OKO tire sealant – equipped team wins through to the finish
So after 36 days and nights of deprivation and appalling road and off road conditions, the intrepid band known as Yak to the Future successfully completed their mission – to drive an elderly, very pink Nissan Micra from London to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia as part of the 2014 Mongol Rally. With OKO in their tyres…
Behind them lay 9,833 miles, through 19 countries. They had finished 92nd, well in the first half of those who started – but for them it was about the experience rather than any desire to win. Four London ex-students with little technical expertise had completed an epic journey for charity. The picture shows them fitting the Off Road OKO that they used for the latter, roughest stages.
Interestingly, the last Off Road OKO bottle that they had been supplied with for the Asian conditions became invaluable. Having had a heavily buckled wheel and bald tyre replaced (without OKO – there is obviously a need for us to do some education on the Central Asian garages), they had a flat and they used OKO Off Road successfully as a repair. On they went.
Then in the remaining wastes of Mongolia in the last few days they encountered some even more terrible potholes which laid waste to their wheels so that they were far from round. There are limits to what OKO can do… And interestingly, three punctures ensued in their OKO-less refitted wheels/tyres. Up to Mongolia, they had been, as our brand has it, ‘OKO Puncture Free’.
You can read their entertaining blog which details the many travails including two crashes and 16 breakdowns, many following a near-underwater fording of a river that led to untold engine and fuel tank problems. They did still finish under their own steam (or petrol), though, more credit to them.
Sadly, whereas finishers of the Mongol Rally once sold off their steeds on arrival to help local causes, there has been some resistance (possibly from local car dealers) and now entrants all have to pay for a train to cart them all off for scrap. So ‘Coral’ the Micra, by the time you read this, is no more. But the lads have made it safely home. Great work.