London-Tashkent: 2 Geographers, One Iffy Car, and Miles of Teeth-Rattling Roads

Read about David Fyfe's latest adventures in a Chronicle of Higher Education story:

It was the car that most concerned David A. Fyfe.

The assistant professor of geography at York College of Pennsylvania had purchased the dilapidated Toyota Celica a few weeks earlier for only $150, sight unseen. In a few short days he and his onetime mentor, Tracy H. Allen, an associate professor of geography at the State University of New York College at Oneonta, would fly to London, kick the tires on their "banger," and drive it onto a ferry to cross the English Channel as one of 20 teams participating in the 2010 London-Tashkent Rally, a 5,000-mile drive across Europe and Central Asia.