Dakar 2013 - Official Event Coverage - thank you ALL TeamF5, lurkers and posters!

yawn.... off to catch up....see you all in...oh i don't know, say an hour....

If Barreda makes the rest day at this pace then he should think about winding his neck in a little to ensure that he finishes

Yes, GMT-5.

But I just started looking over today's maps and it doesn't make much sense. They're giving SS bike start times of 0830 and car start times of 0710, but the cars start way down south, far away from the bivouac.

A little run down on where we are at:

Last year ADV official event coverage (not including rest day - divided evenly) we had 976 pages (69.7 pages per day), 14,634 posts (1,045 posts per day), and nearly 1.1 million views (78,571 views per day).

At the end of Stage 4 we are at 308 pages (77 pages per day), 4,605 posts (1,151 posts per day), 203,480 views (50,870 views per day).

The total overall thread views must be based on a "progressive spring rate" type scale...

special n° 1 bike quad car truck
1st start
(GMT-5) 08:30 08:30 11:25 14:02

On the main page there are different times, so maybe this is correct?

Surely Cyril will be reseeded to position 1 or 2 tomorrow.

The frame is completly custom, last year welded by some guy in Latvia few weeks before loading in Le Havre if I remember correct. They struggled to get hold of a company who could do it on such short notice. Speedbrain use supply from all over the world and bike is very little stock parts. Swingarm was made in Italy. This year I lost a bit contact, I went to no race after Dakar, but I think the bike is more or less the same.

They run custome made wheels made by Haan, direct copy of KTM hubs.

Lots of talk of the dust factor today.
After listening to Darryl Curtis's post on YT he mentioned it was raining lightly a little while ago.
Now that can change the game considerably....

Robby said that the dune that he crashed on was not marked in the road book....

How is it possible for them to mark everything in the road book when he veers off the race line so much? (granted it did look like a 90 degree dropp off dune).

Agreed.
And seeing as he was coming from behind, how come no one else crashed there....

I suspect Cyril had a word upstairs - ze boss to ze bigger boss

He kinda brushed that one off. Not enough for a protest? Driver error?

Is anybody going to open up a thread for the withdrawals to add a story?

There may not be time now but after the theoretical 'pink lake" is reached it would probably be a great read. After all, part of the Dakar mystic is conquering the unconquerable. The stories from the back markers are more interesting.

Ya think he's changing his tune about those buggies? (seeing as Nassar is close to leader and he is tail end)

He does have the fastest car out there. Only if Nassar was driving?... Nothing...

I just received these photos from my Indonesian GM who was attending a wedding in Lima last week.
Desert Rose with Craig Bounds were staying at the same hotel













This was the queue to get into scrutineering :eek1

Maybe just heading the question off at the pass?

What happened to Fretigne? More bad luck or overly aggressive?

Never mind. Facebook seems to be another good source.... "4eme etape: Abandon de David sur probleme mecanique !"

Is it me, or does the Hummer look way more cumbersome than the bughlies?

Motor blew unfortunately. Sad to say it, but I believe his time is over to be up front given the tough competition. Not like when he first did Dakar on the WR450 back in '04.