Rallye Berlin-Breslau 2006

I was really having fun and obviously made the right choices when going through water and mud puddles as I never got stuck.

I will certainly get another go at it next year. You only seem to be getting better the more often you take part and get to know all the heavy bits and learn how to drive through them in an intuitive way. For everybody, who’s in for a real rally, I can only recommend taking part in this experience. It’s well organized and everybody’s friendly and helpful.

The German Newspaper “Sueddeutsche Zeitung” posted an article that’s been about “Tina Meier being on a wellness holiday”.

Here’s a few lines from me in the Dizi Weblog:

After having so much fun using navigation equipment on one of Dirk’s road book tours in Morocco and knowing that all the right gear is stacked up in my garage I felt an urge to get going again. With no sponsor in sight and therefore taking part in the Dakar rally being out of reach, I decided to register for the Berlin-Breslau race.

And it had been a terrific week. Water dumps and river crossing had been all fairly manageable due to the fine summer weather.

Still, taking a look at the photos with cars and trucks being sunk into it right up to their windows I can’t seem to remember where these kind of spots should have been … On the same track, really?

The navigation bit was fun. As long as the equipment is up to it, finding the way is rather easy. Anyhow, sometimes you had to trust your instincts to keep the path. It’s surely been an exciting occasion to drive a real pro rally and see a real pro paddock and a whole lot of service staff. At every hour of the night you could see and hear all the repair, welding and maintenance activities. Fortunately, nothing happened to my bike.

The organization and the cooperation had been superb. And even the communication and the cooperation with the Polish Army seemed to have gone extremely well.

There’s been loads of tanks tracks and huge sand stretches where they usually would play war with their tanks. For this race they provided 3,5 km² of deep sand stretches where you had to find your way by means of a compass – an arm-extending sort of experience, too.

However, finding the right way across and out to keep track was at times being a real lottery.

I also lost track one time as I sort of chose a too conservative bypass around a mud ditch. A missed Check Point and a 2 hrs penalty. Surely a mistake, but I wasn’t the only one taking this wrong way during that day

In the end I won the first place in the lady’s field. Well, me being the only woman it wasn’t that hard. But finishing number 27 in the overall rating wasn’t bad at all.

I’ll be there next year!