Day 18 - Idaho Falls to Elko Nevada - 655kms

Having gone to bed feeling full of anticipation of the comings days and how we would fair against Phil and Kieron in the Lead car, I woke to find that they were now in trouble and unable to leave at the start today almost certainly letting us take the lead! Not the way we would have wanted it to be at all - healthy competition is great but not when you are let down by your car, (Feeling deflated), and very sorry for the boys.

We all signed out in our normal order this morning but as we travelled onwards the boys stayed behind to try and get there car fixed so at least they could finish the rally and hopefully join us at some stage today.

Leaving Idaho Falls we travel past a few miles of decent farm land before heading on to a long straight road cutting through very poor quality flat scrub land with distant bare mountains, I imagine, a little reminiscent of a moon landscape. The fact we are heading toward a place called Creaters of the Moon Monument might have something to do with it!

By 8am the sun was already heating up and showed all the signs of being a very hot day.

After about 100kms of driving through very flat terrain we came to the town of Alco and a place called craters of the moon - a sea of fossilised lava rock with no sign of where the eruption could have started  1000's of years ago

Talk about big country, we have travelled through mile upon mile of wide open space with only a hand full of properties dotted along the way - large heard's of grazing cattle and acres of fresh cut and bailed hay lined our route today

Dropping down into the town of Mountain Home, a good size town in the middle of nowhere and with all the mod cones you could want! The heat now was a stifling 30 degrees, we stopped off for fuel here and found our selves being filmed by the film crew that have attached themselves to the rally over the past couple of days, they have spent most of that time following the Aston Martin of Tina and Alan Beardshaw - so you can imagine the ribbing they have been receiving.

Snake River & Dam - an oasis of green in the middle of this very dry and otherwise baron land scape, the first sign of trees we have had all day.

Dropping down to Duck Vally and a fuel and go site where we spent the next 90 mins,awaiting our out time,on a scorching hot forecourt having a picnic lunch purchased from the adjacent super market - boy we know how to live!

Onto today's rally stage 16kms up a mountain pass - 4 timing spots today ERA are squeezing us now!

We did a good run, but due to the incline should have carried a little more in hand - coming in at 1/1/2/2 slow at each stop.

We have heard reports that the boys are fixed and back on the road but as of the last check point they are already carrying a 1 hour penalty from missing two time sections. It would be great if they got to the Regularity so we could at least have a bit of a competition with those sections alone.

After the regularity we still had another 109 kms on straight roads until we arrived in Elko, and our hotel for the night.

Arriving at the hotel it soon became apparent that we were in a casino hotel so the dollar signs started spinning in my head and I needed to have a bit of a play at the tables - where's my brother Shane at a time like this!!!!

We had a nice supper with friends and then I had to have a few hand before bed to get myself in the swing before Reno tomorrow and a day off from the rally.

The boys have now arrived in Elko and yes we have now officially taken the lead from them! I'm feeling rather sad that it's turned out this way but I guess that's what happens at times during rallies! We still have a few days left and as we all know anything can happen so we need to keep our heads down and not make any mistakes.