Irish rider Gordon Clarke, aboard a TM 450 EN kitted to full rallye specification, acquitted himself brilliantly to finish a fine 16th overall at the Merzouga Rallye which finished yesterday at Erfurt in South Morocco.
Completely unacquainted with the rallye discipline Gordon showed he has the speed, fitness and intelligence to run with the best, in what proved to be a very difficult and technical Rallye.
Producing a 6th place finish in Mondays 5km prologue, he then backed it up with a 23rd on the first stage, 24th on Tuesday, 23rd on Wednesday and a very impressive 16th on Thursday, only 2 minutes from the top 10, then a 22nd on the last leg of the marathon stage on Friday. Fridays 60km dash trough the dunes produced a 23rd place finish having run 6th for the first 8km, overall that added to a 16th place finish.
Gordon…. ” well. for sure that was different !. I has a good run in the proloueg and I suppose it would have been easier for me to tag one of the front runners but then I would have learned nothing about using the road book and the GPS together so I decided to run my own race to learn. Being new to this mode of racing it took me some days to figure out how it all worked together. Once I got to Wednesday it became clearer and easier to navigate at a faster pace than I was at at the beginning. Only a pump vapour locking in the high dunes and 34 degrees on Wednesday spoilt what was the start of improving speed, I did make an error on Friday and Saturday and had to backtrack but I know what I did wrong and I also need some more necessary navigational equipment. I was short of a cap repeater that would have helped a lot.”
“All considered I am very very pleased, a top 20 finish was more that I had expected. The bike ran perfectly but for this type of Rallye there is probably no need to fit full 35 litre Rallye tanks. Other than the vapour lock caused by the extreme heat all was perfect. My thanks go to our Italian friends. Pelloni and Co’ who assisted me throughout the week. I will be back.”