Madness, Manifested

Imagine squeezing yourself into a washing machine. Now imagine tumbling around in that washing machine with dirt instead of water. For eight days straight. All you see is dirt. All you breathe is dirt. Your whole world is nothing but a hurricane of dirt. Now imagine that washing machine has a steering wheel and wheels, and you’re driving it at ungodly speeds down paths meant for goats not cars. THAT should give you an idea of what it’s like to race in the East Africa Rally. Considered the most treacherous offroad race in the world, it’s more a punishment Satan would devise for his Ninth Circle of Hell, than something two crazy Kenyans, Eric Cecil and Neil Vincent, dreamt up on a lark.

Of course it’s madness manifested. But for Eric and Neil - and for all the crazy ones who followed in their contrails of hubris and hurt - that’s the whole point. Why die at home washing the dishes when you could go out and get mauled by a lion? Or be stomped on by an elephant? Or drown in a quagmire of hippos? Or, better yet, wrap your race car around a giant baobab? 

Better to fly to the sun on scorched wings than never to have flown at all. That’s what Icarus believed. And that’s exactly what every racer who enters the East Africa Rally believes, too - including Edgar Hermann and his co-driver, Hans Schuller, who won the 1971 Rally in this classic Datsun 240Z. The car was beat to s**t, which, of course, it should be given how stupidly punishing the race was to both man and machine - 3,800 miles over 8 days, in which 107 crews started but only 32 finished. But, good god, what a glorious story is written on every dent of this wreckage of a car.

Photographed at the Nissan Heritage Museum in Japan, as part of an extensive campaign on the history of Nissan racing. Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, L.A.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver