be careful.  With my truck.”

On the way out I chatted up the nurses a bit.  They weren’t sold on the idea of motorcycle racing as a good way to spend your days and dollars…

“So you just, ride around the desert all day?”

“No, I mean, you have to follow a certain route, and go as fast as you can while navigating unknown territory.”

“And then fall off and get sent here?”

“Uh, well, ideally no…”

I could tell the conversation was drying up, and we had a long way to go to the next waypoint; a town called Sandstone.

The ride back was hell.  The desert was pitch dark, the road was bumpy, and kangaroos were bouncing off the bumper like popcorn kernels in the microwave.  We finally rolled into the bivouac around 9:00PM and recovered the race bike… which we saw Magnus had stubbornly tried to tape back together before calling in an evac.  It was a valiant effort… but where there’s a will there ain’t always a way.

•••

The day after the crash brought its own set of disasters.  Rodger and I were now in charge of Team OAT, as acting face, hands and brains of the entire operation.  We would have to clean up our act and start acting like real professionals and uphold the sterling standard Magnus would set if he were around… by using the Bear Grylls signature knife as much as possible, answering questions with riddles, and being the first team to open beers every day.

But first, we’d have to get out of the parking lot.

Rodger and I had been disagreeing on the necessity of locking the truck when leaving it… which lead to the incident of the doors being secured while the keys were in the ignition.

“No problem, there’s an extra set in the yellow Pelican case.”

“You mean that one on the back seat?”

“Shit.”

We had to innovate.  We considered picking the lock, removing the windshield, and using the angle-grinder to add a permanent sunroof… but none of those options really seemed viable.

Finally I spotted a crew with the same model of Isuzu.  I approached and asked them if they had any insight.  Naturally, they began by responding with sarcasm; “Got a brick?” but came over to help when they realized how distraught I was.

The driver of the other NPS showed me a battery access point in the rear of the cab’s underbelly.  Too small to crawl through, but maybe big enough to get an arm…

I pushed through the panel and flailed my hand around while Rodger watched from the other side and guided me.

“Not even close.”

We didn’t have it yet… but we were on to something.  I grabbed the longest screwdriver we had and made another attempt and knocking the lock mechanism, but the angle still wasn’t quite right.

After three more stages of evolution, genius struck.  We could roll down the window much more easily than undo the lock, and so we set to contriving a new tool.  We added a few inches to our extra-long screwdriver by taping a handlebar riser on he end, then proceeded to secure a large hose clamp to the end of that.

I wiggled the ridiculous contraption through the panel and moved it toward the window with Rodger’s audible guidance.

The window came down about four inches after forty minutes of laboring, with enough room for me to weasel my scrawny arm in and undo the lock on the left rear door.

Success!

Rodger and I cheered, slapped hands and bumped guts in a display worthy of a Superbowl touchtown.

Of course by this point everyone had cleared out… our truck was left alone in the middle of the desert.  But it mattered little- we were victorious and would make it to the next bivouac with beers open before the first teams had the carburetors stripped.

If we step on it.

•••

We rolled into the Leonora bivouac and night’s camp early, striding straight through the parking field and into a central location where we flung open the doors and proceeded to unload our cargo.  Sun was hot, Jimmy Buffet was pouring out of the stereo and life was good.  But it wasn’t long before the Fun Police arrived to curtail our moment of glory;

“Hey guys, did you get a map of tonight’s parking area?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Didja look at it?”

I could see where this was going… so I answered honestly.

“Nope.”

We had parked in the caterer’s spot- a decision that would be most unpopular indeed when hungry racers showed up in a few hours.

So we piled everything on the trailer and dragged it ten meters forward to satisfy the race official… who threw his hands up in disbelief as another race team proceeded to occupy the space we had just left.  I could hear the official repeating his comment as we re-installed our tents and tables.

Later that night we had a run in with the other Fun Police… this time, the guys with blue hats and guns.
Determined to uphold Team OAT’s “reputation”, Rodger and I convinced the mechanics from Team Husqvarna to come to the bar with us for a pint.

But once we got there, we learned we had shown up on a night when the barmaids were working the taps in lingerie.  Apparently this is a Western Australia tradition, but in any case I had a hard time convincing the rest of the boys I not been apprised of it beforehand.

Photos were, let’s say “discouraged”, which is a damn shame- because the scene was something to behold.

Imagine a bar full of hard-faced and tattooed miners, being served by women in bikinis who were, let’s say “overweight”, and us standing in the middle wearing race gear and expressions of sheer astonishment.  My bright white BMW jacket was pretty tough to miss between coal-stained work jerseys, and I estimated we had six-point-five seconds before I got my ass kicked.  But we were determined to stick it out for a round, and whaddaya know, all was forgiven after a couple rounds of Jim Beam.

I folded my arms to avoid brushing the sleeves of my favorite jacket against the walls as my friends tried their hands at hitting on the strippers.  Everyone was describing their jobs on the team until the barmaid, Kelisha or Kaylie or whatever, looked my way; “So what’s that make you, the pretty boy who does fuck all?”

At least she said I was pretty… I guess.  Damn, are Australian chicks mean.  A flood of retorts came to mind at various levels of offensiveness but not wanting spit in my next beverage I decided to take the high road;

“Hardly!  I drive the truck.”

“Oh, I thought you were the guy who just stands around and looks good and doesn’t do anything.”

The boys were having a proper laugh at this point, and I had no clue if this chick was trying to flirt with me or make me cry.  Rodger came to my rescue; “No, he figured out how to break in to the truck the other day!”

The conversation deteriorated from there as we convinced each other to buy more rounds.  Finally a cowbell interrupted our babble and one of the barmaids yelled over the noise; “THAT’S IT BOYS, EVERYBODY GO HOME!”

Good idea.

I stumbled out into the street… I mean the one street in town… and into the arms of the local constable.

“Oy!  Good-day, man.  Any idea where the camp is?”  I burbled in Australian/American hybrid vernacular.

One of the Husky guys helped me articulate; “Yeah, yeah we’re with the race cars!  Is there a short cut back to the camp?”

The cops laughed and shook their heads.

“Yeah, mate we know yer with the race cars.”

The first officer looked at the second, and motioned to their vehicle- a Police spec Hilux with a big plastic holding cell on the back instead of a cargo tray.

“Seriously?  Kickass!”

We were all pretty rapt at the idea of getting a free ride home, especially if it was in the back of a paddy wagon.

We piled in the back and laughed like idiots as we got tossed from one side to another when the cop driving jerked the wheel.  The cops parked in the middle of the bivouac and we spilled out of their vehicle.  We thanked them for the ride and they left with a laugh and something like “good luck tomorrow.”

The boys from Team GHR Honda, hard at work on their CRF 450’s, glanced up and laughed like hyenas when they saw us stumble into our swags from the care of Mr. Plod.

Reputation: intact.  If anything, I’d say improved.

•••

A few days later we arrived in Kalgoorlie for the end of the race and the afterparty.  Nearly everyone we knew who was competing had dropped out or sustained serious injury, and Magnus had since been transferred from Meekathara to the major hospital in Perth.  But so determined was he to show up for the event’s closing ceremony that he hopped a bus from Perth Royal to the train station, and rode the rails for eight hours to meet up with us in Kal.

I parked the Isuzu, extra carefully, at the train station and Rodger and I headed to the platform to await our fearless leader.  When his train showed up, they kicked him off about a hundred meters away from us.

For twenty minutes we watched him hobble toward us with broken ribs and a hematoma in his hip the size of a football.  But he did look better than the last time we had seen him; prone and hooked up to a heart monitor.

We exchanged salutations and he snatched the keys as we headed for the truck.

“You sure you want to drive, man?” I said hopelessly, knowing full well my truck-commanding privileges had expired with the arrival of the boss.

“Yep.  Gotta toughen up some time.”

He winced as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat, but was clearly pleased to be back in his “office”.

We updated him on what had transpired in his absence, and he was especially glad we hadn’t resorted to violence against the truck in our efforts to liberate the key.

Everyone at the bivouac was glad to see Magnus back in action, and congratulations were issued to the finishers over Coronas at the Kalgoorlie country club.

The Australasian Safari was a mind-blowing event that hooked me into racing that much more… if that was possible.  I’m dead keen to give it go on two wheels next year, we’ll see if I can work it in to my compensation package next year.

November 9, 2011 | Categories: Australia, Cars, Motorcycles | Tags: 2011, annie seel, australasian safari, ben grabham, bmw, cyril despres, Desert Race, enduro, honda, Husaberg, husqvarna, KTM, race, safari, Suzuki, Yamaha | Leave A Comment »