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

[Brodovitch]

Originally Posted by troy safari carpente

45 minutes to blast off...

Will you be riding with us today Troy?

[troy safari carpente]

Originally Posted by Brodovitch

Terrible news. RIP

A black day... again

[pebble35]

Originally Posted by doyle

I watched the Dakar each year through the 90's catching it on Speedvision, never religiously and at the time, my interest was in F1 and GT road racing. I used to watch Dakar for the cars and the trucks, those giant trucks.

In the 2004 coverage, something caught my eye, a KTM 660. WTF is that I thought. That looked cool so an internet search later I happened upon ADVrider and joined up to find out more about this bike...and then I was completely hooked.

Back then, the bivouac stories came three weeks later when Charlie chimed in with a post or two. Eurosport coverage was unobtanium in the states. and we would lap up every ounce of information we could get. 2005 was the first I followed with a real passion for it, the rules, the route, the riders. From that point on, the car race means very little to me. I don't even bother looking at the rankings. We learned the posis lists, the little tricks like when the French version of the list would update a minute or two before the english version as we formulated the early days of F5orce as a race to post the information of who was at what CP or WP. We had maps and tracks to see the route and the rider on that route (if it actually was working).

Charlie Rauseo and Roaring Horse, Scot Harden were our direct connections to the race as well as the rare post by Jimmy Lewis. It grew each year as we got better and more organized at sourcing the information, but it still mostly came from dakar.com. There was no twitter or FB or separate trackers, no Eurosport or France4, no youtube.

Now, quite frankly I've given up trying to keep up from a posting perspective. I lurk through every post, read all the information, but my output is usually twitter and my blog as so many others have joined the fray here and taken the reins. Quite frankly, the pace is that of the US debt, it has taken on a life of it's own and with my new job this year, I simply can't take two weeks of "inter-office personal days" as much as I used to.

I love every minute of it though between the real time aspect of knowing the exact moment that Chavo has stopped for McDonald's on the liaison, to video of RG rolling in the middle of nowhere getting posted to the web within 15 minutes, it is impossible to consume it all without being overwhelmed. I've come to discover that I enjoy writing about it, I try to keep up with my wrap ups and try to dig into stories that are a little more technical or that catch my eye as needing more depth rather than the play by play anymore although via twitter, I try to feed the minute by minute happenings and this year over other, the positive response has been both humbling and overwhelming. Like others, I have no one in the real world to discuss this with. My wife sees the obsession for two weeks each year and tolerates it, but it's my "hobby" and my little dork blog". People at work see my wallpaper and ask if it's me...if they only knew how much I wished it was.

This thread is so much fun each year and I am honored to have somewhat fallen into the old guard of starting it and it's such a great feeling to see how everyone has adopted into the process and have run with it. Just looking at the stats of how the thread grows each year over year is stunning. We are doing in a day what we did for the entire two weeks back in 2005 and 2006.

After all of that, I'll never forget Packmule calling me up on the first day of the 2008 rally as I was walking to my car for work and breaking the news that the whole thing was cancelled. Gutted.

My background as a Dakar fan is similar - following year on year with the limited TV coverage popping up a few days after anything happened.

Work and life commitments meant I could never achieve the dream of watching the event thundering through the desert in person until things fell into place for January 2008 ................and we all know what happened that year. I was in Lisbon wandering around parc ferme with just 18 hours to go before the start as the news broke

Now the sheer cost of getting to SA from Europe means I may never get to see the Dakar. But I get great enjoyment out of following it here and riding the event vicariously through riders we help (go Pyn ). And we are already working on plans for 2014 rider support ..............

Thank you all for the experience

[Brodovitch]

Originally Posted by homerj

There seem to be lots of comments about CdP's relatively slow pace. I can't help but think of an interview I heard with Rick Mears (multiple Indy 500 winner) when he talked about managing risk in a long race.

He would basically half-life the entire race. For the first half he would only push as much as necessary to maintain within reach of the leaders (IIRC, he only wanted to be on the lead lap).

The second half was broken into quarters. The first quarter he would push hard enough to high up on the board (say 10th).

The second quarter was broken into eighths. The first eighth he would push harder, and begin taking more risks to get onto the podium. If he found himself in 1st by the end of the that eighth, he would then manage his lead.

If still behind, the final eighth was divided into sixteenths, and he would increase his pace again. Begin taking more risk. If at the end of that he was still not in the lead he would start pushing flat out, maxiumum attack.

Mears' whole point of this is that racing is about managing risk to the exent that it can be managed. Pushing hard from the start to the finish is simply not possible -and he was only talking about 500 miles on pavement, or 1000 in Baja - nothing near the race distance of Dakar. You cannot take those kinds of risks for the entire race and reasonably expect to make it to the finish line. Think of it as the anit-Robby strategy. Gordon is kind of known for having great speed, but breaking his toys, or crashing, or both. It seems from the outside that Robbie is pushing too hard for too long and the law of averages bites him.

So why on Earth would CdP do anything to risk his rallye so early on? He's within touch of his challengers. He can pull the cork seemingly at will and clip 10 minutes off the entire field except Coma (who's out). There's simply no upside for Cyril to run maximum attack at this point.

We will probably not start to see Cyril take big bites out of people until after the rest day.

Couldn't agree more. For chrissakes, it's (still) the bloody Dakar, not a hare scramble. And by risks, people seem to forget that taking care of the bike as well as your body is high on the list. Let's not forget that Barreda had to make an engine change before his fuel pump problems

[troy safari carpente]

Originally Posted by Brodovitch

Will you be riding with us today Troy?

pulling all the stops today... I'm back in the off5ice chair for real for the first time... typing practice last night and now multiple screens and folder open... let's git 'er done boy...

[Balkan Boy]

Originally Posted by troy safari carpente

pulling all the stops today... I'm back in the off5ice chair for real for the first time... typing practice last night and now multiple screens and folder open... let's git 'er done boy...

So your pulling night and morning shift?
What are you on and do you have more?

[Clancy]

One of our late, great drivers in Aus. had a philosophy about our biggest enduro race. For the first 3/4 of the race you're just buying your ticket for the last 1/4. Once you've paid for the ticket you can take part in the race. I think Cyril might just be buying his ticket at the moment.

[Flood]

Official Dakar press release is out, saying the same thing:

TRAFFIC ACCIDENT

Wednesday 9th January 2013

A serious accident involving 3 vehicles occurred in Peru on Wednesday 9th January at 21.30 hours (Peru time), 10 kilometres from the border with Chile.

The accident involved a support vehicle with 3 passengers and two taxis, one of them carrying 6 people and the other with 4 people.

One of the two taxis collided head on with the support vehicle, and the second taxi overturned several times in an attempt to avoid the accident.

Unfortunately, two of the people in the first taxi – one of them the driver – died, and 7 others were injured (4 Peruvians and the 3 passengers in the support vehicle). They are being examined in hospitals in Tacna (Peru), where they were taken following the accident.

Assistance coordination has been put in place by the Peruvian authorities and the organisation of the rally, involving 3 local ambulances, a fire engine and several police officers. The organisation has also jointly deployed 2 paramedic ambulance vehicles from the rally and 2 security vehicles.

An Antonov aircraft of the Peruvian police has been put on special alert to transport the injured to Lima, in coordination with the rally’s medical service.

The Peruvian authorities have begun an inquiry into the accident in order to determine the exact causes.

Source: http://www.dakar.com/dakar/2013/us/media-area.html?2

[troy safari carpente]

Originally Posted by Brodovitch

Dakar.com

Casteu on the road
The winner of yesterday's stage, David Casteu, is opening the road today in front of his countryman Olivier Pain and Spaniard Juan Pedrero Garcia. The 151 bikes authorised to start today will ride 291 km of link stage before tackling 455 km of special stage, with the bivouac at Calama as their destination.

Today has the potential two be a three way (factory) battle between the yamaha pairing who open... the KTM pairing (Pedrero/despres) who pressure and the Husky Speedbrain pair (Botturri and Gonk in a rear guard action) to see who can force the others hand, or build a gap... 454 km's lots of time and possibilities...

[Drif10]

Originally Posted by troy safari carpente

pulling all the stops today... I'm back in the off5ice chair for real for the first time... typing practice last night and now multiple screens and folder open... let's git 'er done boy...

He's coming for you, Nate....

[orlando_orange]

Originally Posted by homerj

We will probably not start to see Cyril take big bites out of people until after the rest day.

still it's nice for everyone to think thaqt he might be human and beatable.. i agree that after the rest day he will probably switch his croissants for whatever alien breakfast it is that he eats to set his teeth on edge and his wrist locked on full throttle...

[Acosi151]

Hey.. TIME OUT... THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Everyone see that ad bar at the top of Mischa's trackingdakar.nl ?

Click on that sucker sometime today would 'ya!?

.. Just a friendly reminder.

[too old]

Originally Posted by Brodovitch

Weird. Over here Barreda reseeded to 42nd (not very generous compared to other reseedings), but Fish not reseeded and listed as starting in 141st

Politics or just a screw up?

Absolutely no logic, especially as Fish stopped to assit and was equally an elite rider within the top 50!

[troy safari carpente]

Originally Posted by Balkan Boy

So your pulling night and morning shift?
What are you on and do you have more?

Originally Posted by Drif10

He's coming for you, Nate....

Not in one stage (even a 454 km one)... I mean, I'm not on SPEED...

[orlando_orange]

Originally Posted by troy safari carpente

Today has the potential two be a three way (factory) battle between the yamaha pairing who open... the KTM pairing (Pedrero/despres) who pressure and the Husky Speedbrain pair (Botturri and Gonk in a rear guard action) to see who can force the others hand, or build a gap... 454 km's lots of time and possibilities...

really hope that casteu has a good stab at leading...