55 replies to this topic

[loki]

Can someone explain the Oprah reference? I don’t get the joke.

I take it to mean the meme sparked by when Oprah handed out cars to the audience at one of the tapings.

 

[loki]

Has there been a Dakar as brutal as this one?

Has been since I started watching about 20 years ago.  The olden days looked pretty harry.  I think it’s relative to the differences in technology and comfort these days.  There must be enough data out there to crunch to compare attrition rates.

[Alex79]

Plotting the route book using sat nav and maps wasn’t a “home garage” thing. It was part of what all the teams did the night before using people that weren't in the bivouac. The guy who did Robby Gordon’s is active on another forum. No one was hiding it. It was out in the open.

might be lost in translation, as I meant the remote garages some F1 teams use when they have sim drivers run through qualify and racing simulations. Allard Kalff stated the same btw, it was not even sneaky, it was part of the strategy.


and yes, my Oprah remarks were based on this meme sparked by F1 penalties

Edited by Alex79, 09 January 2025 - 08:11.

[loki]

Love the meme.  Ima make a copy…

[thegamer23]

Looks like Petrux rolled the truck, big damage.

Could be the end of the Italtrans Dakar, tough luck  

 

Edited by thegamer23, 09 January 2025 - 18:12.

[Alex79]

Has there been a Dakar as brutal as this one?

 

Hmm, there were a few editions in Africa where the complete field was delayed 24h by a huge sandstorm. Bruno Saby drove his Mitsubishi Prototype to the finish in 93 in Mauritania and had to be told A) that he reached the end of the stage B) that he won. The sand had ruined his electrics, only a headlight still working and the Frenchman praying the engine would not cut out. Pierre Lartigue finished that stage for Citroen 2nd by a massive 2 hours.

 

In the second half of the marathon, we continue on well beaten road. Again there were Shenanigans with the navigational tablets. A lot of riders were handed back time at the start of the rally because of that and this might have saved Daniel Sanders today. The Australian opened the stage, got lost once, crashed and again his tablet crashed as well. He got a lot of bonus time for his leading kilometers which would have landed him on a surprising 4th time. But yes, Oprah is also on the prowl again, You get a penalty! Eight minutes for speeding and relegated to 12th in the stage. It is not the last of our penalty queen you will see

 

Tosha Schareina's gamble was not a great succes, not a great failure either. As Sanders "got lost" (I still think he did it on purpose), Schareina followed and got lost as well. Thanks to Sanders mishaps at the end the Spaniard converted a 3 minute loss to a 4 minute gain. He clocked a 7th time. The three losers of yesterday banded together again, Branch, Brabec and Howes arrived at the finish 4, 5 and 6. Adrien van Beveren was not waiting for them and seemed to make good time at the finish, arriving first........ Sigh, you guessed it, Oprah ruined his day with 2 minutes for speeding. Van Beveren argued that the tablet had made a mistake and there should not be a speedzone there (on camera however a narrow gap was shown like the pic included below, where you could hardly fit a jeep in, I think it was a speed zone out of safety reasons)

 

Winner of the stage was Luciano Benavides, who after some trying days finally had something to laugh about. As people up front were trying to find Der Neuralgischen Punkt he could simply follow tracks and hope to get it right, which he did. Van Beveren was classified second, Nacho Cornejo third at 1m31s. In the standings, Sanders still leads by 7 minutes, Schareina 2nd, Branch in 3rd by 17 minutes.

 

In the cars, challengers, ssv and trucks it was a bit like a soukh or a bazaar yesterday, all the teams trying to barter at other teams to trade spare parts. Some more fortunate pay drivers even seemed to offer Bahama vacations (no joke) for an extra tyre. Nasser Al Attiyah had a very good run today, holding the lead for almost the entire run and arriving first.... And you know what comes next I think? At one of the stops the Qatari was forced to change a tyre and he either just dropped it there or the strap in his car broke. Option B is plausible as the older BRX car used the same layout and tiewraps, but it still had a body panel over it. The new bodyshell of Dacia is not covered to it is easier to,drop something you shouldn't. It costed Al Attiyah 10 minutes penalty. And now that narrow speedzone became very interesting, as the Dacia went through there at snails pace. Seth Quintero risked a bit more, or probably braked a bit late and that action, though flirting with disaster, gave the American a stagewin by ONE second!

 

Henk Lategan had to open the stage and on this rocky terrain where everybody grumbled and moaned about tyres, he went through with almost no problem. 4th time, a few seconds behind Mattias Ekström and he retained the lead for the first half of the rally. Yazid Al Rahji opened the day and tho he lost some bodywork, he went through well only losing four minutes. Ekströms teammate Nani Roma has not learned from the Toyota debacle a few days back when Variawa almost knocked De Villiers out of the race. This time the Spanish veteran also backtracked for a missed WP and he smashed his car headon with the buggy of Simon Vitse. The Frenchman was seen eating a sandwhich while his codriver called an assistance truck, glaring daggers at the dejected Roma as he explained to Eurosport it was all his fault. As the assistance truck had a broken generator it took until dark for Vitse to be supplied, his car got home Bog Last 6 hours behind Quintero.

 

 

In the challengers Yasir Seidan is not in the running for the standings anymore, but he still is hunting for stagewins, which worked very well today, he was eight minutes faster than the number two. The fight for the overall lead loses a contender today as Corbin Leaverton came into marathon bivouac with a badly damaged suspension. "A few of the bolts have sheared off and cannot be repaired here. So it will become a slow stage" How slow was evident when Simon Aczel blew past him in the Arcane SSV, which should be 10km/h slower on topspeed. Leaverton could only drive 70km/h and went even slower in the rocky closing stages. That meant he lost four hours and also arrived home last in the dark.

 

For Paul Spierings it also almost turned into a nightmare as he also noticed suspension damage right before the start of the stage. "We had only ten minutes to fix it, slam the upright together and get at the start. We were 20 minutes late but I really do not know if we get a penalty for this like two days ago." As of now Spierings is credited with a second time in the stage, 8m22s slower than Seidan. As Cavigliasso and Guerrero both lost 5 minutes today, it actually turns into a "Make lemonade with your lemons moment". Cavigliasso still leads the Challengers by 28 minutes. Guerrero is second, Spierings (for now) climbs into third and is a minute behind Guerrero

 

In the SSV's Sarah Price seems to have hit a snag again, losing 1,5 hours, teammater Hunter Miller even lost two hours today. Still Can Am also had good tidings as Chaleco Lopez won another stage, being 20 minutes faster than Brock Heger. Roger Grouwels had a good day again, clocking ninth in his private Can AM although his navigator Rudolf Meier was hammering on the front suspension in the neutralisation. "I almost rolled the car, when I jumped off a dune, there was already a truck on its side and a Toyota on its roof." The truck might have easily been Petrux and Claudio Bellina, the Toyota was a classic vehicle. Grouwels sudden burst of inspiration and all the time lost by Polaris and Can Am over the days grants him seventh place in the standings, but his disadvantage to Heger is almost 6 hours.

 

In the trucks Petrux wasn't the only one in trouble. Maurik vd Heuvel stranded with a broken gearbox, that same gearbox that he damaged in his last Dakar crash two years ago and which was retrofitted. It wasn't enough. Vadotas Zala also ran into trouble, losing front diff and trying to muddle through with just rear wheel drive. He managed to reach bivouac just after dark, four hours behind the leaders. Which were the two official MM trucks of Maçik and Koolen, clocking first and second and both seemed to have enjoyed a present drive in the country. Same was not the case with Mitchell vd Brink, who was reduced to drive around in circles when his tablet did not pick up the WP. Or so he thought, when navigator Mo Torallardoña found out they were in the wrong canyon That little stunt cost Mitchell half an hour and he just managed to keep Anja van Loon behind him. His luck was that Zala dropped out of contention and Ales Loprais stopped three times with a puncture, so while losing time to Maçik again, he also gains a place and is second now overall.

 

And so, the rally has reached Ha'il where the competitors will enjoy a day of rest. And hopefully the organisation has time to update their software or their satellite connection so this navigation shenanigans will be reduced in week two.

Edited by Alex79, 09 January 2025 - 23:12.