AutoweekUSA
By: Blake Z. Rong
Somewhere in the deserts of Morocco there’s an array of thin plumes of dust heading west towards Erfoud, near the Algeria border. The 160 teams of women have no directions, GPS, even binoculars. For the next 13 hours, they must make their way across the Western Sahara to the next checkpoint. Mountains, dunes, rattlesnakes, and the constant, unnerving fear of breakdowns lie before them. The finish line at Essaouira, a serene fortress harbor inhabited since antiquity, is a week away. The dusty monotony of the Sahara, interspaced with soaring dunes and dry rivers, beckons.
Dominique Serra started the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles in 1990 as proof that women can cope in any situation, and to challenge the stereotype that women and the automobile are not compatible. “I could launch a challenge to knit, but I’m not sure it would have the same effectiveness,” she quipped in an interview she gave in her native France. Twenty-four years later, the race regularly draws 160 teams under the blessing of Mohammed VI of Morocco, who appointed Serra as an Officer Wissam Al Alaoui.
The rally is split into three groups: 4x4s, crossovers or SUVs, and ATVs; all three categories follow a different route, but must pass the same checkpoint. Each morning, a team is given the coordinates of the day’s checkpoints and finish line, which they navigate with just a compass and a map; the difference between the distance driven and the direct line between the checkpoints is the day’s score. Teams win by driving the least amount of kilometers. With rudimentary navigation equipment — even binoculars are banned, as well as following another team’s course — some say it is more grueling than the Baja 1000 or the Dakar Rally. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many have said it was the hardest thing they’ve ever done. “The ultimate moving chess game,” media liaison Kirsten Kuhn describes it.
Four teams from America will be competing this year. Number 107, Team Hoehn, are sisters from San Diego who recently graduated from Dartmouth College: Jo Hannah majored in art history while Susanah Hoehn studied Roman archaeology. Their family business counts a Range Rover dealership among their 11 franchises — consequently, they will be driving a Range Rover Sport, wrapped in Moroccan tile. According to certain sources, they are “the perfect combination of strength, determination, intellectual ability, elegant in style with a major infusion of fun, charm and positive energy.”
JoMarie Fecci, of Team 171, spent most of the 1990s as a photojournalist during conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In 1998, she was one of the first Americans to cover southern Lebanon during Hezbollah control. She teamed up with her navigator, French schoolteacher Isabelle Nikolic, in 2006 on a documentary about Darfur; the two have been embarking on road trips ever since. The pair will be driving a Jeep Wrangler, a vehicle they’re more than familiar with: the duo once drove 10,000 miles across America and camped for 45 days, mostly in and around the Jeep.
The Xelles of Team 182 are from Bozeman, Mont., and will be driving for Voice Today, a charity that helps sexual abuse victims. Driver Rachelle Croft, navigator Rhonda Cahill, and their husbands take part in a reality Web series called “Expedition Overland,” where they negotiate the Top of the World Highway from Alaska to Yukon in Toyota Land Cruisers. “You know never who God has in store for you to meet,” said Croft.
The last team, 183, is Indiana Joans — note the spelling. This is the team’s second year running the rally: driver and self-described rabble-rouser Emme Hall races Volkswagen desert racers for Mega Monkey Motorsports. Navigator Sabrina Howells hails from Venice and splits her time acting and playing in her band. This year, the team will run an Isuzu D-Max pickup truck emblazoned with butterfly stickers representing survivors of breast cancer. “When I couldn’t immediately back out and continue the race,” said Hall during a particularly tough race in her Volkswagen, “panic set in for .001 seconds before my brain said, ‘you got a truck through the desert of Morocco. You can get out of this!'”
Emme Hall and Sabrina Howells in front of their Isuzu D-Max.
As we speak, the Gazelles have left the start of leg one in Casablanca. The women gathered in Paris over the weekend to have their vehicles inspected, and to have Iritrack satellite transponders installed. In front of the Eiffel Tower, the crowd –and a flash mob — gathered at the Trocadéro Gardens to watch the rally teams before their departure to Barcelona and the ferry ride to Tangiers. Dominique Serra waved the starting flag at 14:18, local time, and the teams left the Sofitel Casablanca Tour Blanche Hotel, one by one, a vehicle every two minutes. Ahead lies a twisting journey of six stages before the Essaouira finish — along the Oued Drâa, across the Chegaga and Erg Chebi dunes.
Every night they will eat and drink and sleep in bivouacs — that is, if they make it to the end of the stage. There is no prize money. Coeur de Gazelles, the event’s charitable arm, donates 25 percent of the 14,800 Euro team entry fee to Moroccan citizens as the women race through their country. The fee is steep. The adventure is priceless.
