Summer 2019 | TOTAL MX-5 |^35[ MONGOLIA RALLY ]
would travel back along the transmission tunnel, raising the
cockpit temperature by 10ºC. As a consequence we had the
roof down most of the time to keep cool. Even in the
Turkmenistan sand storms... Other jobs included fitting a
light bar at the front; many USB charging points; an inverter
for our laptop and camera batteries; replacing the alloys
for steel wheels with hard compound, close tread gravel
competition tyres donated to us by DMACK. This last point
was an absolute must as we didn’t have a puncture the
entire journey, or bend a rim as so many others did.
Once the car was kitted out and our visas in place, the
last challenge before setting off was trying to fit seven
weeks’ worth of tools, spare parts, camping equipment and
personal effects into the boot. After much thinking, 50% of
what we had intended to take got left behind. We used 90%
of what we took and weren’t short of anything.
We headed to Dover with our sights set on the
Czech Republic for the official launch. Easy
we thought, everything was going so well.
Well not quite. Our cheap rear
suspension components and overloaded boot had resulted
in us over-compressing the rear springs by the time we got
to Germany. Who knew? We battled on to the Czech
Republic start line where we got a smashing reception from
the other participants. The MX-5 legend is internationally
recognised and respected. We felt like gods.
Our next stop was Budapest where we went on the hunt
for new springs. In the meantime, the spare wheel had
found its way to the bonnet, Land Rover-style, which shifted
30kg onto the front axle. In a bizarre twist of events and
through the international language of hand signals and
funny face pulling, Mazda Bonto in Budapest very kindly
donated a set of mk2 rear spring assemblies which
were slightly longer to improve our ground
clearance. I think Mr Bonto was so
taken aback by our ignorance
and stupidity that he took
pity on us. We had
some vague