The Outback Challenge Moroc, cousin to the well-known Australian Outback Challenge, drew from an international field of competitors: Spain, France, Italy, England, and Sweden, and one driver, Lawrie Sternbeck, flew in from Australia. To endure the next six days of competition, participants would need to tap every resource available: Navigation and orienteering, winching and mechanical ability, and basic desert survival skills. And because the premise is to have vehicles that are streetable but also able to function in a competition setting, the majority of the field was driving modified full-bodied factory 4x4s. Exceptions were two Tomcat buggies from England, one of which would take home top honors, and a tube-framed rock buggy that dropped out due to cooling-system issues.
Scrutineering rules and requirements were fairly straightforward and simple. Teams were required to have sand tracks, a winch and d-shackles, a rollcage, full harnesses and anti-ejection nets, a winching anchor, a tow strap, and so on. They were allowed to have a support crew for assistance, but the catch was that they could only receive help in certain sections or at the bivouac. Otherwise, they needed to be fully self-contained with food, water, fuel, and spare parts.
The daily routine went like this: At the drivers' meeting each morning, teams were given a map book containing GPS points and crucial navigation information. Some GPS checkpoints were attended by marshals, while other points were simply rocks painted in three colors coordinated to which teams were required to document the order of the colors. Teams would also receive information about overall team placement but not scores. In other words, no one knew the gap between first and last place. So the start of each day was a scramble to the finish, to win. And no one would know until the final night in Marrakech who would take home the gold.
When the dust settled at the end of each day (which was always well past dark), we'd traveled several hundred kilometers and our bivouac would be in a different place. The center of camp each night was the Outback Imports big Mercedes support truck. Equipped with a generator, welder, shop tools, and 360-degree floodlights, it was the hub of activity, and teams worked through the night repairing everything from broken differentials and axles to electrical and cooling issues. The truck even had a water tank for teams to get a cold shower if needed.
From the deserts of the Western Sahara near the Algerian border, our route book directed us south towards the palm-lined village of Mhamid. Mhamid is the end of the road, and it sees the last of the Draa River as it seeps into a vast expanse of sand dunes. Heading west on a narrow dirt track, we ascended from the valley floor into the Atlas Mountains. The rocky piste became an endless switchback to the heavens as we passed through the Berber villages of Agmour and Asarrakh, ancient encampments of mud and stone clinging to the mountainside. Young Berber women worked the terraced fields and collected spring water while the men sipped tea under shade trees or were called to pray beneath the minarets of century-old mosques. Setting our swags out each night reminded me that we were truly in the middle of nowhere. And because most villages in these regions receive electricity, if they have any at all, from a generator, when it shuts down at night, the only light for a several hundred kilometers is that from a billion stars.