Dakar 2014 - Official Event Coverage - thank you all, lurkers and posters!!!

strange .....the article says the other German Jörg Majoli made it in and they interviewed him....even the Dakar site doesn't have him in yet.....:huh

Maybe he is the guy with an helmet at the beginning of the clip...

<table><tbody><tr class="alternate_color"><td>3</td><td>8</td><td>

• RUBEN FARIA (PRT)

</td><td>KTM
</td><td>withdrawal
</td></tr><tr> <td>3</td><td>190</td><td>

• HUMPREY SENN VAN BASEL (NLD)

</td><td>KTM
</td><td>withdrawal
</td></tr><tr class="alternate_color"> <td>3</td><td>47</td><td>

• PABLO QUINTANILLA (CHL)

</td><td>KTM
</td><td>withdrawal
</td></tr><tr> <td>3</td><td>12</td><td>

• FRANS VERHOEVEN (NLD)

</td><td>YAMAHA
</td><td>withdrawal
</td></tr><tr class="alternate_color"> <td>3</td><td>102</td><td>

• DAVID GREGORY REEVE (ZMB)

</td><td>KTM
</td><td>withdrawal
</td></tr><tr> <td>3</td><td>43</td><td>

• ALESSANDRO ZANOTTI (SMR)

</td><td>TM
</td><td>withdrawal
</td></tr></tbody></table>

Laia on fb


Hi friends!! First part of my mission for today and tomorrow accomplished. I'm very happy for my race and for my result and the overal position. The stage was very very difficult!! Too technical track!! Many people have suffered today. Tomorrow, more!! Goooooo!!!

Text from Robbo puled from his FB page.

"Today was the toughest day of my life!!! It's extreme." He also said "It's boiling, it's dusty, my arse is raw, coping ok I guess."

The only time assistance crews can help a racer on liaison is when the assistance route and liaison are the same.

They didn't change the rules this year just made the two route different.

Why some teams have, in recent years, been allowed to show up at the marathon camp is beyond me...they must have found a grey area in the rules or something?

Now....the big teams have "ghost" cars. Support crews that aren't registered and are not allowed in the bivouac. These ghosts can and do help factory riders....

Take for example Kevin. His support crew was not allowed to assist him. A ghost car could have come in handy, even though it would have been against the rules to receive outside assistance.

I sometimes wonder how frustrated the aso get trying to stop the big teams from bending the rules versus everyone assuming they are simply letting it happen. Likely a mix of the two

Laia rocks!

I am going through withdrawals.

Last couple of years we were all hanging in the evening waiting on Nate to post link to Neduro & Pyndon's phone calls from the rally.

Those calls would crank up the hose for at least two to three hours every night.

Julián Villarrubia Garcia

Translation:

ahahah it's not because I retired from racing rallies that i don't care about them!! I just think you must be crazy to race that stuff!!

Palante

Here I was thinking....shit, the dress code has relaxed alot on the Dakar.
So WTF??:huh

Jeremias


El Matador

Correct. I was told Scott could not go assist Kevin today in his need, or he would of been DQd....making it pointless. So they opted to give Kevin a chance, by not breaking rules and him trying to do this on his own. Which isn't looking good either. Nobody has heard from Kevin. So....did he make it out onto the special? We want to assume so. No news is good news. He was texting wife....and now he hasn't in many hours. Did he get out onto special too late? Sigh....... time will tell. Going to be a long night.

Or hanging out in the evening waiting for our 150 and Luis to pull in ;p
So quiet this year in here.

CYRIL DESPRES Stage 3 REPORT

San Rafael > San Juan
Connection 292 km
Special stage 373 km
Total 665 km

Just when you think the race is starting to settle down the Dakar bites back with a startling series of surprises, with difficult navigation and technical enduro terrain leaving yesterday’s rankings is chaos. The good news is that this evening Cyril Despres moves up from 8th to 2nd overall, 13’04 behind Barreda. The bad news is that Frans Verhoven’s (Yamaha Netherlands Verhoven Team) race has come to a premature end after he crashed out with a broken elbow. For his part Olivier Pain continues to climb up the leader board and is this evening in 8th place overall (at 36’33) while Michael Metge ‘did the job’ bringing home an ‘as new’ set of tyres to this evening’s marathon stage for Cyril to use tomorrow.

Cyril Despres

"Today’s special has to go straight into the Top 5 most stunning specials I have done in 13 years of racing rallies – and in that time I’ve been to some pretty amazing places! As announced, the recent rains had really cut up the first part of the special and the riding was far from easy. Then at kilometre 299 we came to this incredible 3 kilometre climb. It was a really really hard to get up and I can only begin to imagine how many riders will go out of the race at that point – and it’s not just the amateurs who are going to struggle. Then after that we rode for about 60 kilometres on stunning tracks over a series of mountain ridges, as beautiful as they were difficult to navigate. Towards the end I came up behind and past both David Casteu and Marc Coma. All in all an excellent day that more than makes up for yesterday’s disappointments."

Michael Metge

"This morning I gave Cyril my word I’d give him some ‘prefect’ tyres this evening and I’m proud to say I was able to keep that promise. I started off really slowly, perhaps too slowly, and then found an optimum pace using the ‘berms’ left by the riders in front of me so as to keep my speed as constant as possible and stay off the brakes. The other big positive from today was the route designed by David Castera, which was just amazing. Today we went to places you could only ever go on a motorcycle, preferably a trials bike, and it was a unique experience. And just to top it all, apart from swapping over our wheels, Cyril and I have very little to do to the bikes. We’ll do our road books now and then change the oil when it cools down a little."

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We are still clapping.....

Fryer......

......or secret carb cleaner ??

Maybe there is some magic FCR juice in there.