Sara Price, Erica Sacks officially are ‘Gazelles’

Sara Price and Erica Sacks competed in Morocco's Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles from March 25 through April 4.  The grueling all-women's off-road race, below, tested the Canyon Lake girls to their limits, but they completed the event in their Kawasaki Teryx vehicle to earn the title of "Gazelles." Read more about their real-time experiences on the Teryx Girls Facebook page. Photo by Nicole Dreon

Sara Price and Erica Sacks competed in Morocco’s Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles from March 25 through April 4. The grueling all-women’s off-road race, below, tested the Canyon Lake girls to their limits, but they completed the event in their Kawasaki Teryx vehicle to earn the title of “Gazelles.” Read more about their real-time experiences on the Teryx Girls Facebook page. Photo by Nicole Dreon

Teryx Girls Sara Price and Erica Sacks captured the imagination of Canyon Lake adventurers when they set out last March to race in the 2015 Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles, a grueling all-women’s race set in the Sahara Desert of Morocco. Since returning home, they have been busy with special appearances for Kawasaki to talk about their adventures, along with Erica returning to school and Sara getting back to racing.

This week, Sara announced that she has been invited to join the Scion Action Sports Team to race its Scion Escondido Action Sports FRS in Time Attack events. She is looking forward to her first race event, Redline Time Attack, over the weekend of July 4 and 5 at the Willow Springs International Motorsports Park.

But the Canyon Lakers are still excited to talk about their adventures in Northern Africa, taking the time to answer a few questions for The Friday Flyer. As co-pilots for Team Kawasaki IMG Motorsports, they were the first U.S. team to compete in the Motorbike/SSV category of the annual Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles. They drove the four-wheel Kawasaki Teryx in the 25th anniversary of the event, which took place March 25 through April 4.

The Teryx Girls ended up the race 7th overall in their class and 1st overall among rookie participants. Photo by Nicole Dreon

The Teryx Girls ended up the race 7th overall in their class and 1st overall among rookie participants. Photo by Nicole Dreon

Created in 1990, this multi-day off-road rally brings together women between the ages of 18 and 65 from more than 30 different countries. GPS navigation is not allowed and speed is not a requirement. The point of the race is to get from Point A to Point B (several checkpoints each day) in the most direct route possible, taking into account the varied terrain of the Sahara. The women who take part are of all ages, social backgrounds, nationalities and levels of off-road experience.

While competitors must use old-fashioned maps (from the 1960s) and navigational tools to reach checkpoints in each day’s race, a satellite tracking system makes sure each team’s whereabouts is known to organizers and safety crews should the need arise to “rescue” a team from difficult circumstances – a feature that proved vital to the Teryx girls during their first two days of the rally.

Sara was the driver and Erica was the navigator. A video at espn.com shows Erica demonstrating the tools she used to plot each day’s course. These involved a stack of terrain maps, a paper that provided the distance and heading from latitude and longitude of each checkpoint, a ruler with centimeters representing kilometers, a navigation chart plotter, another special ruler and a compass.

The first challenge the Teryx Girls faced was the late delivery of their Teryx due to a blizzard in the French Alps. This caused them to miss the “prologue” of the event, which would have acquainted them with some navigational information.

According to an article at kawasaki.com, “The missed seat time proved costly during the first leg of the event as the Teryx Girls went to the wrong checkpoint right off of the start and were behind the eight ball after missing a critical fuel checkpoint. They ended up running out of fuel before they could return to camp and were forced to spend the night in the desert, finally returning at 3:30 a.m. before heading back out for the second leg at 6 a.m.”

Here is what Sara had to say about that experience:

“While we were sleeping in our Kawasaki Teryx seats, we were poked by two locals, waking us up. It definitely scared us. In the end they were very nice people and even offered to make us a fire. We were in the middle of nowhere and didn’t expect to see anyone, so it was a big surprise. We didn’t get any sleep that night since help didn’t arrive until 3 a.m. to give us gas. We got back (to camp) for the wake-up call at 4 a.m.”

On the second night, Sara says they were “racing the sun” and eager to reach their final checkpoint before dark. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize they were gaining elevation and found themselves dangerously at the edge of a cliff, with the checkpoint hundreds of feet below them.

Once again they would have to spend the night in the desert. They were without a tent and Sara’s sleeping bag had fallen out of the car. It was cold, so she had to wrap herself in two emergency blankets.

“The second night on the cliff was our breaking point,” says Sara. “We didn’t know why we decided to do this rally and it just was such a helpless feeling!” Thankfully, a crew arrived at the girls’ location at 1 a.m., bringing sleeping bags and a tent. They were encouraged to sleep until 6 a.m. since they hadn’t slept for two days.

The following morning, the ladies had to take a circuitous 80-mile detour to make it back to camp, four hours after the official start of the leg.

Sara says that, “without skipping a beat,” they grabbed a bite to eat while Erica started charting their course and Sara got gas and took care of some minor mechanical issues. It was “dune day.”

“We knew we would do well in dunes since we are familiar with and grew up locally in the dunes. On dune day, you have the option of choosing the difficulty in your checkpoints and we chose the hardest ones: the X checkpoints. Off we went after such a hard night, going into the dunes and hitting our first three checkpoints. It was refreshing, and we realized once again why we decided to do this rally. We felt relief and on top of the world once again!”

Sara adds, “When we reached Checkpoint 3 that day, we caught up to the other U.S. teams. Our fellow Americans just stopped what they were doing and ran up to us since they hadn’t seen us in two days and were worried. Boy, it was one emotional moment.”

Sara and Erica finished dune day in record time, even having time to shower and catch up on some much needed sleep. “That was only the first three days!” says Sara. Subsequent days went fairly well – until the sun rose on the final leg of the race.

The article as kawasaki.com describes that final leg by saying, “After struggling to find the third checkpoint on the leg, the girls also ran into a mechanical problem as the drive belt on the Teryx shredded, forcing them to make a decision. They could call for assistance and be disqualified or they could replace the belt and finish the event. Never ones to back away from a challenge, Price and Sacks changed the belt and were able to drive back to camp and earn their well-deserved title of Gazelle.”

The Teryx Girls ended up the race 7th overall in their class and 1st overall among rookie participants. Along with the other Gazelles, Sara and Erica celebrated their successful first rally at a black tie gala in Essaouira, Morocco.

As for experiencing the culture of Morocco, Sara says she’s pretty sure they got to see most of the country by the time they had raced through the desert, as well as getting to visit local sites with the help of their “Riah” manager and different cities with the help of their “transporter.”

“We felt like Moroccans by the time we had to go home,” after experiencing the language and culture and food. “We even had an experience in their spa, which is called a hummum! The people are amazing over there – so helpful and kind!”

Sara says the Teryx Girls are planning to go back to Morocco next year, thanks to Kawasaki and the support they received this year from the community. “We couldn’t have done it without you!” she says.




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