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

Pretty safe. Today's route was, as I understand it, all "on-piste" with essentially no opportunity to wander off into the boonies.

Toomas had a very good day considering his experience in rally raids (or lack thereof). These fast and not so navigationally complicated stages should suit him pretty well.
Mart presented a solid amateur's performance - nothing exceptional but also nothing to complain about. Job well done.

Dunno why I have to follow the family every single time they go out... I still end up wondering out scratching my head and browsing/trying to follow via my mobile phone and I and up draining the battery. Even a 10000mAmp battery pack did not help :huh



Peter Hardy

GO FIMP!!

from Twitter (nothing new, actually...)

Gert-Jan Veenendaal &#8207;<s>@</s>GJVeenendaal <small class="time"> 56m </small> Kistrijder Frederic Millet nr188 staat nog op de proef na cp1. Als laatste motorrijder, zonder assistentie. <s>#</s>Dakar




Other than that, nothing about Millet's status to be found.

Love it!

Seems like fimp is in!

Long day for him.

188 - MILLET FREDERIC (FRA) +07:30:18

Phew....I was getting worried...

Awesome

7+ hours behind the leader...still has a long liaison ahead of him and likely needs to fix whatever mechanical issues he had today along with regular bike maintenance. Setup his tent, eat whatever food is left at that time of night (likely just the pasta bar), etc

He is doing this the really, really hard way


Giver

Fred is still out, I hope he takes care of himself, it will be a long night, but he will never give up

Gilbert Escale indeed made it to the Bivouac, have no idea what the mechanical problem was. I am amazed he took the bike out of the stage anyways... :huh

As far as the general standings, I think we have to cool down. Of course the team are using them to their advantage (See HRC press - I would do the same ) but hey, I am sure the oldies are playing with the newbies at the moment. Win 7 stages, but if by day eight you are as good as a doorknob, we will see who wins Dakar. And CP, even if I don't like him as much as I like Coma, he has the crowns, he has the experience and he did not crash in stage 1
I am impressed by most riders, 3 minutes bring you close to 40 .

I am sure over in stage 2, the heat will be the same. I think HRC is going to be very fun to watch. Full throttle every day, I hope they make it to the end without swapping engines. But for me, this is not a sprint, although most young riders and today in general it felt like it. The opening stage, everybody wanted to win, blah blah blah... They will understand that they need endurance (both riders and bikes) to win this race. I mean, they know it, but they get carried a bit... .

Some photos....











Ben >

........thanks Myway......

Fred was out when I started writing the post... :huh

Go Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeed !!! on

+1

With latest spain stage 1 VLC, with barreda comment

Interview with Francesco Beltrami here (in Italian):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHguXc9xw6E

He says that the bike had a problem with the fifth gear and basically he rode today's stage only with its fourth gear (:eek1). Also he suffered the same problem with the fuel pump that had yesterday. Now he has to find an engine to continue...

Talking about the Bolivians and the Salar:

http://www.maray.cl/dakar2014/articulos_ver.php?id=32572
Bolivia moviliza a 3.600 uniformados para dar seguridad al Rally Dakar

Bolivia mobilizes 3,600 uniformed [soldiers] for security of the Dakar Rally.

Nooooooooo