The world’s largest all-female motorsport competition draws women from across the globe to the western Sahara desert. Welcome to the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc

Over the course of an average year, the Sahara desert plays host to a wide variety of automotive sporting events, but none like the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc.

The off-road rallies typically held in this vast, desolate automotive playground utilize modern GPS and mapping technology, last only a couple of days and predominantly, if not entirely, consist of male competitors. Every year during the last week of March, however, 330 adventurous women from nearly every corner of the planet gather in Morocco for one full week of competition designed by women, for women.

For the rally’s competitors, referred to as ‘Gazelles,’ points are deducted for requesting mechanical assistance or diverging from the most direct route between checkpoints, meaning they are penalized for sidestepping any of the obstacles the desert throws their way.

Those who have never been to the Sahara might imagine a relatively consistent landscape – endless miles of flat, sandy terrain – but in the desert’s northwestern edge the scenery can change dramatically from one mile to the next.

From behind the wheel of an off-road vehicle drivers will witness the diversity of the terrain in rapid succession, the rocky ground below their tires switching from slippery sand to bumpy pebbles to jagged rocks to towering mountains and back again with little indication of what challenge lies around the next bend. One moment they’re driving through herds of wild camel grazing in the flat grasslands, the next they’re climbing wave after wave of tsunami-sized sand dunes that give little traction even to tires built specially for desert driving.

“I wanted to make an intelligent rally, rather than an adrenaline rally; something that went beyond just putting your foot on the accelerator and advancing along in a straight line,” said the event’s founder, Dominique Serra, speaking through a French translator in her mobile office one evening midway through the competition. “I had to come up with a concept that would prevent people from driving fast.”

Serra first conceived of the rally, now in its 28th year, as a member of France’s largest employer association, MEDEF. “Women were not being represented in the automotive industry, and I was asked to find a way to empower these women,” she explained.

The first Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles was held in 1990, and consisted of nine French teams of two. In its 2018 iteration the rally welcomed 165 teams from 16 countries in four different vehicle classes, with a majority competing in the 4x4/truck category. In addition, nine teams competed this year in dune buggies, five teams raced each other in crossovers and five more drove fully electric cars through a modified course that allowed for sufficient charging time between legs.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest This year’s Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles welcomed 165 all-female teams from 16 countries in four different vehicle classes. Photograph: Maienga

The world’s most responsible rally

Even with a modified course those driving electric vehicles had to overcome the significant challenges associated with traversing off road terrain in vehicles designed primarily for urban driving, but Serra says their incorporation last year was a natural next step for what she labels a “responsible rally.”

In 2010, the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles became the first automotive competition to obtain the international environmental certification in accordance with the ISO 14001 (2004) standard, and those painstaking efforts are plainly visible at the ‘bivouac’ or base camp where competitors mingle, eat and set up camp each night.

All garbage produced there is either recycled or incinerated, with food waste donated to local farmers as animal feed and plastic water bottles converted into building material in local villages.

“They take the empty water bottles and fill them with sand to use as building blocks,” said Serra. “All of the C02 emissions are offset. Even the mechanic’s area, which is a potential source of pollution, every measure is taken so that not a drop of oil hits the ground.”

The medical teams that support the rally also provide free consultations and assistance to villagers in this remote region of Morocco, many of who have no other access to health services of any kind. The organization is also involved in local initiatives that help build schools, daycare services, provide job training to women, donate wheelchairs and glasses and much more.

As a direct result of these efforts the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles is the only event of its kind to bear the Moroccan royal coat of arms, which can be found on the left shoulder of each competitor’s uniform vest.

“There are a huge number of motor sports that go on in Morocco – this is the world’s playground for off road races – but this is the only one that has that level of respect from the host country,” said Serra, who was awarded the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, the country’s equivalent to America’s Legion of Merit or France’s Legion of Honour, by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI in 2013. “He follows the rally every year, and he appreciates the efforts we’ve made for Morocco.”

A rally to the starting line

While the event officially kicked off with an inspection and opening ceremony celebration in Nice, France, on 16 March, competitors have been preparing themselves and their cars for months.

“The first part of the job, which is the biggest one, is to find sponsors,” French racer Julie Kohlman said. “You meet people, you talk to them about the event, you try to get money to register for the event, so that’s the first part.”

While the event is primarily comprised of amateur drivers Kohlmann explains that they need to think and act like professionals in order to raise the nearly €15,000 (approximately $18,000) entry fee on top of the significant investments that needs to be put into their vehicles.

“You need to have a good car, you need to prepare the car, and you need to know exactly what you want to do with the car,” she said, adding that each team is really comprised of three competitors, “the third being the car”.

The view from mission control

While the competitors are left to old-school navigation techniques behind the scenes a complex machine is plotting and tracking their every move.

“From here we can know the position of each Gazelle team on the terrain, and we receive their position on a radar screen, like the ones used in aviation traffic control,” said Serge Barbieux, the rally’s assistant sport director, sitting behind a radar screen inside a trailer at basecamp. “A system installed in each of the cars, called Aerotrack, sends us the position of the car every five minutes.”

While the onboard GPS system doesn’t reveal any information to the Gazelles about their position, it can be used to call for mechanical or medical assistance if needed. Barbieux explains that there’s only one situation when the system is used to communicate with drivers unprompted. “If we see a car getting close to the Algerian border we phone them through the Aerotrack satellite box and we tell them just to check their navigation again,” he said.

An air traffic controller in Lyon, France, the rest of the year, Barbieux sees a lot of similarities between his day job and his work at the rally. “It’s very similar to watch vehicles moving on a radar screen, taking care of them like I do with aircrafts, just without being able to help them,” he said.

Barbieux also assists in testing the course before the competitors arrive, and helps conduct the day and a half long navigation training program that each Gazelle must complete in order to participate. “I train them before they come, but when I’m here I’m just on mute,” he said.

When designing the course Barbieux explains that organizers need to set up multiple checkpoints and plot multiple paths for each of the six legs of the competition, which includes two marathon legs that span two days each.

The variation in routes ensures that competitors are not unable to follow tracks or other cars to the next checkpoint, nor can they practice their designated route in advance. In fact, competitors are only provided the coordinates of their checkpoints at the daily 5am roll call.

“A leg is around 50 to 180 kilometers, and these marathon legs are 290 kilometers as the crow flies, but the best [performances] will be around 320 kilometers,” he explained.

While speed and timing is not a factor in the scoring checkpoints close at 7pm each day, providing some level of urgency to an otherwise unhurried competition.

“It’s hard slowing down, because we’re used to speeding up,” said Keanna Erickson-Chang, a 23-year-old American professional rally competitor who is more accustomed to racing the clock. Though speed is less of a factor Erickson-Chang says it does provide an advantage. “We still want to keep our time up because as the sun gets higher the sand gets looser,” she explained, while releasing air from her tires to help increase traction in preparation for the slippery patch of sand dunes that sit between her and the next checkpoint.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest “You need to have a good car, you need to prepare the car, and you need to know exactly what you want to do with the car,” Julie Kohlman says, adding that each team is really comprised of three competitors, “the third being the car”. Photograph: Maienga

The all-female event welcomes men for the first time

Since its inception Serra says there has been interest from men wanting to compete in a compass-and-map style rally, and this past November they finally got that opportunity when first annual Gazelles and Men rally welcomed mixed-gender and all male teams for the first time.

“It’s exactly like the Gazelles, and you have a lot of former Gazelles that want to compete with their husbands,” said former competitor and current Gazelle and Men project manager, Maud Garnier. “It’s very funny because we were thinking wow, woman and husband in the same car, it will be very difficult, maybe we should have a ‘divorce’ button on the dashboard.”

All jokes aside Garnier says the event was a success, and she’s proud to report that no divorce filings directly resulted. “It’s the first time a women’s rally has served as an example to a men’s event; usually it’s the other way around,” adds Serra.

Towards an all-electric future

While there is a designated E-Gazelles category with five competitors the rally actually included six electric vehicles this year. Car number 313 competed in the crossover section, and the vehicle – a modified Renault Zoe, Europe’s most popular electric vehicle – was piloted by two of the car manufacturer’s engineers.

“We wanted to show that Zoe can do more than the electric cars, so we are with the crossovers [category], and we’re currently first,” said Carine Poisson, a power train control engineer for Renault.

Team 313 ultimately placed second amongst the five crossover competitors. The team was followed throughout the competition by a support truck carrying emergency batteries, but the team would have been penalized for charging the vehicle more than once per day. As a result Poisson says she and her teammate had to consider not only the most direct path between checkpoints, but also the most battery conserving. “We’re not thinking in kilometers, we’re thinking in kilowatts,” she said.

Car 313 was an ambitious experiment for Renault as well as for Serra, who hopes to host a rally that is 30% comprised of electric vehicles during its 30th anniversary in two years. “The direction the rally is going is becoming increasingly environmentally friendly, so that’s the focus right now,” she said.

Serra hopes to see the event become entirely electric one day, adding another point to the laundry list of reasons why the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles is unlike anything else in the sport.