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After a mild day yesterday Murphy struck with full force today on the winding mountain roads of Slovenia.

On a Benularity this morning our ignition cap rattled loose on stretch full of potholes. The rotor got damaged and the coil must have burnt through. After a quick diagnosis we were about to call in for help when Fer and Gerard passed by. I asked if they carried these spares and low and behold: they did! We carried the other components for the ignition and the coil, so together we could replace the required parts and we were proud of our friends and our getting the engine to fire up in one go once everything was in place.

We merrily continued our journey, drove our first test in Logatec and picked up the pace by skipping lunch.

The first benularity was a bit of a challenge and we lost some more time. On the second benularity we started off committed to make it count but after 3 kms Silverado lost a bit of traction mid turn and we ended up beached on a snow wall.

In itself this is to be expected in a event of this nature, but in this forest is known to house a colony of bears… As Joost read the roadbook section containing this worrying information, nervous laughter filled the cabin and prayers for a towing vehicle were chanted in a continuous mantra.

Although we tried to shovel ourselves out of trouble, it took a firm tug by a marshall car before we could continue. At least we escaped witout any bear induced markings and I reminded myself that next time I should mount a gun-rack and a double barrel rifle on the early 911. Bringing home a bear on the front lid must account for some bonus points.

There were many teams in trouble today and the classifications were shaken up a lot. An Austrian team in an early 911 lead the event, ahead of some big names. We however face a long uphill battle the rest of the week to make up for the misfortunes of the day! Then again, the driving is great fun and the mood remains positive. Tomorrow is another day.