Dakar anyone?

[former kp'er]

Just a reminder, the Dakar Rally is going on right now. I completely forgot about it so its about 8 days into the race already. OLN has all the coverage as usual. For those of you that aren't familar with it check it out:

http://www.dakar.com/2006/DAK/LIVE/us/800/index.html

It has to be one of the sweetest races/events around. The terrain is so amazing, I can't imagine going through at such high speeds!

[The CyberPoet]

Been there, but ain't done that.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[harrye]

574 competitors racing across Northern Africa over a two week or so period. Its a unique adventure alright. I enjoyed the rally when the Speed Channel covered it. I don't/can't get OLN with DISH.

I notice that the largest bikes seem to be 660's. A couple years ago they ran 900cc bikes, and they were very hard for the smaller statured European riders to pick up in the sand when they fell. There's an American team running a V-Rod Harley, and a few BMW's which may be larger bikes as well.

I liked when they ran two-wheel drive Yamaha 450's. Don't know if they stayed with the experimental design.

Carlos Sainz is driving for Volkswagen and doing well.

[harrye]

Been there, but ain't done that.

Dakar would seem to be one of motorsport's greatest adventures. At least two Katriders would certainly like to read more about it from someone who's been there.

[sexwax]

or videos

[The CyberPoet]

Dakar would seem to be one of motorsport's greatest adventures. At least two Katriders would certainly like to read more about it from someone who's been there.

Back in the mid 1980's, I drove a few years of Euro-Rally, and was even thinking about possibly making a run at the (then) Dakar Rally -- on four wheels. The main sponsorship deal that was keeping me in the Euro-Rally was talking about partially backing the attempt, and I had picked up some additional contingency sponsors as well (not enough, but I was getting there). It didn't help that I was still an US Army soldier at the time -- so time constraints on my leave time availability (I had the time, but would they give it to me?) and travel restraints imposed by my local commanding officer would play into how it all played out. I was planning on doing the '89 rally, expecting to be a civilian by then (taking the rest of my leave at the end of my enlistment and getting out about 100 days early), plus using my German citizenship for my travel papers instead of my American ones (to effectively escape any travel restrictions and reduce the possibilities of violence -- Americans weren't loved in much of the desert areas of Northern Africa at the time, and I doubt they are particularly now either). The upside to the Dakar is that it was primarily populated by amateurs, and was open to that (as verses to something like F1 or MotoGP, where you have to work your way up to get into it); these days they use a judging panel to reduce the number of contestants -- back then almost everyone could run. The '88 rally would be my guide and learning experience, as I took in what I could expect to find.

The '88 Paris-Algers-Dakar was a run through the western Sahara (the route varies by year; IMHO in bad years it runs East towards Egypt rather than West into Dakar), with stages for places that I doubt any of you have ever heard of once the route hit the Algerian coast. I expected heat & sand. Every type known to man. I didn't expect the rest of what I encountered when scouting the route. The European side of the run was to be picture perfect in my mind, running in stages south from Paris into Spain, and covering roads, dirt-roads, cobblestone, farm paths and some grassy fields; generally compacted surfaces on which you could get good traction at speed (some snow, lots of dust as you get further south). In between the stages were untimed liaison stages where you mixed with regular traffic

The African side of the equation goes crazy... Rather than try to explain 500 different types of surfaces and hazards, I dug up some pics on the web which I can use to illustrate the concepts really well:

This a part of the Mauriania desert, which the rally was to head through. The sand in the distance is utterly soft, super-fine grain sand; it's a PIA to get any traction, and it gets into everything (bearings, filters, the car, etc). The stuff in the foreground is the real dangerous stuff -- see the rocks? Doing 80 mph+ at night, you don't tend to see the patches of this until you run into it -- which is part of why so many contenders tend to get way-laid (far more than simply by the sand itself). Throw in a sand-storm or three for added emphasis on lack of visibility. I never understood how the guys on 2 wheels did it...

Another part of the same desert. Here we have rocks, scrub, hard pack sand and soft-pack slammed altogether. At even a moderate speed, try to tell the difference between the rocks (which are big no-no's if avoidable at all) and the scrub (which usually gives the best traction because it holds the stuff under it together with it's root system).

Not so friendly natives can also mar the events... More rocks, too. The final stage through this desert was cancelled for the '88 rally, in part because the DAF truck team (who was beating every car in the race that year -- those guys were seriously kicking butt -- wrecked and killed the whole team), several motorcylists dying, plus really high winds through most of the week that were kicking up severe sandstorms.
You can find a bunch more pics of what variations the desert brings here:
http://www.marches-lointaines.com/ma...ritanie-e.htm#

Anyway, back to the gruel. Because of my time constraints, I only got to see parts of the route, and because of the disjointed nature of the runs, I only got to see tiny bits of the actual race itself (because this isn't a spectator-lined path that can be easily watched). The '88 was said to be (at least at the time by those who had run the Dakar before) the hardest Dakar rally to date, with many drivers complaining the stages were too difficult, the terrain too impassable, and constant comments about stages finishing well after dark when they were often done by 1 or 2 in the afternoon in previous years. The organizers got slammed badly by the press and the teams for these factors, and it prompted the later changes in how people enter (it's tougher to get in now) and the route it runs.

I went back to Europe, and a combination of events kept me from ever returning, including the loss of my primary sponsorship (the company stopped being massively profitable so sponsorship money dried up), the loss of my co-pilot/navigator (who went back stateside; I couldn't win without him and find/training a replacement of such high caliber is neigh-on-impossible), and aging/failing equipment. I gave up rally altogether about then, too, so it signalled an end of an era for me.

Postscript: Almost anyone who thinks they are tough enough for the Dakar on 2 wheels is probably fooling themselves, especially the route it ran back then with the equipment that was available at the time. I was Army-fit-hard then, and there is no way I could have done it; I could barely conceive of sucessfully completing it on four wheels... imagine an event where finishing at all is enough of a victory to carry you the rest of your life. I also hated the Mitsubishi Montero boys, who did the race with the windows up and the A/C on -- a first... These days a lot of enclosed-cab vehicles seem to run that way.
There are a couple poor man's Dakar rallies out there, including the Plymouth-Banjul (http://www.plymouth-dakar.co.uk/) and the Budapest-Bamako (http://budapestbamako.org/en/) rallies.

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[harrye]

CyberPoet, thanks for the great writeup. Its good to get a first hand account of what things are like over there. I recall that in 1980 or 1981 Prince Charles took part in the Dakar Rally and was lost for a while. Also in the mid 1980's Christiana Onassis participated in the event to some extent.

The area of the U.S. where I live is far from any large cities, but we do have a national rally here each year, called the Lake Superior Rally (formerly called the Press on Regardless Rally). A couple years ago I got to see top British driver David Higgins in the paddock area for the rally. In 1984 world rally champion Hannu Mikkola did a one time drive over here as a substitute for an injured regular U.S. Audi driver. Rallying has its fans in this country.

Rally Monte Carlo is coming up in just a couple weeks, I think. The Speed Channel does a great job covering each of the world rally events.