Désertours: The organiser (www.desertours.com)

‘Désertours has been the leading French organiser of rally adventures for the last 20 years. The company is based in St-Jean-de-Luz and has been run by the racing driver and motorcyclist Jean-Jacques Rey since its creation in 1985. The 12th event will take place against the sumptuous backdrop of the Moroccan south. The 4L Trophy ™ is a continuation of the great tradition of African rally adventures such as the Paris-Dakar. The objective is to cover each stage of the rally with a road-book, a map and a compass, while passing through all the checkpoints. Driving fast is not at all the point and is to be avoided. The positional rankings are based on a combination of mileage and navigational skills, as well on numerous other challenges, such as the ability to negotiate dunes and slopes.’

Jean-Jacques REY, Managing Director of Désertours.

The ESC Rennes School of Business: The coordinator (www.esc-rennes.fr)

‘ESC Rennes School of Business has been actively involved in the 4L Trophy ™  for years, because the event embodies the values of our school - the international mix of students, their diversity and their enterprising spirit.

The project also concords with our educational aims - in organising this amazing expedition, students come into contact with other cultures, they manage a large-scale project and they develop their sense of responsibility. It is also an opportunity to highlight the humanitarian credentials of major business schools. »

Olivier APTEL, Director of the ESC Rennes School of Business.

Raid 4L Evénement

Yves Marie ROIGNANT (Partner Liaison Officer) and Virginie DUBRAY (Team Liaison Officer) are the two students in charge of the association for this 12th event.

‘Raid 4L Evénement operates just like a small company, with 40 students working for a year on the organisation of the event. Consisting of 4 departments (Team Liaison, Departure Village, Partnerships and Technical), the association is now an important player on the French student scene.

The strength of the 4L Trophy ™ lies in its uniqueness. It is an event organised by students and desert experts which allows schools, businesses and adventure lovers to come together around shared values - team spirit, conviviality, solidarity, mutual aid and giving one’s best.’ The Raid 4L Événement team.

•  
  • The event directors
  • Around 30 marshals
  • Three IT experts who manage the arrival and departure check-ins
  • An assistance team for participants
  • Mechanical assistance consisting of two Bivouac utility trucks and 4WD vehicles which can intervene along the trails.
  • Medical assistance consisting of doctors and first-aiders.
  • A helicopter
  • A lead vehicle
  • Broom wagons
  • ...

All the members of the organising and assistance teams are connected by VHF radio and satphone.


Respecting the Highway Code
It goes without saying that the Highway Code is to be respected throughout the rally, including before and after (in France and Spain).

Speed is em
phatically not what the event is about and random controls will be carried out along the route. Any breach of the rules will be penalised, and crews which pose a danger to others may be disqualified.

Seatbelts must obviously be worn at all times throughout the event, including on the road connections.

Compulsory safety equipment

  As indicated in the Technical Preparation section, vehicles must be equipped with an extinguisher, two distress flares, two
spare tyres, a medical kit etc.

Medical Assistance
A medical team consisting of doctors and first-aiders are in charge of prevention (individual forms to be filled out in Algeciras) and of monitoring the rally.
This team is complemented by the UMPS (Mobile First Aid Unit), a team of professionals with experience in dealing with emergency situations in exceptional circumstances.

Mechanical assistance

To assist vehicles in difficulty, there are 50 mechanics divided into two teams:

A ground team


On the route, 4WD vehicles are there to provide mechanical assistance. They are spread out along the line of participants’ vehicles. Several vehicles also bring up the rear of the convoy and provide assistance to the Renault 4Ls which are struggling the most.




                           A Bivouac team
  Around 20 mechanics work shifts day and night at the mechanical repairs station set up each day on the bivouac.
Mechanical problems are dealt with at several different repair points (electrical problems, engine problems etc.).

Three fully-equipped utility trucks complete the set-up.

‘We could do it with ordinary cars!’. And Jean-Jacques cried: ‘Yes, why not! We’d need to find an affordable car which would be reliable enough to drive on desert trails.’ And that’s how the idea was born… Back in France, in his professional capacity as an expert in 4WD and motorbike travel, Jean-Jacques decided to travel to Morocco in a 4L to assess the feasibility of an Adventure Rally in that country.

The route was mapped out and it worked! The old 4L was up to getting through anything, even the sandpits! And so the 4L Trophy was born! Désertours got in touch with students to try and get the message out – easy to say, difficult to do.

At the end of February 1998, 3 candidate teams were ready to go.
Should we go or not ? That was the question. In the end, Jean-Jacques decided that the answer was yes. And so with 4WD assistance, a logistics expert, a mechanic, a doctor and Jean-Jacques himself, off they set.

Staff at Désertours were wondering if the boss might have lost the plot. Today, the results speak for themselves. But it took several years, and the help of students at the ESC Rennes from 2001 onwards, for the adventure to attain its current renown.

For the 4th event in 2001, 50 vehicles took part. By 2005 the number had risen to 460 and by 2008 it had reached its maximum limit of 1,000 vehicles. The 4L TROPHY ™  has now truly come of age.

In 2008, there was more media coverage than ever before:

• Over 1,500 articles in the written press
• 46 TV reports
• Over a hundred mentions on the radio

On top of this, 58 tonnes of school equipment were transported by the 2,000 students participating.

Over the last 12 years, over 15,000 children have been able to attend school thanks to all the materials provided by the students.

From year one, Jean-Jacques stipulated that 50kg of school materials had to be carried by participants, the gifts being weighed before departure. These days, a minimum of two satchels / schoolbags and two sports-bags full of materials are loaded into the 4Ls at departure.
Well done to all those over the last 12 years who have taken part in this great initiative to support the schooling of the disadvantaged children of the desert.

For the 12th event, Jean-Jacques Rey is seeking to introduce new features, both in terms of the route, which may be slightly modified (though the marathon stage will still feature), and in terms of organisation, with the aim in particular of reducing as much as possible the waiting times at the start of stages. 200 organisers in 40 4WDs will be present on the ground, as well as an assistance truck, a utility truck and a helicopter. 

Many TV, radio and press journalists will also be invited along to report on the Trophy.

The contribution from partners and sponsors will also be very valuable. As well as helping to attract wide coverage of the event, our partners will help us to keep down the burgeoning organisational costs and enable us to maintain our tariffs at their current level, which are those of 2007. Those who are familiar with the costs of Adventure Rallies in Africa will know that the going market rate in France for such rallies is between 5,000€ and 23,000€ per team; This is obviously way beyond the pocket of students (see the article in Le Figaro, available on the home page). The organisers would like to extend a warm welcome to all the participants in this 12th event, which we will do our very best to make to quite exceptional.

Enjoy your adventure!

- a pedestrian crossing the motorway no longer surprises you (and neither does a moped or a goat going the wrong way down the road!)
- you know what dust really tastes like – you appreciate the true value of a shower and a bed… (no comment)
- "GIVE ME A PEN" has become a cult phrase which you love using
- you go home and you say: ‘What the hell am I doing here? What’s with this bloody rain? I wanna go back there. It was all over too quickly’. – you can’t believe petrol costs 1.5€ in France – you know that the briefings never happen on time and that Jean-Jacques is something of a comic
-  nasty oued, aim for the antenna, bearing 150°, mind the camel, let’s find a better route and a whole load of other directions come back to you when you’re daydreaming in a traffic jam
- you suddenly feel the need to get your compass out when you’re lost in the middle of the countryside
- you say hello to all the kids you pass in the street when you’re driving along…
- you miss mint tea and even waking up in the middle of a 1,000 4Ls and Quechua tents
- you find yourself about to check the oil and fluid levels of your car every morning before you leave...
- you always have a water-pump, a radiator and a few fan belts in the boot of your car
- you haggle for a minimum of 15 minutes before buying (ah! the souk...)
- even after you’ve washed your hair ten times, there’s still sand in it
- you’ve been desperately looking for a bush for 15 minutes or more...
- you can show off because you recognise the sound of a fan belt and you’ve learnt how to change a tyre…
- there’s a tear in your eye when you look again at the photos of the other crews…
- you know what sleeping on the pebbles in Enjil is like!
- you search desperately for the gear-stick when you’re driving
- the chickens pecking away on the motorway hard shoulder no longer surprise you...
- you feel the urge to get out the boards as soon as you encounter an unmade road in the countryside…
- you never drive anywhere without your jerrycan
- you put a drop of petrol on your hand and you rub it to make sure there isn’t any water in it before you fill up at the petrol station
- if you scrape the ground or a kerb in a new car, it doesn’t bother you – you’ve seen a lot worse
- the word cylinder head gasket no longer holds any fear for you!
- you start cutting all the corners to gain a few kilometres, even though you’re no longer in the Moroccan desert
- sleeping in your car is par for the course
- driving for 24 hours straight is no longer an impossibility, because you’ve already done it
- you really want to do it again next year!!!!!!!!!!

- you’ve spent 3 hours looking for a pit and an antenna in the desert without finding anything
- you forget to change up into fifth gear because you’ve forgotten that newer cars have 5 gears!
- you’ve already raced a camel in the middle of the desert…
- you feel like you’re going 200 kilometres an hour when in fact you’re doing 80 off-road between Merzouga and Timerzif   - you go ONTO the beach in the car and then you look for the sand-boards!
- you look for the choke on your Clio diesel
- you’ve raced along the motorway at130 kmph with your foot to the floor
- you sleep in a tent for two seconds and then fold up a hundred in the morning
- you suddenly accelerate in your lovely car, in a vain attempt to recreate the sensation you had when you were driving at 40kmph over pebbles in your 4L ...
- not a day goes by without you thinking about it  - you notice that far fewer stars are visible in France than in Morocco  - it makes you think when a Berber says to you: ‘you may have watches, but we have time…’ - you try telling people about your adventure and you end up saying: ‘some things you can talk about and other things you have to experience…’

Elodie, Crew 749 of the 11th rally