Dakar Photo page
In his second trip to race the Dakar Rally my friend Charlie and his brother David made it to the finish. Over 1/2 the bikes didn't. 204 bikes finished stage 1 in Barcelona December 31 and 104 finished Jan. 16th in Dakar. Charlie finished 65th with a best stage of 41st in stage 15. David finished 99th and saved the best for last with his best day being the final stage, 16, finishing 81st.
They are privateers, raising the money and spending their own to make the trip possible. There will be many stories to tell and I hope to interview Charlie and his mechanic Mike Krynock, both friends and riding buddies of mine very soon. Watch this space. There will also be a few welcome back parties, with Charlie's famous slide shows about Dakar. Details on where and when to come as well.
TV coverage starts on OLN Jan. 22nd. It is well worth watching as it does cover the race but also it is part a travel show and you'll be impressed with the west Africa landscape and amazed at the difficulty of the Rally.
For Charlie and David the 2005 Dakar will be remembered for their finish a huge accomplishment. Like reaching the top of Everest. For fans of the rally it will be remembered as the loss of the Lion of the Desert, the great Dakar legend Fabrizio Meoni. He retired last year only to change his mind and come back one last time. Motorcycle riders were so affected they canceled a day of riding and rode with black arm bands to the end.
The adventure is not just for the racers but for the support crew as well. Here are the words of Charlie's Rally Raid support team taken from their emails. Excuse the typos.
Dec. 31
"The official start of the Dakar Rally 2005. Beautiful clear skies and loads of people lining the sand to cheer the entrants on. Most of the bikes fared well, throwing up lots of sand. Went back into las Ramblas again that evening for tapas at Los Carcoles and feasted on barbequed prawns, paella and squid. Making the most of the restaurant food before the camp fare that will come all too quickly!"
Jan. 1
"We had battery problems with the KTM motorbikes and the trip computer sensor broke on F350. Amazing to see the crowds of people lining the route, cheering the entrants along. The toll barriers were full of people waving and taking photos and wandering across the road to see the vehicles."
Jan. 3
"Our arrival into Granada was real late, and yet the pits were jammed with people from Granada. It looked just like the crowd at the Orange County Fair. Just sheer craziness with people. Somehow Dave and Charlie were not in yet which was weird since we were running sweep. They showed up about a half an hour later and Charlie had a bad battery. He needed a couple jumps along the way. Unfortunately, the KTM truck was out of batteries, they had gone through 72 batteries that day alone. Something was going on with a bad batch of batteries.
Unfortunately for Charlie, his battery was dead so he had to go slow on the special. The mechanics were up until about 4:00 am working on the bikes. I went to sleep around 1:00 because I had to drive at 7:00. Another crappy night of sleep. The pits are non-stop madness. The inside of my tent is as bright as day and as loud as the 5 freeway because of all of the mayhem going on outside. We were still not able to get a battery for Charlie so he had to baby his bike on the next day.
On the way to a Agadir, we came upon a twisty mountain road and one of the large KTM support trucks lost control and flipped off of the road and parts were strewn all over the place. I don't know if anyone was hurt but it sure looked like it should have. It also did not help the Team KTM support effort.
Charlie somehow found some couple on tour from Germany on their KTM's and talked them out of one of their batteries in exchange for a lesson on how to kick start a KTM. Needless to say Charlie will be indebted to that bloke for a while."
Jan. 4
"All 8 of the riders and the 2 cars made it to the El Samara bivouac.
To give you an idea of our day, we usually hit the road early ahead of the racers. Mike will navigate while the Brits sleep. A few hours into the ride, Sid will take over navigating while Mike naps. I have learned to live on Red Bull. We are having an absolute blast in the car. We usually get to the pits a little bit before the racers and set up camp. Today, all the racers were waiting for us. It just goes nuts. I can't believe how much service these bikes need. I end up setting up all of the tents for the guys in my truck plus for Charlie and Dave. I make tire runs to the Eurosport station and help the guys in whatever I can. It's nuts. Charlie broke his subframe today and needs two new tires. Jerry Bernardo and his OLN crew interviewed Charlie & Dave so I situated myself right behind them and just laid low. Who knows, maybe my ugly mug will make the tele.
We go off road tomorrow for the first time. We are told that we need to drive and navigate very precisely because of impending mine fields. Smashing good don't you think. The lads say that my driving better be spot on tomorrow. Should be Jolly good fun.
Sleep deprivation, cold ass nights and no toilet. What a great adventure. If I could only have a nice bed and my lovely wife to spoon for warmth. I'll make do for another couple weeks. By far the adventure of a lifetime."
Jan. 8
"I'd like to take you back to Samara - that was a number of days ago...my last email came from there...We set off for the assistance drive of 510Km's to Zouerat and it all started going wrong, the first 400 Km's was off road helmets on across terrain that was basically a rally all of itself. 100Km's in we meet up with the 2nd Discovery support vehicle that Rally Raid have with a broken air suspension system with the guys trying to force a piece of wood into the space that the unit used to be, in the end they welded up part of the tow bar from the Disco by the side of the road and spent 3 days getting to Atar including 100Km's driving literally down a railway line! But that's another story, we moved on at a rate to try and get the mileage out the way, 20Km up the road we broke the air suspension unit on the 2nd Discovery that we had, it never rains but it pours. No wood to hand so we removed the wheel and waited for the F350 to return after they realised that we had been forced to stop. 2 hours later and a couple of sat phone calls the F350 returns having stopped some Danes and borrowed a coil spring from them. 30 mins later we are on the move again...by now it's 1:30 and we have done 250Km out of 510Km and we started at 8:30am"
Jan. 9
"Some number of miles pass before the first puncture. Front wheel + large rock = new tyre please, that's puncture number 1 - you might like to keep count at this point. We have three spare tyres and they are all 17'' and rare. So we stop to change the tyre and we are off again. Then we meet the support Landrover for the Danes that lent us the coil spring, they have gone over a 2 foot jump and snapped the chassis of the Landrover in half and are looking at it in the desert! We stop say hello and ask if we can help but they say no thanks and send us on our way. Next we run into a pile of sand and camel grass and get the F350 stuck a couple of times but the real problem is just the off road mileage that's required. Getting out of the Camel grass on one occasion modifies the rear wing on the F350 and at least reduces the weight of the vehicle. The day carries on with more of the same and by 11pm we have made it to the end of the 510Km of off road. We eventually get to Zouerat at around 9:30 pm and the guys start work on the bikes, I get some sleep along with Zoli since we need to drive the following day and start early. The mechanics don't.
Early the following morning we start the 1355Km assistance to Tidjikja...Good start as 20 Km's down the road we pick up another puncture, that's number 2...now more off road followed by a selection of large sand dunes most of which the F350 gets past but some of which it gets stuck in. Disco with BD to the rescue! with the hydro-elastic tow rope and we are out but not before the rope ends up wrapped round a wheel and cuts the rear right break pipe !!! out comes the mole grips and the end of the pipe is sealed off, three brakes on my wagon...but off we go again. Loads more sand dunes and then finally we are back on reasonable hard piste, huge numbers of people getting stuck around us and left behind, basically they are trying to kill off the assistance people! Now up to now all the punctures have been front wheel now we have a rear wheel one which you just can't feel at all...once we stop a rear tyre and rim have been destroyed and it's now sitting in the desert. That's number 3 and our spare now is a tyre with an inch square hole in it.
Finally we get the end of the 400Km's of off road and now we start the 1050Km's of tarmac to get to get to Tidjikja but we are still sort on time as we have 2 days to do the journey but we need to do it via Nouakchott on the coast - check out a map and look for Atar, Nouakchot and Tidjikja to understand the full impact of this journey! So we get to Nouakchot and fill up with even more gas, find the Novotel and use the facilities - very nice - back on the road by now it's 9am or so. BD goes on to try and get to Tidjikja to meet the bikes and the Nissan and the F350 stick together. Eventually we arrived around 3AM and the guys once again started working on the bikes! I go to sleep as does Zoli since we need to leave at 5:30 AM for - get this - the return journey to Atar - another 1050Km's
So I'm asleep in the bivouac next to 4 other bikers - I've just got to sleep - about 10 seconds after getting into the sleeping bag and I wake up with a start and a 3'' round tent pole has fallen and landed across me and the 4 bikes which was nice! I'm back asleep almost immediately and awake at 5:45 having slept past my alarm. Back to the encampment to find the guys still working...The Danes have come over and asked for their coil spring back...fortunately we bought two coil springs and some brake pipe in Nouakchott the day before some time so Ian sets about changing the coil spring, after loads of time and three jacks the spring is changed but it's nowhere near as nice as the race spring...The Danes return and tell us they don't actually need the spring and can we take it to Dakar for them please...Ian sets about swapping the springs again!"
Jan. 11
"We are off on a 1100k drive from Atar to Kifir and waited for the boys. We had heard on the drive that Fabrizio Meoni had crashed and was killed. Meoni was a star rider that has always been one of the top Dakar riders. He had retired after last years ride but somehow decided to ride it one more time. A Spanish rider died the day before from injuries sustained in a crash in Morrocco. The Dakar is taking it's toll on riders and machines. I drove 13 hours that day while the boys slept. One of them was always awake to help with the navigation."
Jan. 13
"There seems to be a bit of a problem with 2005 KTM's we have had battery problems and carburettor issues and all sorts of other niggles, Patsy Quick is out because of bike issues, and that was a 2005 KTM, whilst the chap she sold her 2004 bike to is up there at 17th or so.
The Rauseo brothers continue to go 'dirt bike riding' every day and whilst they wanted new bikes I think they made the right choice with the 2002 and 2004 bikes. It's amazing but every time I see them they are both full of enthusiasm even after a hard days riding."
"My drive off road was spectacular. It's how I imagined Africa. Rambling mesa's with tree's and clump grass. The villages were awesome to pass through. The villages were not Muslin villages. Everyone was happy and waved to us as we passed. The girls and the women were all dressed in stunning dresses all with vibrant color's. Much like you would imagine a Jamaican women dressed. The girls and ladies were so beautiful. Such a change compared to the Muslin women who hid all with the exception of their eyes. I am refreshed by seeing happy people. They live in Mud huts with grass roofs but they are happy and content from what I see."
"As we have come south there have been significant changes in the landscape and people. Morocco with its policemen and checkpoints every 1 or 2 road kilometers and farming gave way to Mauritania where we crossed a corner of the Sahara desert and a landscape that has been very bleak and barren. As we have come further south in Mauritania we have moved from Muslim to ''typical' African. Black has given way to the ubiquitous bright clothing colours, mud huts, straw roofs, donkeys with carts, camels big, beautiful African smiles. Despite the poverty women and children always seem happy to see us (the men are more reserved) and you can see them running across the fields to see us pass by (and ask for gifts). The children are lovely and the women are stunning with lovely fine features and ready but shy smiles.
There have been many highs (and a few lows) along the way and it seems strange that our 3 weeks on the road is coming to an end soon. The highs have been meeting many people from different walks of life and parts of the world, all with a common love for what the Dakar represents to the lows of injuries and 3 deaths of competitors to date. The Dakar has been a personal goal for me and an experience never to forget. Some will return year after year and others have 'ticked the box'. It has been an amazing journey, seeing places and things that would not have been possible any other way. From special access to cross military zones, to driving 300 kilometers through the Sahara with nothing but sand dunes, to the pitch dark and silence of the desert (except the distant roar of hundreds of vehicles travelling at full throttle that is!) this has been a unique experience to date. I certainly would not want to bring my own vehicle on the Dakar and I strongly advise against buying one second hand! The terrain and speed is very hard on man and machine."
Jan. 14
" Our American friends, both riders Charlie and Dave, and support crew Mike and Zoli have blended in perfectly. Zoli now knows more English slang words than he ever imagined and he's exchanged them for quaint old American sayings - Mike just works and appears to require no sleep."
Jan. 15
"We are finally in the country of Senegal. I finally see light at the end of the tunnel and the light is Dakar. This long trip has been a journey that I could not have fathomed with the wildest of drugs. Delightful, gruelling, satisfying and flat out stupid.
We were having lunch when we heard the familiar sounds of the KTM 660 rolling in. Of course they were the single digit bikes of the leaders. We checked with PC control and they said that Charlie and Dave had completed their special and were on the liason which was about 250k. They showed up around 6pm and it was not a pretty sight. They were riding together on the liason when Dave lost control of his bike on a set of bumps and took Charlie out hard. Both went down and Charlie got the worst of it. They were a beat up mess when they came in. Charlie had road rash all over his back and side as well as his arms. We strolled over to dinner and while we were sitting down, I noticed Dave's black & blue ankle. These guys are a mess in the worst sense. But get this, they are all smiles.
A note to let you know what these guys are enduring. The lead riders are on the road probably 5 hours less than each of the two Rauseo's on a daily basis. That means that they get about 5 hours less a day to sleep and recover. It also leaves Mike with 5 less hours to service the two bikes. We were camped by the factory KTM pits a week or so back and when one of their riders come in. 2 or 3 techs jump on their bikes to do a complete rebuild. To see them work is music, to see Mike, Sid, Ian, Dennis and Gordon when he was here do their work is amazing. When you look at the bikes of our riders, you immediately notice that the Rauseo's bikes are just hammered to a crisp. Mike does a stunning job of revitalizing the bikes."
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