The next morning we got up around 9:00AM, grabbed a bite to eat, and headed off to the Goodwood Motor Speedway. There we joined all of the other teams for a bit of pre-launch comradery, Mongolian music and wrestling performances, and assorted speeches. We met the Rally organizer, Tom, and also had a chat with some of the representatives of Mercy Corps, which we are raising donations for. We had a slight snafu when the organizers said that they hadn’t received our vehicle deposit yet–apparently the bank transfer two weeks earlier hadn’t gone through. I promised to check into it and re-send the money whenever possible and they kindly let us receive our entry packet.
The official launch started around 1:30PM with a lap around the racetrack for every team, in groups of twenty (at slow speeds of course…not that any of the cars could go above 80 or so anyway). We had a ferry booked for 6:00PM, which would mean we have to check in at 5:00PM, so we were anxious to get moving. We had decided to team up with team Rubiks Cube (from the LA area) and another British team to head towards the docks in Dover as we all had a booking for the same boat. All three of us started our lap at a bit past 2:30PM and exited the speedway immediately after. We (Rubiks Cube and our team) immediately lost our British pathfinders and started our journey by making a twenty minute circle around the town of Goodwood.
We eventually found the correct path and headed towards Dover in tandem, hoping to make the 2:30 journey as fast as possible and catch the ferry. We got into Dover at around 5:40PM and headed for the terminal. We ended up being the last car on the ferry (Rubiks Cube unfortunately missed it because of a customs window mix-up and ended up on a ferry an hour later).
The ferry ride was pretty uneventful–grabbed some food and drinks with some of the other teams, picked up some supplies at the duty-free shop, and enjoyed the scenery.
Pictures have been posted in the gallery.
