THE MALAYSIAN RAINFOREST CHALLENGE
25 November to 4 December 2006
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“The first five days are easy days, the second half of the event will take you into Terminator Hill and the Twilight Zone and into some of the hardest trails ever” said Luis Wee, founder of the RFC during the pre race briefing.

If this was true, then competitors were in for a hell of a time. As the SS progressed on the first day, the list of mechanical failures began to pile up. #110 Chan Kok Wah of Hong Kong broke the gears in his portal axels (people say that this is impossible) while Maligaspe of Sri Lanka blew up his tyre (with beadlock) and broke his rim as a result of an over zealous drive over a rather large rock in SS1. The other Sri Lankan team of Navin and Indika broke a CV join, the result of accelerating while the wheels were free spinning whilst still in the air.

The RFC route runs in a clockwise circle. Beginning at the Tower in Alor Setar the convoy goes in the northern most parts of Malaysia along the Malaysian-Thai border to Pedu Lake where it will turn westward to end in the agricultural town of Sungei Petani. A lot of the areas along the border are classified as ‘black’ areas. “We are working with the army, police air wing and general operations forces and will be monitoring your where about. You may think that you are isolate and alone but rest assured, you are being watched” as Luis continued with his briefing.

Peter Taylor, chief scrutinizer and also member of the X-men team was earlier heard to have told of his dreamy encounter. “We had been preparing trails in extreme conditions and for two days, and it had been raining by the bucket loads. There was hardly any chance to set-up camp and after a hard day of winching and recovering cars, we just slept in our cars. I was dozing not being able to fall into deep sleep having to bear with the discomfort of camping on the car seat. I opened my eyes and lighting flashed, and right there lying on the bonnet and peering into the wind shield was a silhouette of a person with a rimmed cloth hat clutching a gun. By the time I got hold of a torch, the next lightning lighted up the forest and he was gone!”

It had been raining stair rods running up to the RFC and on the prologue days, the sun came out in full force and it was so hot that you could fry an egg in the pavement. Fans, journalists, and competitors crowd the prologue areas and were treated to a first grade competition fought in the mud paddies of Kedah.

The Rainforest Challenge is noted to be one of the world’s top 4X4 off road competition and many of the best teams backed by some of the finest motor engineering are represented here. Defending champion #117 Tan Eng Joo of Johor, Malaysia came with a Jeep with individual rear brakes and could turn his car on a dime by braking individual back wheel. Man-woman team Poland displayed very fine technical driving in a mid-engine Land Rover Defender. The Thais can all be crowned Speedkings, taking some of the best times in the ‘rally’ styles SS. Team Austria displayed a high quality of driving but rolled in SS 4.  

This year’s event had 23 entrants with international representation from Sri Lanka 2, Austria 1, Poland 1, Denmark 1 the Philippines 2, China 2, Hong Kong 1, neighbouring Thailand 4 and 9 Malaysian team including Borneo Safari champ Wong Kock Phin and Lee Chuin Ping from Sabah who uncharacteristically rolled in SS 4.

The total convoy came up to over seventy cars with the addition of media and officials. These are modest numbers and can best be described as the calm before the storm. Next year will be RFC’s 10^th anniversary and the event is geared to be bigger and better. It will be Visit Malaysia Year 2007 and also the event will be held in Luis’s home state of Terengganu and the X-Men will be there to hand out the torture for the masochists. 

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