Dakar Rally:

"A challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind."

UPDATE: At the end of stage 6 Charlie is in 106th place David is 108th. Both are still in the race. Check for updates here.

Last year one of my riding friends Charlie Rauseo from San Francisco went to ride in the Dakar Rally. This year he returned again teamed up with his brother David.

The what?! The Dakar is a rally race that starts in Europe and heads down the west coast of Africa over the course of about 2 weeks. Here is what the Dakar web page says about how it all started (shaky translation from French):

"In 1977, racer Thierry Sabine gets lost in the Libyan desert whilst participating in the Abidjan-Nice Rally. Found in extremis he returns to France subjugated by the desert. He vows to share this passion with a maximum of people and has one objective in mind: to transport everyone into this immensity of sand.

He imagines a route starting in Europe, crossing the most mythical deserts and finishing in Dakar. The project takes shape quickly. The Paris-Dakar opens upon an unknown world in which Thierry Sabine appears like a real pioneer. Son credo is: "A challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind." Africa remains one of the continents people dream most about and which is multifaceted"

So this year the start was in Barcelona, and then it headed down to Granada then to Rabat in Morocco, Africa. Each day has a road section and a timed "special" section. In Europe the riding days can be short timed sections with long road connections.

Once the rally gets to Africa there can be long days and nights ahead. As an example stage 6 started in Samara, Western Sahara then headed to Zouerat, Mauritania. It was a total of about 390 miles, including a timed special of about 300 miles. Kind of like riding to LA but instead of I-5 riding sand dunes and rocks for most of the trip. Then you do that every day for 2 weeks.

The Dakar 2005 runs from Dec. 31 to Jan 16th. Here is an update on Charlie and his brother and their team, including another riding buddy of mine "Superbike" Mike Krynock.

David writes:

"Today was like a Mexico Baja vacation ride, but longer. Lots of rocks, and a few "chott" sections. (Chott is the word used in Tunisia for lakes that stays dry through the hot season, but which has some water in the winter.) Early on, I saw a Red Bull KTM all cracked up just after a big drop in the road. Charlie geared the bike for fast running, so I passed a few (many) riders on the flat ground, and quite a few in the rough. The bike seems to like to cruise at 172 kph, someone out there must have a calculator? " Yes we do David, hope your cruise at 102 mph was fun!

The following is taken from a diary entry from a member of their support crew Zoli.

"The second day did not have any competition but it was a travel day from Barcelona to Granada. It was 900k (560 mile) ride that took most of the day. On leaving Barcelona, we paraded through the streets to thousands of people. The wild thing about the ride down was that there were scores of people waving and rooting on every highway overpass on the route to Granada."

"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."

"The racers had a small special in Granada so they were behind us and had to wait for later ferries. Unfortunately for Charlie, his battery was dead so he had to go slow on the special. He made it down to Rabat but not until 10:00 at night with the other riders. 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 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."

" 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 and 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 toilets......... 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."

above: Mike and the mechanics somewhere in Africa