Photographs by: Nitin Gera
We pulled over to watch a tornado. At a little distance from the highway a column of sand was spiralling up. Vehicles were speeding past us thoroughly exploiting the smooth tarmac of Rajasthan. The setting seemed to be precursor to the action that was up next. We were on our way to experience a manmade storm in the desert.
We had preceded the Desert Storm to Bikaner. The rally cars were to undertake extreme dune bashing the next day.
Twister, a Never Ending Saga
It was a long day in sun and sand, sans the beach. We joined the official convoy before dawn and proceeded to the park ferme at Seruna. Once everyone had refilled caffeine and GPS tracks the caravan moved into the desert. A 54Km track had been charted through sand dunes around Punrasar village. The day was quite an occasion for the villagers who had been roped in as volunteers. They watched our cars in anticipation and so did their goats, hens, and peacocks, as we moved through the circuit setting up check posts. We were placed at the timecard stamping point. It allowed us to experience the complete stage before it was stormed.
By 10:30AM the stage was live and we had positioned ourselves at vantage points to capture the rally action. We waited patiently…
Sitting in the desert sun
We were sitting when overhead the sun come
Watching the camel-carts roll in
And we watched ‘em roll away again
Sitting at the top of the dune
Watching the sands roll away
We were just sitting on the top of the dune
Nah, not wasting time…
Sitting at the top of the dune we waited, heard Otis Redding, and Coldplay, Dj Tiesto, Deep Forest, and Mettalica. We discussed the distant huts, vultures, jackals, deers, blackbucks, and water bottles, while waiting for a certain roaring sound. Then we heard it, after a couple of hours had passed.
We jumped to action as soon as we saw two bikers moving in tandem. Then there were more bikes.
We wondered how bikers follow GPS navigators while moving through desert at such speeds. Most of the bikers were exhausted by the time they reached finish.
Next to arrive were Gypsys from the Extreme level, followed by SUVs competing in the Endure category. The radios were relaying instructions as the officials at checkpoints kept track of the vehicles. At a point a Gypsy overturned and was later rescued by a dozen men from the village and towed out with a tractor.
Tractors had to be called-in for several other cars which gave up in sand. Besides ethics, this was just one of the benefits of involving local people as volunteers.
By afternoon the first stage for the day, aptly named as “Twister” was over. But the saga continued into the third leg of the rally which had mostly the same track as Twister but with additional, gruelling 20Kms. The day’s proceedings lasted beyond sundown. By then we had seen top ranked Indian rallyists in action, we had realized the speed, teamwork, and precision with which organizers from Northern Motorsports were functioning, and as a bonus, we had experienced desert like never before in any of our trips to Rajasthan.
Photographs by: Nitin Gera
