There are menu links to various pages that will be updated on a regular basis during the 37 day adventure from Peking to Paris. Be sure to let your friends and family know of these pages so they can follow your adventures.
Video Journal
Throughout the 2010 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge we are making and uploading Video Journal episodes to show the life of the rally and the best of the driving action.
Rally Reports
To supplement the Video Journal there will be regular Rally Reports direct from the front line. Those who followed the 1997 and 2007 events will remember the articles posted by the mysterious reporter Syd Stelvio... once again he will be tapping out some well chosen words for us on his ancient portable typewriter.
Skytag Vehicle Tracking
The Skytag tracking page is where to follow the competitor locations and progress.... vehicle positions showing before the start are from test data... it does not mean they are still in the UK. Hourly position updates are expected. In some locations where GPRS data transfer is not available the position will be updated daily. Coverage is expected over 90% of the route.
Classification & Results
The Results page is where to find the leader board and sporting classification once the event has started.
The Route & Where to See the Cars
Click the Map Image (right) to open a detailed map of the route, then click a place marker to find details of the location and date that the cars reach each point. The map is only a guide and the route may be subject to change.
As an approximate guide to times, the cars will start each day between 06-08hrs (local time) and arrive at each overnight between 14-22hrs (local time).
On rest days the cars are free to make their own arrangements.
In 1907 the first-ever trans-Continental motor-rally between Peking and Paris became an epic challenge between a Prince and a Pauper – Prince Borghese had the best funded entry and carefully researched the conditions of setting out on a journey where the first 5,000 miles saw no roads, at all, so, no maps and no garages. His chief rival was a fair-ground worker who until he read news of the race in a Paris newspaper, Le Matin, picked up blowing in the wind, had never even sat in a motor-car, so had no idea how to drive one.
Five cars set out from Peking, four made it to Paris to a tumultuous welcome and world-wide fame – they had set out to prove that man and machine could now go anywhere, they hoped it would make borders between countries redundant. They had left Peking with no passports – these had been confiscated by Chinese authorities who suspected they were spies, and had no interest in seeing the success of the motor-car having just invested in shares in the trans-Siberian railway.
The second Peking to Paris was not held until the summer of 1997, when on the 90th anniversary, our organisation staged the first-ever rally for classic and vintage cars to cross China, and the first-ever rally to cross Tibet – we camped at the foot of Mount Everest. We also cracked open the border between Tibet and Nepal.
The border at Friendship Bridge between Tibet and Nepal had been closed for 40 years since it was slammed shut by Chairman Mao – the 90th Anniversary Peking to Paris negotiated the re-opening, it remains open today, we drove on into India and Pakistan, and were the first rally to cross Iran since the 1977 London to Sydney Marathon. Of 96 cars that set out, all but nine made it to the celebrations in Place de la Concorde, and TV film of the epic drive has been seen in more than 80 different countries. In New Zealand, our Peking to Paris became part of the school curriculum for children who followed the adventures of the mad motorists as part of their geography lessons.
This site contains details of our 2007, "100th anniversary" Peking to Paris Rally and some of the background to four years of careful preparations by the Endurance Rally Association – organisers of over 50 major events – planning a route tackled by nearly 300 competitors and officials, through some of the world’s remotest terrain.