Spending 9 days travelling under the blazing hot sun of the Sahara desert in an off-road vehicle may sound like the plot to an adventure movie, but for two central Alberta women, it'll be the journey of a lifetime.
The Rally of the Gazelles, or the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles du Maroc, is a 9 day, 2,500km all-female race that takes place in Morocco, where competitors race across the mostly baron dessert.
Cynthia Prefontaine has raced quads for 15 years and growing up in Quebec, she was well aware of the Rally of the Gazelles and always wanted to compete, but she needed a navigator. It wasn’t until she moved to Alberta and joined the Rocky Motorcycle Club that she found a friend and future racing partner in Amber Giroux, a sales associate at Rainy Creek Powers Sports in Rocky.
“We need someone for this kind of adventure that, well, first of all, wants to go race a side-by-side overseas, so that’s already pretty scary for someone. And then with her background in racing and she raced in Germany and everything, she is definitely the kind of person I need. Someone who is not scared to ranch, I mean you are out there on your own. If something breaks, you have to fix it.”
Because the winner of the race is determined by the lowest kilometres travelled and not by time, finding the shortest route is incredibly important.
Prefontaine: “We’re not allowed any GPS so it’s really old school navigation, and we got to know those topographic maps...” Giroux: “The map they give us is from the 1950s and they use the same ones every year but they change the course every year, so repeat competitors really don’t have an advantage.”
Because the entire event is in French, Giroux will rely on Prefontaine for translations, while Prefontaine says her partner's calm demeanour, organization skills, and knowledge of off-road vehicles makes her the ideal navigator.
The women’s team is called "The Racing Cheetahs", and they are currently raising enough money to pay for the race. Those expenses include a C can so that can ship their Polaris RZR side by side to Morocco.
The Racing Cheetahs say they hope to bring more awareness of this event for people in Western Canada and hope to one day teach a course on how to navigate and drive in a race like this, as they think our terrain is perfect for a race like that.
Prefontaine says since the event was originally in France, it makes sense that this event is mostly unknown in Canada outside of Quebec.
“When I was living in Quebec it’s popular over there, it’s on TV and people know about this race which is probably how I found out about it, I don’t even remember. And here, nobody knows about it. So we are hoping to kind of pave the way and we would like to eventually get that navigation course for people here that actually want to go and do this thing because there is nothing here! It’s such a great event, and we do have a background in racing, but whoever possibly would want a challenge can go, they have people from 18-71 with all kinds of backgrounds there.”
The 30th annual event takes place from March 13th to the 28th.
For more details and to stay up to date on their journey, you can check out their groups Facebook page, Prefontaine or Giroux's Facebook pages, or the Rally of Gazelles website, or YouTube.
Thu, Apr 25, 1:00 PM
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