Alexandra Legouix, who you may know as being the pit lane reporter on the World touring car championship coverage, and actress Hayley Marie Axe,
will this weekend fly out to take part in the 2016 Rally Marrakech Sahara.
Their entry is also being filmed as part of a series called Rise of the UK Wildcats in which a carefully selected group of females will take part in various challenges to raise money for Charities, in this case, one in the UK and one in Africa.
Alexandra and Hayley’s chosen charities are the Halow project, a charity co-founded by F1 world champion Damon Hill that supports young people with a learning disability aged 16-35 on their journey into and through adult life and The British Moroccan Society who are raising funds for a very poor area of Morocco, which is the country where the rally starts from.
Alexandra spoke about why she has decided to take on the huge challenge; “Two major things have compelled me to do this: one is my health, the other is an inspirational experience.”
She describes her own experience of seeing some of the areas that their trip will aim to help;
“I’m a journalist and two years ago I traveled to Marrakech for a project. While there, I spent a day with a roving medical caravan going to some of the poorest parts of Morocco. I witnessed a man fall to his knees in sobs as he actually saw his grandson for the first time as he received his first pair of glasses from these doctors. I watched as young children desperately, eagerly were given schooling hours and I watched lines of desperately ill, desperately sad people as they lined up and received healthcare and donated clothing.”
Her teammate, Hayley Marie Axe, was one of the wildcards from a total of 8 women chosen to participate in the wildcats out of 24 who took part in a grueling and rigorous boot camp.
On day one they found themselves in the centre of a very muddy field where they met ‘Commander’ Scott Webber. Scott tested their physical and mental stamina over the course of two days and pushed them beyond their limits to see who would crack.
On day two, twelve of the twenty four were chosen and put to the test by the Dakar Rally team ‘Race 2 Recovery’ experts in their incredible Bowler Wildcat off roaders on a tough a challenging 4×4 course. six girls and two wildcards made it through to be part of the core ‘Wildcats Women’ of which Alexandra and Hayley make up the Desert duo.
Their adventure, the “Wildcats vs Desert” episode, will be filmed “as live” as part of the Rise of the Wildcats series. Future episodes will be as follows;
Wildcats vs Mountain
Wildcats vs air
Wildcats vs Snow
Wildcats vs Water
The rally itself is a ‘Top-Gear-Special-style attack, where the two women will traverse amazing scenery, and massive cultural changes as they compete in a gruelling endurance event across the vast desert. It is an incredibly tough task where we will see the girls tackle huge sand dunes, high temperatures, a marathon leg, exhaustion car dramas, desert creatures, and the darkness of night armed with only a map and compass.
Their adventure has been funded by crowd funding on Kickstarter as well as corporate sponsors including the chief sponsor MIS Motorsport.
Alexandra can’t wait to get going but explains why her journey will be especially tough;
“I’m feeling so excited to have finally managed to get the first event underway. It has taken such a long time and I’ve been met by endless challenges but that’s all part of it.
One of my biggest hurdles has been a diagnosis of a fast degenerating disc disease which was discovered when I fell and broke my spine last year. I also have three prolapsed discs and a dislocating pelvis so really this is a stupid thing for me to be doing.”
She isn’t going to let even that stop her though;
She added: “This won’t be an easy task and I’m sure there will be stress, strife, angst and tears along the way but it will be worth it. Rally Marrakech Sahara here we come.”
As well as watching the finished documentary, you’ll also be able to hear about their adventures on GR as we’ll report on how they get on. By Marc Waller
