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

Seems our intrepid ADV rider was able to avoid this mess.

It is fun to go back and listen to calls from all the years past. We've been privvy to a host of fantastic stories!

Husbands computer is too sucky. It's still downloading LoL. Switched to my son's laptop and instant.

Thanks Nate. Good hearing about the RMS and Freedom!

I can maybe see why CD's swap wouldn't end in a penalty. Both motors were in the race, not a new one out of the crate. It's not like he gets the advantage of a fresh one.

any help with tomorrows route map ... The "official" part of the Dakar site doesnt have it at the moment .
Or ther was someone her who had all the stage pap with a bit of info ....thanks

That would be Bluebull, and he may be catching a little shut-eye about now, rest day and all.

Or did he?

but what about the seals? OK'd from Clerk?

KTM Redbull: "Ok, Cyril, we thought of a way we can pull this off, but you'll need to swap the engine yourself at marathon biv, with everybody watching" haha! Genius!

If that's the way they are going to interpret the rules, I see some new strategies that could be played in the future. Can of worms, IMHO.

See Bluebull it's more than TRANNYGATE, it is ENGINEGATE!!

And next year it will be ENGINECARRIERGATE!!

We asked Robb from Rally PanAm a few (dozen) pages ago. He said the ASO had them the first year in SA as part of the entry, the second year it was an option you could buy. Now they're just offered to Malle Moto competitors, apparently.

Great shot!

wtfgate!!!

So Pyn says that KTM are on a 3 year plan to produce a lighter Rally bike - so are they in or out for the future.

With his comments on the commercialisation and developing enormity of the event it seems quite unlikely

Anyone know what neck protector 'Shoestring & Prayer' Luchesse is wearing in this video?
Almost looks like a donut the car guys use. Another 11th-hour acquisition?

Thinks he used it for sleeping in as he would on the plane - just forgot to take it off

Looks like one of his old mouses? Cheers for ya Manuel. We are all with ya! Give'er tomorrow.

Listened to Pyn - great interview, but nothing on the mysterious penalty disappearances

Cyril is still showing second 9.26 down, should be starting 11th today accpording to what's up there now, so today may be the day he making the move?

Thanks for the notes, E. "Back in the day", the Cliff Notes thread had ALL of the media that we could put in big chunks there (pics, vids, RR calls, etc), as well as the "news", sans banter. As the amount of info here has exploded, some other threads have developed like the media thread, TV, thread, torrent thread, etc.

The Cliff Notes is designed as a one stop shop for what we would consider the "moderately interested" fan (ie wants more than NBCSports is going to give them but less than the firehose), or a diehard who is on a time budget on any given day. For those folks, having some pics and vids in the CN thread is very important.

For the inmate who's keeping up on all of the various threads, it's easy enough to skim over the CN posts you've already seen elsewhere. In fact, for that inmate, there's probably no reason to hit CN at all (until they find themselves in a time crunch).

The fact is that there is so much going on here, even with a few additional mods to share the load, it can be tough to keep the CN as timely as we were able to in the past. This is a big reason I refer people to the RallyRAIDio or RallyRaidReview twitter feeds for streamlined live results and updates while the stage is rolling.


I hope that explains a bit of the background, and why it is the way it is today.

It's a long two weeks, for sure, Needed the rest day today!

It's hectic while it's going on, then a week or two after the fact, you miss it already.

If only we had the empire to do it fully, with live TV and bivouac reporters.