They would do it again, even after slippery mountain passes in Hungary and "gravel" roads in Turkey with boulders the size of rugby balls.
Joe McAndrew and Murray Cole are back home in Wellington after winning the Midnight Sun to Red Sea motor rally, a 20-day, 8000km marathon from the north
of Sweden to Aqaba in Jordan.
They led the event from start to finish in a Honda Integra Type R that McAndrew and his team rebuilt and prepared in Wellington.
Each day had two or three speed stages, then long touring stages, and on some days they covered almost 700km.
"We had to keep going every day, make no mistakes and not get lost," McAndrew said.
"Each city was huge. Murray did a fantastic job finding our way," he said of his co-driver, a newcomer to motorsport.
They spun at 160kmh on a wet Hungarian mountain road, bad petrol taken on in Syria blocked the fuel filter, and the sump guard finished the rally with "some really heavy gouges" but the only item to fail was a relay in the fuel pump.
The triple national champion said his service crew, including Craig Martin and Paul Maguire, long-time members of his team, "did a great job of looking after the car - and keeping secret from me anything that was a slight problem".
Besides the long days and hard driving, they'll remember the welcomes the rally contingent got from people along the way, particularly in eastern Europe and the Middle East.
In a mountain village in Turkey, "there were thousands of people, all so friendly, and everyone wanted to come up and shake your hand".
Cole: "We had a fantastic welcome to Syria - a band at the border, and policemen standing to attention for 100km."
Both men said they were keen to do another marathon rally.
- NZPA
