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

[8340SU]

[troy safari carpente]

Originally Posted by ZequeArgentina

Also vehcile preapration has improved a lot. At least from Southamerican drivers and riders.
Obviously Dakar in 2009 was almost unknok for a lot of them, and their preparation was not as required.
Also, in case of Argentina, a local cross country Championship is developing.

+1

talking to a colleague who was present at the tech inspection (from the FIA perspective) and he said the standar of vehicles even at the very rear of the auto entry field was exceptional this year. Of course the ASO/FIA has always been hard on standard technical and safety/equipment requirements... but my friends comment was with regards the technical preparation/competitiveness of many of the auto entries.

As he stated, even vehicles as far back in the starting line up as position 50 + were technically capable of various FIA national/regional cross country rally victories without any drama.

So too i believe the quality and preparation level of the quads 8oft times in the past fairly agricultural in many aspects of preparation) and definately the MOTO field (there is nowhere near the number of "oddball" entries as once there was; eg: bultaco's, 2 stroke 125's, pitbikes, mopeds, XR 200's etc.). Now I am not saying there is no place for entries like this (the oddball bikes and vehicles draw a certain amount of interest/press and give a flavour to the event that is becoming less and less as the "professionalism" drips back down into even the mid to rear portions of the field)... but as the event moves forward, it seem's there is less of the amateur/oddball feeling to dakar and more a sense of the F1 in the desert taking over.

[ric678]

Anyone know what todays track is like?? Will Caselli be able to stay upfront??
Will the HRC bikes run out of fuel??
Will CDP show us his ankle bandanas??

[Brodovitch]

Troy are you gonna do the "fire in the hole" skit or are you listening to the Best of Streisand?

[Drif10]

Originally Posted by ric678

Anyone know what todays track is like?? Will Caselli be able to stay upfront??
Will the HRC bikes run out of fuel??
Will CDP show us his ankle bandanas??

I hear he has a Red Bull thong.













Got that mental image with your morning coffee?

[8340SU]

[ararat]

Originally Posted by Drif10

Here's a little trick for you, ASO: You're worried about competitors getting a jump on another because they can see your data. So time delay it 30 minutes. Fans get to enjoy, and the data isn't current enough for the elite teams. And all it costs you is bandwidth. Cheap cost for the number of fans you can reach with the sponsor's product.

As a web mechanic i can tell you that my impression from the behaviour of the site, and the fact that i get some sort of error on the data dump consistently from the site, is that they have a very bad design for the infrastructure that is not capable of holding the load. they have to cache the data and then we get the data when they revoke the cache ever x minutes automatically or manually as it has been in the last few days.
Seen that leads me to believe that the information is available for the underlying application but we are not getting it as it is too slow to support all of us fans.

A 30 minute delay iritrack position of the riders should be achievable with realtime like movement but requires some generous investment from the ASO and since this does not produce money as of the current web design the investment will not arrive soon. i remember that in africa we were able to track the riders on a map through the stages, i wonder if it was ever abused to inform the team and thus removed.

If you can convince the ASO they can make money out of you starring on a screen with some moving dots they will invest, but i think they are not there yet.

[Brodovitch]

Originally Posted by 8340SU

Chavo!

Marian's pictures are the best I've seen so far this year. Just beautiful

[michalCCR]

Originally Posted by Bluebull2007

Wait...what? Mericans?

Indeed, two of them.
Meet Mark Zambon
and Tim Read.

[Clancy]

Originally Posted by Brodovitch

Chavo!

Marian's pictures are the best I've seen so far this year. Just beautiful

We need to send Sylvia over there as our own f5otographer. You won't get better shots.

[orlando_orange]

Originally Posted by Bluebull2007

Wait...what? Mericans?

think he meant merkins..... redbull merkins.... bet CDP has got one...

[Brodovitch]

Originally Posted by Clancy

We need to send Sylvia over there as our own f5otographer. You won't get better shots.

you'll find no argument from me on that point.

[knybanjo]

Originally Posted by ararat

....snip....

If you can convince the ASO they can make money out of you starring on a screen with some moving dots they will invest, but i think they are not there yet.

Seems like they could fund it by selling a spam link or two to a global corp.....

[troy safari carpente]

Originally Posted by Brodovitch

Troy are you gonna do the "fire in the hole" skit or are you listening to the Best of Streisand?

"I am a woman in love
And I'd do anything
To get you into my world..." ... what...?



Oh... shit...?! I mean f%¤%...!!

... I mean, F5ire in the h¤...!



ummmm...THEY*RE OFF!

[Drif10]

Originally Posted by ararat

If you can convince the ASO they can make money out of you starring on a screen with some moving dots they will invest, but i think they are not there yet.

That's the rub, isn't it? That's why only the sponsors can affect change on this, I think.

The ASO has no impetus for change, and they'll have to spend money to do so, based on your insight. 'Who's gonna pay'.

They're sponsors because they want to advertise their product so they can sell more. It's all about exposure. The Dakar will stay niche by the model that the ASO is following. Frustrating, but I see no way around it.