Day 10

10. May 2000, Bolu to Samsun

After a cold night at the lake of Abant (-1°C) we continue our drive towards the Black Sea. The scenery is again beautiful: We are driving over the high plateaus of Anatolia were lots of farming is done. The day was dominated by waving schoolchildren, cars making light-signals and the Gendarmerie. On the route, local governours have placed police and Gendarmerie (in military uniform) to ensure traffic safety. On some parts of the route there is a "Jandarma" every kilometer, busy noting down our numbers to make sure that all the cars pass their way. The Turkish officials are very friendly, waving and greeting all cars going by. The police are also regulating the slow traffic, so that most of our day is pretty trouble-free. In some towns we are even waved through red traffic lights by police while at the same time they make movements with their hands, telling us to drive slow and carefully.
Not everyone is sticking to that advice though, Turks and rally-participants alike, and we see some pretty adventurous overtaking maneuvers. But anyone with a knowledge of Turkey is already used to this and has learned to adjust. Turkey unfortunately has one of the highest traffic fatality rates in the world and sensible driving is badly required here as a driver cannot expect others to be sensible.
We are again very happy with our results today, getting a three-minute penalty on an uphill tarmac test sections. The uphill sections are difficult for our car as we have a small engine but not many of the big engine cars achieve zero or one minute penalty on this test. We are currently number seven overall and number one in our class, so as absolute beginners we can be more than happy with the results so far, we will see how it goes on...

Overall 28 minutes penalty

The official results can be looked up on this website