2.12.08

Tour de Force joins forces with The Adventurists


Tour de Force salutes whole-heartedly the mad exploits and antics of The Adventurists:

http://www.theadventurists.com/index.php

These fearless adventurers set forth in July 2008, heading East and South on glorious adventures to both Mongolia and Cameroon. Before they left Duncan gave them a talk entitled " How not to die" As all teams made it there and back in one piece, perhaps some teensy bit of credit is due for them learning from his mistakes...

May 2009

Gluttons for punishment that they are, The Adventurists have asked Duncan to give another presentation on 23rd May 2009, to those wonderfully mad enough to attempt the Africa Rally this year (UK to Cameroon). If you fancy finding out more, pop along for a cup of tea and a chat.

3pm
Cafe 1001
Brick Lane
London

http://www.cafe1001.co.uk/location.htm

November 2009

When The Adventurists were looking for a partner to take over the organisation of The Africa Rally, they made the obvious decision, Tour de Force.

So, what is The Africa Rally?, click here to find out more:

The Africa Rally, what's it all about?

December 2009

It's been a busy month getting everything ready for the launch on the 13th December. Tour de Force and The Adventurists have been liaising with UK and Cameroon government officials on smoothing the way for the teams entering Cameroon and ensuring as much of the money raised from the auction of the cars goes to the local charities, rather than on customs import duties. We are getting there...slowly..

All was going well until 3 days before the launch, when myself and Tom (Head Adventurist) were called to a meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. We met with the Head of Counter Terrorism no less. He told us in no uncertain terms that the threat of kidnap in Mauritania had increased dramatically and that the FCO would be changing it's level of advice to "Against all travel" in the areas through which the teams would be travelling. This, in effect, meant that the cars would not be able to drive further south than Morocco. Hmmm.. The FCO even released a minsterial statement about the rally and gave us our very own webpage on their site:

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-alerts/rally-racing

However, all was not lost and we weren't going to let a bunch of kidnappers spoil the fun. After much frantic searching the internet and many phone calls, we found a Roll On, Roll Off ferry that goes from Tilbury, UK to Dakar, Senegal. Result! So the vast majority of the teams are shipping their cars from either the UK, or Casablanca, to Dakar, then will drive to Cameroon from there. A couple of teams are still planning on driving through Mauritania, we can't stop them, so good luck to 'em..

So the UK launch went ahead as planned, organised of course by Tour de Force. We held the event at Dunsfold Park, home of a rather famous TV motoring show, involving 3 badly dressed middle aged men, a mystery driver and a test rack...To avoid legal action from the BBC, we called it "Bottom Gear".It was a great day and much fun was had by all, see here for a report on the festivities:

http://africarally.theadventurists.com/index.php?mode=news&newsid=193





The decorated hanger ready to receive the teams..






The charities on stage at "Bottom Gear" (note "Jeremy Clarkson" joining in on the left..)




Our very special guest...





The teams lined up at the start line of the track




The Stig (Guess who??) catches lift with team "Chocks Away" in their Austin 7 as take on "The Hammerhead" corner



Taking a corner- at probably about 25mph....


So, now the teams are on their way to Africa as we write this, to follow their progress, check out this link:

http://africarally09.theadventurists.com/index.php?mode=ontheroad

February 2010

We're back! After a month in the tropical heat of Central Africa, Tour de Force returns to a cold UK winter. It has been an amazing time in Limbe, Cameroon, making sure everything was in place to welcome the teams after their epic drive across Africa. Many meetings with government ministers and British High Commissioners in Yaounde, plus liasing with local authorities resulted in everyone being as prepared as possible to receive the teams.





First across the finish line were Camervroom, they broke down coming into Cameroon, then the vehicle that was towing them broke down as well, but they were not going to be beaten at the fnale hurdle and eventually managed to fix the tow vehicle and arrived triumphantly in Limbe-on a tow rope....






It wasn't long before more teams arrived and by Friday 15th Jan, we had enough cars to form a parade around Limbe to announce the arrival of the rally and to publicise the festival the next day.





The festival, organised by The Adventurists and Gobal Music Exchange, "Under the Volcano" took place on the 16th January. An event to celebrate Cameroon's amazing music and culture and also to welcome those brave Africa Rally teams that had made it to the end.


One of the amazing acts and their audience

In the evening, things got a little more funky, the Baka tribespeople led the charge with Global Music Exchange's founder members Martin and Sue


Things then got a little more "festive" as the free beer procured by Tour de Force was consumed by the rally teams, much bad dancing ensued


It's fairly obvious that a good time was had by all..


After the fun of the festival, the next big event was the sale of the rally cars by auction, with the proceeds going to local community projects in Cameroon. There were some tough negotiations with local customs before the auction to try and lower the import duties on the car thereby raising more money for the projects.




There was real local interest in buying a car.


In total we raised the grand sum of £14,000 from the sale of the cars, which was fantastic. The money will go to creating health and education projects for the Baka, tribespeople, plus we were also able to give some of the proceeds to Ape Action Africa and Limbe Wildlife Centre.

We gained alot of local press interest for the rally, festival and auction:


I was also interviewed by this character for local radio, we did a "live link up" which involved him shouting questions at me whilst I sat with his phone stuck to my ear as the call went directly through to the radion station who broadcast it live.



I then decided to interview him on his thoughts on the rally



Finally, if anyone was in any doubt about whether The Africa Rally is an adventure, sit back and watch this film made by one of the teams from this year's event. Magic.




In all The Africa Rally raised over £60,000, not bad eh?