The summer of 2008 saw 251 teams launching from London, Madrid and Milan to thunder into the unknown in ridiculously small cars and take on the biggest Mongol Rally ever.
One team had their car crushed by an eagle eyed UK city council for not having road tax and their rally dreams were squashed into a cube before the launch day. Psychedelic Pirates made it as far as Belgium, Mere Mongols met disaster in Germany and The Mongolia Job came to an abrupt halt in Czech Republic, but carried on with other teams eastwards.
The early carnage raised many an eyebrow and expectations of a stream of early retirements. But it wasn’t to be - the 2008 adventurists steeled themselves and wobbled east to meet all sorts of pickles and 'code brown' situations.
Team Axis of Ignorance were having an innocent kip when their car got struck by lightning in Ukraine. One of Pandamonium’s number was thrown in a Russian cell for 24 hours for mistakes with his visa. A member of team POB had what they describe as a “poo-splosion”, and he was probably not the only one.
Team Pull-Over got drunk with Russian tank commanders and Team Desertaxi got stranded in no man’s land for 5 days between Russia and Kazakhstan so they set up their own republic – ‘Taxistan’ and by the sounds of it, all went a bit funny in the head!
The Larrikins were held hostage in a Kazakh brothel they thought was a hotel, locked in a room with no toilet and then charged $48 for the pleasure after 15 hours!
We Are Vikings experienced one of the Mongol Rally’s finest delights by taking part in an the infamous involuntary ‘slow car chase’. This is where the Kazakh, or criminals from other countries, decide they want to steal the shirt off your back and chase your car, but because the roads are utter shite so the car chase plays out at 20mph – awesome stuff!
The stories from summer 08 will be told to grandchildren and the grandchildren of those grandchildren, such is their legendaryness. And very soon we’ll have more of them, with all the gory details on this here website for your pleasure.