Two groups of car enthusiasts from Taiwan — named Taiwan Jia Ba Team and Infinite Formosa — are participating in the Mongol Rally, which on Monday started its 14,000km course from the Czech Republic to near the Russian border with Mongolia.
Teams in this year’s rally are required to “take a farcically small vehicle of 1 liter or less,” drive from a “top-secret location” near Prague to Ulan-Ude, Russia, on their own while raising ￡1,000 (US$1,300) for rainforest conservation, the event organizer said on its Web site, www.theadventurists.com.
Taiwan Jia Ba is comprised of leader Chiu Yu-hsiang (邱昱翔), mechanic Huang Yi-hsien (黃奕憲) and logistics coordinator Huang Yu-lun (黃昱綸), who are members of a Vespa enthusiasts club in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店).
Photo: CNA, courtesy of Chiu Yu-hsiang
Chiu said his team got their car only after arriving in Prague from a Taiwanese man residing in the Czech Republic.
They bought the white sedan with their own money, Chiu said.
As per the technical requirement of the rally, the white sedan is more than 10 years old and has a tiny engine, Chiu said.
Among the loose or uncooperative components the team had to replace or repair were shock absorbers, a misfiring cylinder and decade-old tires, in addition to patching a hole in the trunk, he said.
They tested the car outside of town and painted it with a Siberian crane on the hood, which is both appropriate for the rally and a nod to the bird that spent 131 days with a Taiwanese rice farmer in 2015, he said.
Taiwan Jia Ba, who ordered custom T-shirts for the event, also put the flag of the Republic of China on the hood and stowed a spare tire on the roof, he said.
As the rally has no mandatory course, Team Jia Ba plan to travel from Germany to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and then onward through the Gobi Desert to Ulan-Ude, Buryatia, a mountainous Russian republic in eastern Siberia, he said, adding that the route was selected due to visa considerations.
The course is to take them well north of other teams’ planned routes, Chiu said, adding that they did not meet any other competitors except a South Korean team, the only other Asian team who began the rally when they did.
Infinite Formosa were delayed in France, he said.
After an eight-hour traffic jam in Germany, the team asked to stay at the home of a man named “Kevin” in the town of Kempten, 128km southwest of Munich, he said.
At last report, Infinite Formosa, a team from New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊) led by Chen Hsin-cheng (陳信政), a teacher, had traveled from Folkestone, England, to Calais, France, through the Channel Tunnel.
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