The first Dakar in South America is over. It was quite a difficult race, maybe as an over-response by the organizers to criticism that such a race not held in the Sahara can not really be a “Dakar” race. Well, it sure was. More than half the bikes and cars that started did not get to the finish line, including some of the top drivers and unfortunately also car #423 driven by yours truly and my partner Aviv Kadshay.

The scenery was amazing. To the East and to the South Argentina, with its big prairies, steppes, and deserts including some really tough dunes. To the West and to the North the amazingly beautiful Atacama Desert in Chile, with its pink granite mountains that give birth to some beautiful, very tall and very steep sand dunes. And in between the Andes where we had to cross the mountain range at altitudes of above 4,000 meters (~13,000 feet).

Every day the terrain was significantly different than the previous one. Competitors had to adjust their driving techniques. Some days the specials were just too demanding which led the organizers to shorten and even cancel specials. There were quite a lot of accidents as well. Since this is my first full scale Dakar (in retrospect the one we did in Central Europe was just a warm up) it is hard for me to compare, but to me it sure seemed that every day brought more news of competitors, mostly bikers, who were seriously injured and also some of the top drivers who had to drop from the race due to mechanical failures, sickness, and injuries. Tragically Pascal Terry, a French bike rider my age, somehow got lost and died on the 2nd special. But I am jumping ahead, so let’s start form the beginning:

Day 0, Buenos Aires:

On Friday eve, a day before the official start of the race, the competitors are asked to drive just a few kilometers in the streets and display the cars to the people of Buenos Aires. What was supposed to be a short ride turns into a very long and slow stroll. There are many, many thousands of people in the streets, cheering, shouting, wanting to touch the cars, and asking for autographs… amazing! Apparently motor sports are big in South America. The atmosphere is electrifying, and we feel like rock stars.

Beady who this year runs the assistance takes the rest of the Armony family in his truck and they receive the same love and admiration from the crowds that the competitors get.

Day 1, Buenos Aires to Santa Rosa:

It’s Saturday morning and we drive South West on fast, good roads to get to the start. I am driving and Aviv is co-pilot for the day. The course is on flat, very fast but super dusty dirt roads. We’re in the Pampas, so it still quite green around us, and there are people, a lot and lot of people, cheering and encouraging the competitors for hundreds of kilometers at every corner of the course.

We have a delay at the start so the official gives us a sign to start just seconds behind the car ahead of us, much less than the 30 seconds required. I press on but cannot see much, too much dust from the vehicle just ahead of me. Aviv is starting to get organized and is not yet fully in sync with the road book. Then, the dust clears and, while I am way too fast and a few seconds too late, I notice a 90 degrees turn to the right just ahead of me; in these critical fractions of a second I forget all my training, makes the wrong maneuver, and… we roll over one and a half times to land on our side. How embarrassing, less than 10 minutes in the first stage of the first day!

With the help of the spectators we put the car back on its wheels, fix some of the damage and within 8 minutes and with a smashed windscreen and bruised ego, we go on. There are quite a few cars in the ditches along the way, the fast route combined with the thick dust are more dangerous than many of us realize. Within minutes we notice Paul Green’s Desert Warrior laying smashed some 50 meters or so off the course. A helicopter landed by and we’re told that Paul and his co-pilot Mat are being evacuated to a hospital. Like us, they didn’t see a 90 degree turn ahead of them, but approached at a higher speed. It doesn’t look good at all, and the rumors are that both were hurt quite bad (see the damage Paul Green’s car above).

Still about 200 km to go, very dusty and narrow. Now the trucks start closing on us. You start sensing the vibration of their weight a few seconds before the loud buzzer in the cockpit goes off to signal that a truck is trying to overtake you. When that happens you really need to move, FAST, to the side of the road and let those monsters pass; easier said than done as there are irrigation ditches on both sides and I still cannot really see anything because of the dust. Apparently I didn’t clear the way fast enough for one truck, who doesn’t even slow down when it overtakes us and pushes us aside hard, its tires leave big smelly marks of melted rubber all over the desert warrior’s side.

My own rollover, Paul Green’s accident, and the close encounter with the truck all leave their mark on me and I finish the day quite shaken.

Day 2, Santa Rosa to Puerto Madryn:

The next day Aviv takes the steering wheel. Again it is very dusty and you cannot really see much, but today the track is also powdery in nature, what is called Fesh Fesh in Africa; it is very hard to get any traction on this stuff, you can get bogged down really quickly, and it also creeps into all systems: turbo chargers, clutches, breaks, etc., rendering them useless. As soon as we leave the starting point we see many cars stuck in the Fesh Fesh in all kinds of different angles, blocking the way; Aviv is undeterred, he leaves the main track and drives through the bush, cuts left and right, keeps the car moving at all times; this tactic works and we break away from the pack and off we go.

It is amazing to watch Aviv drive. He is a very experienced and talented off-road driver and it shows. Like yesterday we are constantly in a cloud of dust, but that doesn’t prevent him from driving very fast, attacking every turn, pushing the car to its limits, and also from overtaking a lot of other competitors who are visibly irritated by our aggressive driving this day.

All this driving makes a huge difference, and we are astounded to realize that we finished the day at the 30^th place, up from 150^th the day before. This is a huge achievement for an amateur team and for a car like ours, provided that the top 20 drivers or so are professional, seeded drivers who do those things for a living. We finish the day with a 500+ km drive on asphalt to Puerto Madryn, in the deep Argentinean south right on the Atlantic coast.

Getting in while there is still light, being the first in and thus allowing the mechanics to all swarm your car and give it their best, not to mention having the time to go to dinner and maybe even have a shower, is a huge advantage that I am starting to appreciate more and more. That was a great day!

Day 3, Puerto Madryn to Jacobacci:

Monday is the third day of the race. We start quite early due to yesterday’s performance. We find ourselves waiting our turn mostly among the top trucks. In the race there are trucks that are there to win, and other trucks that are listed as competitors but their real goal is to help the cars or bikes they are with. The true truck competitors are very, very fast. They may be slightly slower than the top car drivers, but certainly faster than all amateur car drivers like us. Due to their larger wheels they do not have to slow down for most obstacles, they just power through.

Today we enter Patagonia and the course is made up of very different terrains. We start on a very fast, firm dirt road, where we push the car to its limit of about 145 km/hr. After 100 km or so the terrain turns into nasty Fash Fash which slows us down and causes the engine to heat to dangerously high temperatures. Then very fast dirt roads again, then we get into the mountains where it is rocky, lots of water damage on the tracks, some dry river crossings; it is very challenging but lots of fun. Aviv drives today and he is doing great, despite actually losing our brakes for the last 200 km and not having a 5^th gear as well.

Again we get early into camp, which gives the mechanics plenty of time to work on the car. There is a lot of work tonight, as they need to replace the whole gear box (see Beady to the left,Henky with the gear box to the right, and Turbo with the brake at the  bottom). This extra time in camp gives me a whole new perspective on how difficult is to be a mechanic in a race like this. They start working when the first car gets in, typically late afternoon, and don’t stop until early in the morning, maybe 4 or 6AM. Then there is no time to sleep, they have to get into their own vehicles and make the hundreds of kilometers to the next camp. Imagine having this schedule for days and days, and still being asked to practically perform miracles for the competitors who completely rack their cars during the day. Many of the jobs done here in a couple of hours often after midnight, such as replacing gears, clutches, parts of the power train, etc., are jobs that in a normal garage will take days or weeks and will cost you thousands of dollars.

Day 4, Jacobacci to Neuquen:

The sun raises, it is the 4^th day of the race (therefore it must be Tuesday, right? We lose count of the dates), and we are ready to start pulling north. We’re still in northern Patagonia, and we will have the snow capped peaks of the Andes to our left/west for most of the day. We’re still going fast amid sections of Fesh Fesh, wet prairies, dried up steppes, and some sections of real sand and small dunes.

A couple of punctures slow us down, and then to our amazement we notice our rear-left wheel gets loose and flies through the air to land a hundred meters or so ahead of us. Aviv manages to stop safely, a couple of local spectators help us find the wheel, and with wheel nuts we unscrew from the remaining three wheels we proceed. We drive less than 10 kilometers, and the same wheel gets loose again, and again flies forward and forces us to make an emergency landing. Again locals provide much appreciated help, and again we have to take wheel nuts from the other wheels to put it back in its place. Now each wheel only has three wheel nuts (vs. the five it’s supposed to have), so we need to drive quite carefully to the finish. With mechanical problems accumulating over the last two days we’re down to place 50 or so, still very respectable for an amateur team and we are quite pleased.

Day 5: Neuquen to San Rafael:

After driving a couple of hundreds of kilometers on asphalt we are about to start day 5 of the race when we notice oil leaking from the rear left wheel, the same wheel we had a brake problems with and also the same one we lost twice the previous day and had some work done on it the prior night. Aviv’s mechanical knowledge comes handy and he notices that the O-Ring that was supposed to seal the bearing is missing. We have 15 minutes until the start, so we frantically start working. We have to dismantle the wheel and the brake to get to the bearing; then, MacGyver style, Aviv improvises with some glues and a piece of plastic he finds somewhere to create his best imitation of an O-Ring. It ain’t pretty but it will have to do, no time, just put everything together again and rush to the start, which we make just in time and off we go.

Fesh Fesh and rocks off the start; many cars stuck including some top drivers; we cut left and right, run over bushes and small trees, just keep the momentum going. Very tough driving, tough terrain; the Fesh Fesh is bad by itself, but what really kills you are the rocks buried in the Fesh Fesh that will give you a puncture in no time at best, or will twist an axle or a radius arm at worse.

Ahead of us we see what appears to be a particularly thick flume of dust; as we get nearer we realize it is actually some thick smoke, a car must be on fire! Apparently a buggy stopped on the track in a cloud of dust, and a truck who didn’t have a chance to see it hit it hard right at the back where the engine and the gasoline fuel tank are; fire broke instantly and with the two vehicles entangled the crew had no choice but to jump out and watch the two vehicles burn to the ground. Luckily no one was hurt.

We push on. Very difficult day with multiple punctures but we’re doing very well so we are optimistic. Sometimes in the afternoon, after doing about 400 km and while in a fast, wide right-hand turn, Aviv loses control and the car smashes into a wall. We’re unhurt, and realize that again we lost a wheel while driving, this time it was the front left wheel. Local spectators help us look for it among the tall vegetation and the water (the track is along a stream). Because of earlier punctures we have no spare wheels so we have to find it. Finally a local guy finds the wheel, almost 200 meters ahead… we put it back in place, assess the damage and off we go. Because of the crash we lose the whole left-hand front of the body including the left lights, something that right now seems minor but will prove crucial as the day progresses.

After driving some 500 km and with only 50 km to go, we get into the dunes late, practically at dusk; to make things worse there are dark clouds above us which further limits the visibility, we have no lights, and it starts raining. The dunes are surprisingly difficult. We drop the air pressure to below one Bar and push on. The Desert Warrior is supposed to be a superior vehicle for this type of terrain. But if we are having such a tough time, what will happen to the rest of the cars? I have a bad feeling about this one.

Now it is pitch dark, we successfully complete the first leg of the dunes and turn north-west to complete the second and last leg. Unlike on tracks where navigation is very precise and typically I now where we are within a 10 meters tolerance, navigating in the dunes is not a precise science. There are no tracks, and you often have to turn around and make wide circles to avoid the more difficult dunes. This is doable in day light where you can see the distant landmarks that appear in the road book. It doesn’t really work at night, and we slowly drift away from the main course. It is a very dark night, and we pay a price for having lost half our lights in the earlier accident.

After an hour or so we realize that we are about 1 km east of the main course, so we decide to cut across the bush in hopes to join the main track. At one point Aviv hit the brakes hard as he senses we are about to fall into a canyon, and quickly turns very hard to the right. However, to our right there is a steep ravine, and we slide right into it head first. This is bad, real bad. Time to stop the engine, get out and assess the situation.

We realize that in the dark as we were trying to cut across, we actually started to climb a mountain. There are many narrow ravines and canyons that run from the pick to the plateau below, and we fell into one of them. The ground is very soft, more sand than dirt. The ravine is so narrow we won’t be able to just drive out, even if we somehow get the car to its bottom. The GPS tells us we are just 5 km (after driving 545 km!) from the end, what a disaster!

It is 9 PM. What comes next are 7 hours of digging with shovels to somehow make room for the car at the bottom of the ravine; long hours of back and forth with the car, in which we manage to get stuck in the sand and get it unstuck countless times; in the process we manage to bend our hydraulic jack and to break our spare mechanical one; we are covered in sand, diesel and hydraulic oil, we are thirsty and exhausted; it is 4 AM, and in 7 hours of work we moved the car only 4 meters… it is not looking good at all and the thought begins to dawn on us that we might be out of the race. It is now freezing cold. We decide to pitch a tent, find cover under our emergency blankets and collapse for a couple of hours of sleep.

Day 6, San Rafael to Mendoza:

Today the race moves on from San Rafael to Mendoza. As much as we are exhausted and beaten, we are delighted to find out that the start point of day 6^th is the same finish point of day 5^th, meaning we are only 5 km away from the start. Also, we realize that our fate was not unique: of about 40 cars or so that went into the dunes last night, about 30-35 got stuck. When the organizers realized that, they diverted the majority of the cars and trucks around the dunes, straight to the finish. Which means that officially we did finish day 5, and, if we can somehow get the car out of that ravine and make it to the start, we might be back in business!

1^st attempt: In the morning Aviv climbs to the top of the mountain just above us and surprise, surprise, he comes right back with 3 enthusiastic bikers who came to watch the race. With their help and renewed energy we make some progress, but not a lot. We also manage to get a tire of the rim, which is not a good thing provided we have no spares We also notice we have a front shaft broken which means we only had rear wheel drive. We need to go get a vehicle to pull us out of that mess, so I hitchhike with the bikers to the nearest village, where the start is, to see if I can find something.

2^nd attempt: near the start I meet Paul and the rest of the Rally Raid UK crew; very happy to see them; we realize today’s course will go very near where we got stuck last night, so it makes sense for our T4 truck to try and help us. We are excited, this should work and we might actually be able to make to the start! But hours pass by and the T4 fails to get to where we are. Back to the village, the truck leaves us there, frustrated. It is already 4 PM and our hope to be back in the race is quickly fading away.

3^rd attempt: within minutes from being dropped at the village center we find a very nice local guy and his Jeep. He helps us find a Gomeria: a garage to fix the flat tire and to get some diesel. We start towards the dunes at round 6:00 PM in his old Jeep. At dusk we get there, find our car, and we feel real good, we’re almost there! All is set, but then when the car changes position with its nose up, we run out of diesel… it seems that the odds are stacked against us, no lucky breaks at all! By 10:00 PM we give up and start driving back towards to village. But now we lose our way and spend the next six hours driving in circle in the dunes… we fill terrible about Wilson who just volunteered to help for a couple of hours, and ended up having to spend the whole night out in the freezing desert with his two young kids and us… morale is now really low, we realize we definitely missed our chance to join the race in day 6, as day 7 arrives…

Day 7, Mendoza to Valparaiso:

Today the race continues from Mendoza in Argentina to Valparaiso, Chile, but we are still stuck in the sands some 800 km to the South. We spent the last day and a half trying to get the car out of the ravine, no food at all and not much water, and so far no luck.

4^th attempt: back at the village with dawn; I find a bunch of young and enthusiastic guys who came all the way from Rosario (a 1,000 km away) to play with their motorcycles in the dunes. It doesn’t take much to convince them to come help us out with their Landrover; we get more diesel from the gas station, and an extra 20 litters from Hans Stacey, the famous truck driver who won the last Dakar and the last Transorientale, and is now stuck in the sand. We get back to our car; get back to work with renewed energy, and with some digging and some pulling, finally after 36 hours, success!!!! With a roar the Landrover pulls our car out of the ravine and we’re in business!

The folks Rosario: Diego, Matias, Gonzalo, and Joaquin who got us out of the ravine.

We drive 800 km over the Andes and into Chile, to catch up with the Rally Raid team in Valparaiso on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Day 8: Rest day in Valparaiso;

After a week of competition we all got a day of rest; which is used to rebuild some of the cars and wash our dirty overalls. As always the mechanics get no rest, they have even more work then usual, at least they do not need to drive today.

Our hopes are still high as we now realize how many competitors got stuck on days 5 & 6 just like we did. The organizers promise to look into the situation. After about 9 hours of deliberations and with our hopes that go up and down like a roller-coaster, the verdict is out: they came up with a new rule that allows competitors who missed either day 6 or day 7 go back into the race. So of the 35 cars in question, 14 can go back in the race, 21 cannot. Unfortunately we didn’t make the cut. This race is over for us.

Day 9 and beyond:

We are very frustrated to be out of the race after all the work we put into getting ourselves out of that ravine, and with a car that is actually in good racing condition.

The race goes on and we manage to get a press pass, which allows us to go anywhere we want to go, including the actual race track. We take full advantage of this, because unlike most journalists our car can actually go into the most difficult terrain. When the race leaves the Atacama desert and heads back to Argentina I catch a flight back to Boston via Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires, back to the snow and ice of New England. Aviv stays with the race all the way back to Buenos Aires to fulfill his journalistic duties. Here are some great pictures Aviv took along the last few days:

Pics of Bikers in the Atacama Desert:

 Mark Coma, the 2009 Dakar winner, makes a tight turn on day 13th:

The 2009 Dakar will be held in South America from Jan 3rd to 18th.  It is 6,000 miles (10,000 km) and 15 days from Buenos Aires, through the Pampas, Patagonia, over the Andes to Chile, and then up the Pacific Coast to the Atacama desert and over the Andes again back to Buenos Aires.

As you recall last year’s race in Africa was canceled due to a terror threat, just hours before the start.  So this year the organizers felt it is still not safe to go back to Africa, and came up with a new and exciting route in South America instead.  We do not know much about the terrain; supposedly there is quite a lot of desert and sand, not sure how much of that is true dunes like in Africa, but I am sure it will be spectacular.  it is also going to be VERY long, many days are of 700 and 800 km… brutal.

I will be driving the same car I drove in the Central European Rally.  The car of course had to go through some serious repair and overhaul after what Nadav and I did to it in Romania.  But it drives well and it looks great, here is how it looked earlier this week in Le Havre, France, where the race vehicles were loaded on a ship leaving for Buenos Aires.

With me this year is Aviv Kadshai.  Aviv is a very experienced rally driver, having participated in the Dakar twice (once on a bike, the other in a car) and finished twice!  He also finished the Pharos rally in Egypt, a European Rally, and participated several times in Baja races in the US.  I am lucky to have Aviv with me and hope to learn a lot from him. 

So here is a short video to give you a sense of the terrain:

Days 5, 6, and 7 are done in the Veszprem area, more or less the same track, each day about 210 km of dirt roads; it is pretty fast going but every once in a while it gets very bumpy, the car gets airborne, and you have to slow down else…. On Day 5 Robby Gordon was doing very well and had a chance of winning the stage but broke his rear wheel bearing due to the bumps and lost a full hour fixing it.

The 6th day starts very well for us, we have more confidence and the events of Day 2 are all but forgotten.  The end is in sight and we are starting to think we might actually finish this race. But only 18 km into the stage Nadav is going quite fast on a hard-surfaced, bumpy track.   He gets into a 90 degree left turn and halfway into the turn we both realize we are too fast.  The deep ruts, left by the cars and trucks over the last three days pretty much dictate the car’s trajectory in the turn.  the Desert Warrior is sliding through the turn with both left wheels in the air… for a split second we think we might pull it off, but… the car rolls over, rather slowly, it seems, on its right hand side, won’t stop because of the momentum, until it ends on its roof, 4 wheels in the air…

We are hung by our harness, feet up, helmets pushed against the roof.  Very odd feeling, the air is filled with debris as if a bomb just went off, you can see some engine oil dripping on the smashed windscreen, but it drips in what seems like gravity deifying direction, from the hood to the roof.  It is all a bit surrealistic and hard to believe that, so close to the finish line, we might have just ended our journey.  

A few seconds to catch our breath, to realize we are both well and unharmed, and now open the latch that holds the harness, drop on your head/helmet, and push through the crashed door out.  

A bunch of spectators who strategically picked this turn help us to our feet.  Important lesson: whenever you see spectator near the track, slow down! they are there for the drama, and we just supplied that to them in spades! 

But they are very helpful and energetic and help us roll the car back to its wheels.  As the rest of the cars and then the truck zoom by, throwing clumps of dirt into the air and almost roll over in the very same turn, we try to put the car back into shape; the air snorkel is completely smashed so I just cut it off and leave it there.  the windscreen is broken but seems to hold together (we put goggles on in case it will break as we drive); duct tape is used liberally on many fiberglass panels, but other than that not much harm done, the engine starts so we are back in the game!

Quite shaken and a bit sore from the accident (mostly where the harness held us) we limp into camp, an hour later than our closets competitors, but still in the race.

The whole crew kicks into action, replacing the windscreen, applying duct tape on each and every panel to hold the car together, refilling a whole bunch of fluids, and, within what seems like just a few minutes, we are ready for the second special of the day.  We are sure to drive much, much slower now.  Our motto from now on: “get home safe with us and the car in one piece”.   Two close calls in one short race is more than enough for first-time amateurs

And so we make it through the rest of Day 6 and Day 7 without any further drama, and the podium at Lake Balaton is a bit anti-climatic.  Still, we made it through our first rally race!  We are ranked 53 out of 55 cars that finished, and ahead of 39 that didn’t finish. 

So…, until next time, Arrivederci!

This was the longest day of the rally, 580 km. After a long liaison we arrive earlier than expected to the start at Dabas, so we have a chance to talk to the top drivers who just start to assemble there.

Milly, Beady and Nadav chat with Giniel De Villiers, a top VW driver from South Africa who is currently at 2nd place and has a good chance to win.  De Villiers went on to win the first special of Day 4.  See him flying on the course (#203) a few minutes after we talked, and then check out the video at the end of this entry, to see what happened to him the next day…

De Villiers chats with Nasser Al Attiyah (#205), a really nice fellow and the top BMW driver from Qatar, currently ranked #4.   Al Attiyah will also have a good day, he will win the second special of the day.

Luc Alphand (above, #202) is one of the top Mitsubishi drivers.  He will finish Day 4 ranked #5 overall.  Here, he sticks a snail that he found on the ground to Nasser Al Attiyah’s windscreen… joke not withstanding, Al Attiyah did better than Alphand that day

Robby Gordon is yet to win a Dakar, and so far is doing well but not great in this race (will finished the day ranked #4), but he is by far the most popular driver and draws the most attention.  The “Hummer” he drives has huge vertical travel, Robby gets a lot of “air” and the crowed just loves that.   As I mentioned in a prior entry, we owe a lot to Robby’s race support truck team who towed us out of Day 2 special into camp.

While the top drivers get the most attention, to me the real heroes of the rally are definitely the mechanics.  Often times they are volunteers who have to pay their own airfare just to get to the event, they work very late into the night/early morning to put the cars, that the drivers absolutely abuse, back in top shape and in time for the start the next day.  Then they drive all day to get to the next camp, immediately start working on the cars, and seem to never get any sleep.

Lubo “Turbo” (left) is with Rally Raid UK and works mostly on our car; Turbo came from neighboring Slovenia and happens to speak Hungarian, a great help in this race.  To his right is Pete who works on Paul Green’s car, all night and all day, it seems.

Henky joins Rally Raid UK from Amsterdam.  In “real life” he is a mechanic for Ford in the Netherlands. He worked on the Desert Warrior in Dakar and other races.  Henky works mostly on our car.  Without Henky and Turbo’s effort there is no way we could have finished this race.  Thanks a lot, guys!!!

As promised, here is a video from Day 5.  Watch (1:25 into the segment) what happens to Giniel De Villiers who until that point was ranked #3 in the race, just 2:56 minutes behind the leader:

After a long night drive and a border crossing to Romania we end up at the town of Baia Mare.

Beautiful sunny weather, the competitors are more relaxed and are ready for the second day of about 140 km specials in the hills above Baia Mare. 

Here are some of the Rally Raid UK team members relaxing before the start (from left): Milly Jones (who is co-pilot for her husband Beady Jones), Paul Green who drives car #240, Mark Eland his co-pilot, and Chris Hammond who is co-pilot for Ian Rochelle.

As we are waiting for the special to start, Nadav is chatting with a Romanian farmer; Nadav speaks Italian, and apparently Italian and Romanian are quite similar; clue: this will prove extremely important as the day progresses..

We kick off and are immediately launched into a mountainous terrain with narrow twisty dirt roads, mostly logging trails, barely the width of a car; it rained last night so the route is muddy, slippery, with quite a lot of snow on the sides; the ground is rocky and the inclines and declines are very steep; the Dessert Warrior is not built for this kind of terrain, but we are having a lot of fun and slowly gaining confidence.  A few cars pass us but then we are able to overtake a couple of others; there are already quite a few cars overturned by the roadside but we pay no attention and plow forward.

After about 40 km I find myself going a bit too fast on a narrow flat track with a river in a deep ravine running alongside. The car jumps with all 4 wheels in the air, lands a bit diagonally to the track, loses traction, spins, and stops on river the bank.  The car is barely balanced, undecided whether it wants to stay on the track or fall 18 feet into the ravine, but the rear wheels still have some traction.

While we are scrambling out of the cabin and trying to think what to do, one of the competitors stops by and offers to pull us out of this risky situation with a towing rope.   Bad decision… our car is perpendicular to the track, the other car has to stay on the track and pull along the track… had I paid more attention in physics 101 I could have guessed what’s next… before we know it, our car loses the little traction it still had, and plunged into the river head first….

By some miracle is stays vertical and doesn’t flip into the water… no way we can pull it out now.  Hours pass by, and even Michel who drives our race support truck cannot offer much help given the narrow track.  The last cars and trucks of the race pass by, and we are on our own, alone, in the middle of the Romanian forest.  What to do?

We vaguely recall seeing some sort of a camp with workers up stream where we came from.  Nadav volunteers to go talk to them.  I am skeptical, this is a pretty problematic situation, probably needs some heavy machinery, not to mention the language barrier..   However, within an hour he returns victorious, with a bunch of Romanian loggers.  Remember the old lady at the start of the day? Since Italian and Romanian are quite close, Nadav is able to explain to them our predicament, and they just happen to have a logging tractor.  It is ancient but perfect for the job; before we know it they place it on the track above our poor car, hook up two winches for balance, and… we our out of the water and back in business! 

The car won’t start (the battery was damaged in the fall) but other than that all systems seem functional.  Luckily, Robby Gordon’s race support truck is still behind us, and the guys agree to tow us back to camp.  Our crew replaces the battery, refills a little bit of engine oil and we are ready to go!

What a day!  We had more luck than smarts, and many other competitors had to give up that day.  Watch the day’s video, and if you pay close attention towards the end of the segment you will see us with the desert warrior that went for a swim…

After a quick scrutiny/check-in process in Budapest and some flattering attention from the locals (Hungarian cowgirls? who would have thought) , we are off to the first day of racing.  A pleasant liaison drive from Budapest to the first special, the crowd is cheering. So far so good. 

But then we get to the special and everything starts happening way too fast: we rush to the starting line to make our designated start time, not really comfortable yet with our seats, helmets, gloves, and harnesses, and before we know it the official at the start line counts with the fingers of one hand: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and go!  I’m driving the first day and Nadav is the navigator; really rough terrain, very tight corners, very bumpy; super narrow tracks, trees and bushes on both sides; mud, murky windshield, washer doesn’t work well; we never drove in a course like this before, much different than the Moroccan sand dunes; not sure that I have complete control of the car and want to go slower, especially after seeing a car overturned on its side and the driver laying on the ground, trying not to move and obviously in serious pain; see a video of the first stage to get a sense for the track:

But then a very loud buzzer goes off in our cabin and we are being overtaken time and time again by faster drivers; concerned that pretty soon the gigantic trucks will show up and will force us off the track we pick up speed, intense concentration, and somehow in a blur finish the 60km of the first special…

Wow… both of us sweat bullets and breath hard; huge relief, we survived the first special, and even moved up the ranking from 81st to 52nd place!!! It feels so good we don’t even notice that we broke the front differential shaft and probably didn’t have front wheel drive for most of the special…  

Now the awesome team of Rally Raid UK mechanics jumps into action and in no time the car  is serviceable again.  We are off to a 400+ km liaison to Baia Mare, Romania.

Nadav and I are back in the saddle, just competed the Central European Rally that took place last week in Hungary and Romania.  This was a make-up event that the Dakar organizers put together after the 2008 Lisbon-Dakar race was canceled due to terrorism threats.

While it wasn’t the Dakar in terms of terrain, landscapes, and length, it was a great event that attracted most of the top professional teams and more than half of the competitors who registered for the Lisbon-Dakar race.  Some 130 bikes and quads, 92 cars, and 40 trucks started the race on Sunday in Budapest, Hungary.   Relatively speaking it was not a long event (2,600 km overall and only 1,100 km of off-road sections), but it was quite brutal and a lot of competitors, including some of the top drivers, had to drop out.  Within the car category only 55 cars got the the finish line at Lake Balaton, Hungary, and much to our surprise Nadav and I were among them! So while we were not exactly a direct threat to Carlos Sainz who won the race (we finished 53 out of 55 cars),  still we were ahead of almost 40 other competitors who didn’t finish, so it felt GREAT! 

Overall the Desert Warriors did really well in this rally.  Of the 8 that started the race, one retired the first day with a fully functioning car, and the other 7 managed to complete the race.   Not that the vehicles didn’t have problems: in our team we had to replace a broken axle, broken differential shaft, a full set of shock absorbers, clutch bearing, steering wheel pump and brakes just to name a few.  But because the car is designed for simple repair and maintenance, our mechanics (who are the real heroes behind this sport ) were able to get each and every Desert Warrior back into service within hours or even minutes and allowed us drivers to complete the race despite all the abuse and punishment we inflicted upon the cars. 

Over the next few days I will try to tell the story of our race by the different days.  But just to give you a taste, see how our 2nd day ended (no, it is not Photoshop ).

So it is starting to sink in, there won’t be a Dakar rally this year, and it is not clear whether there will be another one in the coming years, at least not in the same format of North-African countries, scale and scope, etc.

Nadav and I are going to put our heads together and figure out what race/races we can do in 2008 instead of the Dakar.  So I won’t be writing much in the next few months until we figure out what’s next.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from Lisbon, where until Friday morning was a the scene of a huge, adrenalin-filled gathering of hundreds of drivers & mechanics, and hundreds of thousands of rally enthusiasts and desert lovers.  Hope to see everyone again next year!

Cars & trucks checked by the officials before acceptance into the race:

The CRV car, proudly features some of the technology startups we invest in:

You can learn  more about those startups’ products and services by going to CRV, or directly at: Vlingo, iSkoot, Virtusa, Geni, ThinkFire, Optaros, Gridstone Research, BusRadio, Intellectual Ventures, July Systems, Twitter, Eons, Maxthon, and Groove Mobile.

All ready to go: our car, one of our team’s 4×4 race support trucks, and an assistant support vehicle:

And this sums up our attitude re our own navigation capabilities:

Lots of sad, devastated faces today here in Lisbon.  The Dakar was abruptly cancelled, with only 18 hours to go until the race’s kickoff tomorrow. 

In their press release (http://www.dakar.com/indexus.html) the organizers point to specific threats from Al Qaeda that led the French government to issue a travel ban on French citizens traveling to Mauritania.  That led to the withdrawal of some of the big teams from the race, the insurance coverage was revoked,  etc.

As some of you know last week a family of 4 French tourists was brutally murdered in Mauritania; initially it was thought to be an armed robbery gone wrong; according to the rumor mill here in Lisbon, one of the perpetrators was caught, and turned out to be an Al Qaeda operative armed with an AK47, some explosives, satellite phone, etc.  Again, according to local rumors, his interrogation led to the belief that there is an active cell and an active plot to attack the rally when it arrives in Mauritania.  It appears that in response to the news/rumors, Morocco now has also closed its borders and the Dakar has no where to go.

Huge dilemma for the organizers: hundreds of competitors have waited for this moment, some of them most of their adult lives; people have used their life savings, mortgaged their homes, finagled money from sponsors, just to be able participate in this event; countries like Mauritania and Senegal, and to a lesser extent Morocco, depend on the Dakar as a major source of income, not to mention millions (hundreds of?) in committed but lost advertising Euros…  But on the other hand it seems that the threat is indeed real, and it is absolutely impossible to defend a soft target such as this rally, especially in the wilderness of the Sahara, from an elusive threat like this.

You have to wonder, though, about the wisdom of giving in to terrorism: a terrorist’s goal is not necessarily to kill the enemy (that will be us) but rather to terrorize the civilian population and disturb the normal course of life.  In that respect Al Qaeda won a major victory today, whether or not there was actually a plot, and whether or not they are behind it.  

 Like everyone else here we are devastated.  “The rug being pulled from underneath your feet”, or “being kicked in the gut” are relevant descriptions of how we feel right now.

We hope to be able to participate in the 2009 Dakar (assuming there will be one?), and will keep you posted when we have more news and more clarity about our next steps.

As you saw in the video highlights from last year’s Dakar (three posts ago), even the pros find it hard not to get stuck in the sand dunes.  No matter how fast you are on hard surfaces, the sand will get you.  And this year we have extra sand, most of the Dakar will take place in Mauritania, which is mostly dunes.  This beauty was taken in Marzuga, Morocco:

The Desert Warrior is optimized to drive on sand: it is very light to begin with, and by operating on diesel it carries less fuel (about 200 kg); when you get to the dunes you need to deflate the tiers, to about 1 bar, so the tier flattens out and has better grip.   The Desert Warrior has separate front and rear differential locks, pneumatically activated by the driver. But then you still need to be able to read the terrain, to know from which direction the wind blows , and how to cross the dunes.

Egg Cartons in the Dessert

Think of sand dunes as a (soft) egg carton: a series of bowls, each bowl is surrounded by ridges.  The bottom of the bowl is flat and firmer to drive on, the ridges are steep and soft.                                              You got to drive over a ridge to get to the next dune.  Most times you cannot drive on the ridge line itself (too narrow, you will roll over), and you cannot just drive straight up to the ridge: you will lose too much momentum (too steep, too soft) and get stuck in no time. 

What to do, then? When we trained in Morocco Paul and Beady showed us a technique they use to drive over dunes.   It is very effective, and, believe him or not, Martin claims that in their 2007 Dakar he and Paul didn’t have to shovel themselves out of the sand even once.

Dune Surfing

What you do is try to “surf” the dune.  When you’re at the bottom of the bowl, drive around in circles and gather as much speed as you can; with more speed you build momentum that allows you to get higher on the dune’s ridge, about 2/3 of the way up; but you drive parallel to the ridge, not perpendicular.  Once you have enough momentum and you’re high enough, lift your head and look for a crossing spot, typically a lower saddle between two peaks (remember the egg carton?).  Keep your momentum to get to the ridge line, and as you crest the ridge, immediately lift your foot from the accelerator, brake gently, and pick your route into, and out of, the next bowl.  As you descend into the next bowl you build up momentum, and so forth for the next 200 miles

Check out this slide-show to get a sense of what I’m talking about:

This “surfing” technique is very effective and fun, once you get it.  It doesn’t always work, though, as the sand may be too soft, the dune too steep, or you just don’t have enough speed; remember that you can always trade-off height for speed (for those of you who are pilots, I’m sure you get exactly what I’m talking about).   so, if you find yourself on the ridge, your momentum just died, and you feel you will get stuck in the sand any second now, just turn your steering wheel towards the bottom of the bowl, and accelerate (that’s right) downwards; with enough speed and a bit of luck, by the time you get to the bottom you have enough momentum to start the maneuver all over again (and if it didn’t work, well, start digging!).

See how Nadav gets out of a messy situation after he got the the top of the ridge but lost all his momentum (there may be a bug here; if this window doesn’t show a slideshow, just click on the “x” mark on the top right corner):

BTW, both slides shows where created by Slide.com.  I’d be interested in your comments, which style did you like best, the “Slide Show” or the “8 mm”?  Let me know by leaving a comment on this post.