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Team Saluki

Based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Castrol EDGE supported Team Saluki is named after the legendary Arabian hunting dog which is bred for speed and endurance in the desert - very apt considering that the Team competes in desert racing events in the Middle East. www.teamsaluki.com

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Team Saluki

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Oct 25

D-Day -1 : Look out, Look out there's a Saluki about.

Yes folks, It's been a year since you last heard about the ups, downs and roll-overs of Team Saluki in last years Desert Challenge. Well the time has come again to keep you informed on how the team performs in this years, our eleventh UAE Desert Challenge which is the final round of the FIA World Cup for cross country rallies.

For those that don't know; We're competing in a two wheel drive, 3.5 Litre V6 VTEC Honda powered buggy built by Fast & Speed based in Holland.

Castrol EDGE, Serck Services, Gulf Agency Company (GAC) and Trading Enterprises (Honda) have made this years challenge possible for Team Saluki - Our grateful thanks go out to our sponsors.

Yesterday was documentation where we sign on, pay the money to enter and in return we get some stickers and some equipment to install. You would have thought with the fast paced action of the challenge that this would have been a rather simple task. It seems fast paced doesn't apply when you add bureaucracy and administration. 4, yes 4 hours were wasted standing about waiting like someone at the deli-counter for your number to be called. Not a good start to the rally, lets hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Today we've been down to scrutineering where the Saluki got a clean bill of health from a safety and readiness basis. Our allocated slot of 2pm again turned into an administration fiasco yet again. Realistically we should have been in and out in about an hour, 2-1/2 hours later we finally get out ready to race.

Looks like Paul and his chauffeur Mark had better get used to having cameras in their face if the scrutineering is anything to go by.
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This year supporting Team Saluki we have a compact but focused crew.

James - Service Manager
Martin - Service
Rick - Spanner monkey
Leno - Spanner monkey
Tracie - Media Witch-(Whipping the TV crews into shape)
Craig - Technical communications
Keith - International updates

Oh yes - and there's a couple of guys along for the ride - Paul the co-pilot and Mark the driver who's job it is to chauffeur Paul about in the dunes for the next six days.

Also joining us this year we have Simon who is out to cover the team for a magazine and we also have two TV crews (Thomson Grass Valley and City7) who are out covering Team Saluki so our coverage this year should be exceptional.

It's the prologue tomorrow which is being held at a Motocross circuit which should be interesting. We're all looking forward to it.

Regards
Team Saluki