Utterly Baatarly registration now open!

That’s right, you read it correctly - you can now register your place on the Craic Addicts 2009 Utterly Baatarly rally.

Just visit the entry info page, and you can complete your registration there.

The 2009 Utterly Baatarly rally will be launching on 25th July, from Leeds.

More details will be available in the next week or 2 when we launch the new website for the rally - www.utterlybaatarly.com

Merry Xmas, Competition winner announced!

Firstly, rumour has it that today is in fact Christmas day, so here at Craic Addicts HQ we’d like to wish a very merry Xmas to everybody.

So, some of you may remember we had a little competition (a competitionette, if you like) to name our rally that runs between Leeds, UK and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The competition closed on 23rd December, and we picked the winner yesterday.

I won’t lie and say we were flooded with entries. We had a number though, of varying degrees of humour, intellect and well… crapness.

We’re really pleased with the winning entry though, it makes me smile every time I think about it.

So, without further ado, the name of our new rally is….

Utterly Baatarly!

The entry was submitted by David Jones, who wins a free team entry on the 2009 Utterly Baatarly rally.

A big thank you to everybody that submitted entries - better luck next time!

Just a quick reminder, registration for Utterly Baatarly opens TOMORROW, price per team is £450

See us at The Adventure Travel Show

It’s update time again!

We’re pleased to announce that you’ll all be able to see us at The Adventure Travel Show in London’s Olympia between 20 - 22 March 2009.

Read more

Leeds to Mongolia Rally 2009: More info!

Since we announced the Leeds to Mongolia rally a few weeks ago, we’ve had a steady stream of emails from interested parties and quite a few questions have cropped up time and again, so we thought that we’d answer the more common ones here for all that are interested in the Craic Addicts 2009 rally.

FAQS:

Q: What kind of vehicle can I take?

A: There are no restrictions on the type of vehicle that you can take. Whatever floats your boat, however, we’d recommend a smaller engined, cheaper vehicle than a larger engined, expensive vehicle for several reasons :

- fuel isn’t cheap these days, a larger engined vehicle will consume more fuel and as a result require fuelling more often. On certain possible routes fuel depots can be quite far apart, so the distance you can travel on a single tank of fuel could become very important.

- older vehicles are plentiful and cheap, and spares for most older vehicles are readily available (and cheap). Completing the trip in an old Skoda Favorit will certainly be more rewarding than doing it in the comfort of an air-conditioned BMW X5 (did we mention that it would also be cheaper?)!

- carnets (although not currently required for most routes) are based on the value of the vehicle - a more expensive vehicle means a more expensive carnet.

- an expensive vehicle is harder to sell, and limits your options as to what you can do with it at the end of the rally.

Of course, as we’ve already stated, there are no limitations, so if you want to bring a London bus, then feel free - this is YOUR adventure, after all!

Q: Is this a charity event? Do I have to raise a minimum amount for charity?

A: No. Although there is a charitable donation built into the £450 entry fee, this is not officially a charity event. If you wish to raise money for your chosen charity then we will do everything we can to assist you, but this is by no means mandatory.

Q: Are there any rules?

A: No, there are no specific rules, no vehicle restrictions, no minimal charity donation and no fixed route - It’s YOUR adventure, YOUR way.

Q: What happens to the vehicle at the end of the rally?

A: That’s entirely up to you. You have several options :

- turn around and drive it right back home again.

- keep going till you arrive back at where you started.

- ship it back home via air/sea freight.

- sell it locally - subject to conditions of carnet (if applicable).

- give it away or let us dispose of it and the profits will go to our nominated charity.

Obviously, if you take a cheaper car it will be easier to sell (or not so much of a wallet buster if you give it away or it dies en-route).

Q: What is the route? Why Leeds?

A: There is no set route, as this is an unsupported rally, you are free to choose whatever route you wish. We chose Leeds not only because it is twinned with Ulan Bataar, but also because there are several ferry ports within quite close proximity, so you’re not limited to taking the Dover/Calais crossing. We’d recommend - for the more adventurous - that you try the route that will take you from Newcastle to Stavenger, across Norway into Sweden, then Finland and then Russia. Just be sure to wrap up warm

Q: I don’t live in UK but would like to take part in the rally, can you help?

A: Yes, we will be offering a service to our foreign participants whereby we will acquire and prepare suitable vehicles for them, and hand over the ownership documents and keys upon the participants arrival in UK. The ownership documents will be sent to UK DVLA showing the vehicle permanently exported from UK - you will not be able to bring the vehicle back to UK without reregistering it with UK DVLA. Please note that this service looks like it will be extremely popular and as a result we may have to limit the availability of these vehicles on a first-come-first-served basis.

Registration for the rally opens on December 26th 2008, the entrance fee is £450 per team, but you can still grab yourself a free entry by entering our competition to name the rally. Just send your suggestion to competitions <at> t2rally.com before 24th December 2008, we’re drawing the winner on December 25th 2008. We’ve had quite a few entries so far, some names (”Mongolian Madness” / “Mongolian Mayhem”) have proved immensley popular. Should we end up choosing a name that was entered by more than one entrant the person who submitted the first entry bearing that name will be judged the winner. Currently our favourite is “Bangers to (Ulan) Batar”, but we’re sure you can come up with something better.

That’s all for now, more exciting news at the end of the week (really!).

T2 Rally in 2009

Howdy,

Time for another timely update.

This update brings both good and bad news. Let’’s start with the bad news.

There is not going to be a T2 Rally in 2009. There are several reasons for this, the main reason being the current conflict that is happening in Mauritania. We feel that it would be irresponsible of us to expect people to enter a conflict zone. Safety always has, and will always be our primary concern. At least one of the team here will be doing a reccy run for the 2010 T2 Rally in January next year. After that, we’ll have another update for you regarding the 2010 T2 Rally.

Now for the good news.

THERE WILL BE A CRAIC ADDICTS RALLY IN 2009.

The 2009 rally will start mid July and run from Leeds (UK) to Ulan Bator (Mongolia). “Why Leeds?”, we hear you cry. Well, as we all know, Leeds is twinned with Ulan Bator (really) and if you grab a map, can you see all those lovely ferry ports in close proximity? We figured it was far more interesting if participants had the option of grabbing ferries to Norway, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands etc. Why settle for Dover to Calais?

We haven’t yet thought of a suitably witty name for this rally, so… we thought we’d have a competition. The prize is a free team entry onto the 2009 rally. All you have to do is come up with a suitably witty or clever name for the rally.  You can enter as many times as you like (please, with different rally names each time!) - send your entries to : competitions <at> t2rally.com. Suggestions must be with us by 24th December 2008. The winning entry will be picked on 25th December 2008, and the winner will be notified by email.

Registration for the 2009 rally will open on 26th December 2009. Entry fee (per team) will be £450.

More news soon - expect another update shortly

What are we doing?

Hey sports fans,

I’m now back from Australia, and I can tell you that over the next few weeks we have a series of pretty interesting news items to wow you with.

Right now I’m working on the new T2 website, which will be ready by the end of the year. Greg is busy working on the jeep and also a few project vehicles that you’ll see soon enough.

We’ve got some exciting news about next years rally and we’ve also got some news about what shows and events we’ll be attending next year, and also something a little crazy for next Spring. All of that is for another day though.

In the meantime, hang tight - more exciting stuff is in the pipeline

Off to Oz!

Hey people, just because we’re back from the T2 Rally, doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting around doing nothing!

If you take a look at the Entry Info page, you’ll now see that we’re preparing to accept entrants for next years T2 Rally. If you’re interested in grabbing a place, then leave your email address and we’ll keep you updated!

We’ve also been busying ourselves planning a few more adventures, making various contacts and generally expanding our empire. We’re all pretty excited about some of the stuff we’ve got planned.

I’m off to Australia tomorrow to take part in the Postie Bike Challenge. It starts early Sunday morning, so I’ll once again be switching on my tracker then, and you can see my progress via the LIVE TRACKING link.

Catch you all when I get back, in the meantime - take care and have fun

Track our progress - LIVE!

That’s right - using the wonder that is modern technology, you can actually track where we are, LIVE. We’ll be carrying with us a satellite tracker, which updates every 10 minutes. Using the ‘LIVE TRACKING‘ link above (or by clicking on the image at the top of this article), you’ll be able to see exactly where we or (or rather, were - 10 minutes ago).

Make sure you check regularly so that you can see the exact route we’re taking - we’ll be switching it on at Faugheen on Sunday, just as we begin the rally

The Launch - Faugheen, Tipperary - 13th July 2008

The official launch of this years T2 Rally, Tipperary to Timbuktu return, (via Hay-On-Wye in the UK cos it’s twinned with Timbuktu and we want to compare them!) is a go.

Slate Quarries Vintage Club, Carrick-On-Suir Motor Club and a host of local bike clubs in Tipperary are assisting our launch of this beast of a rally. We gather in Delaneys Bar near Faugheen on Saturday the 12th of July for a meet and greet with the clubs and to have time to take photos and talk to anyone who would like to know anything about the how, where, when and why that is the T2 Rally. No doubt this will result in some form of hoolie by the end of the night, and all are welcome.

We depart this fair and soggy Isle on Sunday the 13th at approx 2pm. The clubs and locals are giving us a convoy of cars, bikes and every other available contraption (we like your style!) to the Port of Rosslare. Here we’ll charge aboard the first capable looking boat bound for the UK and onwards to destiny! Read more

Special announcement!

Here at the Craic House we’ve just come out of a meeting of the five families, and have decided that it’s time we dropped one of our massive craic bombs.

The T2 Rally we know you’re already loving, it’s great isn’t it? but how could it be MORE great?

Well, you see… we haven’t told you the whole story. We’ve been holding out. We’re teases, and damn proud of it. It’s about time that we made a special announcement! Read more

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