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It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  The Dakar Rally!  Get ready because it starts on Saturday!  It’s again in Saudi Arabia so by reading this post you are helping sportswash a regime with a pretty bad humanitarian record. I still love the race itself and by once again acknowledging the sportswashing we’re all now morally absolved of any participation in it. Right? But the US does bad things too? The british empire? No, one bad action doesn't justify other bad actions? I have a tough time with this and you should too. It happens all over and I think the very least we can do is be thoughtful about when it happens and how we react to it.  I only care about bikes but I'm trying to include other vehicles because I like the race a lot and there are also trucks which I love and I hope you read this and also love the race. gently caress you, cars. SxS and quads, you're dead to me. just kidding, I love all of you  Dakar is a rally. You have to follow a roadbook. It's... difficult. At least cars and trucks get navigators to read these pretty pictures.  If you read the pictures wrong it is bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xbnMXv9YNQ Red Bull has a really good set of get hyped about dakar videos. You should watch all of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcxen96vSOo Last year, Kevin Benavides became the first south american to win the dakar on a bike and Honda continued their interruption of KTM's run of dominance with a streak of their own. Two in a row! KTM promptly stole Benavides (probably because his parents own a KTM dealership and he's wanted to be a factory KTM rider since he was a little boy). There's been some movement among the top teams, so let's take a look. https://rustsports.com/dakar-2022-whos-going-to-win/ Honda On team red, there's Ricky Brabec, american hero and the man whose life Talladega Nights was loosely based on. Nacho Cornejo whose nickname is Nacho. Bang bang barreda who is super fast and SUPER GOOD at crashing. Finally, male model Pablo Quintanilla  who's switched from Husqvarna to Honda to make room for our hero.  KTM KTM has three teams. KTM, Husqvarna and Gas Gas. We only care about one though. Husqvarna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSkvAYPjYdE Skyler Howes.  You should root for Skyler Howes because he has a great story. Last year he raced Dakar for the second time. It's expensive to race Dakar and the dude worked as tech support for a company that makes bling for dirt bikes. So he had to sell everything he owned including his truck to get the money to race. He came home with basically nothing (someone lent him a mountain bike so he could keep training and ride to work) after finishing fifth. And then... he got the call and now he's a factory rider. Nobody cares about the rest of the husky team. But if you did it'd be Luciano Benavides, Kevin Benavides's brother. KTM On KTM we have bush mechanic Toby Price. He fixed a tire with zip ties and rode hundreds of miles on it and is generally awesome and hilarious. Also, he's very fast. And famous (if you listen to a bunch of podcasts and follow along throughout the year) for doing things like looking for folks on tinder when he's in the middle of a bivouac a hundred miles from the nearest town. Also, he has a mullet.  God, look how beautiful that mullet is. https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/watch/1981966403705 Then we have weird looking dude and Austrian so he's never getting fired from KTM and is also supposedly an amazing test rider and oh yeah he won a dakar, Matthias Walkner.  Last, but not least, Gas Gas https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2948614402059640 Which has Daniel Sanders, an Australian who is 100% going to win a Dakar at some point because holy poo poo he is just so fast.  https://www.speedcafe.com/2021/12/10/video-sanders-pathway-to-dakar/ (I love the "Note: Video contains coarse language.") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfuu4Z0BjyQ And Sam "win it or bin it" Sunderland who is british and, guess what, also won a Dakar. If you're counting along at home, that's Price, Walkner, Sunderland and Benavides who have all won a dakar riding for KTM and on Honda you have... RICKY BRABEC. Who used to be a 300lb roofer (seriously) and then got serious about racing. He's said one of his advantages is that his body is used to eating garbage because he wasn't always an elite athlete so he deals better with eating bivouac food for three weeks. Anyway, I'm obviously torn so am just rooting for everyone. OK, that's the teams that are contenders. And then there's Yamaha, winner of our hearts. With famous wheelieing Frenchman Adrien van Beveren. His brain is very simple. It has only two commands. 1. If motorcycle, then fast. 2. If helicopter, then wheelie.  https://www.instagram.com/p/CXMKfdMIukN/ And American Hero, Andrew Short who is faster on a motorcycle with no rear tire than you are on anything else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDfBOHDgBPM Danilo Petrucci just retired from motogp and is racing Dakar. He will be fast and then probably crash.  Because he's only a motogp rider and not an F1 driver. Who would never cra... kimi? you OK?  Dakar is dangerous. This is CS Santosh, best Indian rider ever and very good pro rider. This is just brutal to watch and hear him talk about, but it's good to see him doing a lot better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWl1GpJ5AOo This is the best page for results. http://trackingdakar.com/en/stage-1/bikes/waypoints/ You can look at the official Dakar YouTube channel and Redbull should have decent coverage this year, otherwise I’ll probably post some more pictures every few days because I like it a lot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_wma4-889E There are also cars. Yup, this picture is from testing. Spend like 500k to get here and then, RIP.  Nasser in his toyota is going to win this year because the 4wd cars can have slightly bigger tires[citation needed? I swear I read this somewhere] which will let them go faster and put down more torques. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FidPPFOGwQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcqsRCkusMs Because of the increased tor... hahaha just kidding. It's going to be Peterhansel again. Despite racing this year in the most interesting thing to happen in the cars category, Audi's new hybrid electric buggy, Peterhansel is still the best ever. It's not really a debate, like it might be in other sports. Just fact. https://www.nenroll-nenroll.com/stephane-peterhansel-before-the-dakar-2022-a-challenge-that-is-right-for-me/1423192021/ (Nasser really is the favorite this year, but it'll be interesting to see if Peterhansel being literally the best ever can compensate for the new entry). https://twitter.com/i/status/1476161080233627649 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvapEU5r39M    Audi seems pretty serious about this so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.  No sound for the first minute but then you can hear it again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wBLL8quafM They also have Carlos Sainz, who's won the Dakar as well. He's pretty good at driving, I heard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq0CxZ7Getw Back to Toyota, you can use closed captions on this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW-8CDpQ9Pg This team is not as good as Toyota (or probably Audi since they have zero Stephan Peterhansel and Audi has one (1) Peterhansel). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbe60P8JZR4 Sebastien Loeb is also competing. He is not my favorite, but I like the sound of his car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUMj63VUz08 Compare to the Toyota. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKQHL83lZA There is also a ford. It will not win. The retractable side stand at 1:32 is awesome though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM21cL_LI0M Supposedly this video is about tires, but... looks just like video to me? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzzvZyubH0Q Molto bene indeed. (CC with auto translate again... but some great raw footage) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEWALVNclvQ Last, but not least, trucks!  The most important thing to remember about trucks? loving kamaz. (3m12s in) https://youtu.be/3NP41lLs9ZQ  Look how easy the terrain is for the trucks compared to the bikes and cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x84juglO7pM It's good Iveco is having fun before they lose to Kamaz.    Seriously, Kamaz is so good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbWJLqtGAMU builds character fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 18:11
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honda whisperer posted:Thanks for doing this. It was very cool last year. I'm glad you enjoy it. It's a great race and such a pain to follow along without something like this but I feel like it deserves more attention. Maybe someday it'll get its own netflix show! Supradog posted:I know last year(or was that 2 years ago, drat COVID) there where some ytube channels with some coverage of the Dakar. But ive apperantly pruned them or they're not active anymore. Redbull is currently the best and this series is a really nice warmup. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE6DWjoc4itosuazhI7xWuxR6nSjp9gCf But everything is the day/evening after. Following along live is tough. I'll probably look at both of these from time to time as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hashtag?dakar2022 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hashtag?dakarrally France channel 4 is the best same day stuff but I don't speak french. I'll definitely link whatever I find as we go along. Hopefully there are a few folks who do live streaming and daily roundups. builds character fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 20:35
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McTinkerson posted:I am absolutely pumped for the classics class that was added last year. Wow, I didn't realize there were so many this year. I will try to include some footage of them again but please feel free to just post! Elviscat posted:Oh cool, I'm on time to follow the rally in real time this year! Aren't you like way ahead so you can have some leisurely lunch and watch the start each day? That'd be nice. busalover posted:Why is this still called Dakar and not Saudi Baja Blast? Red Bull and Monster have drawn a line in the sand. They drew it using dump trucks of euros. If Mt. Dew wants to play they have gots to pay. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I have tried to prepare you for the grueling endurance race by having nineteen hours of video footage in the OP alone. Anyway, if you want more stories like that.... Toby Price is ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECcGSo28dmk And Joey Evans is no slouch. https://www.amazon.com/Para-Dakar-Overcoming-Paralysis-Conquering/dp/0620757515 I won't lie, the book isn't some great work of literature, but the fact that the dude went from paraplegic to racing dakar is absurd? Part 1 of 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-FpI_TqaIw And there was a paraplegic guy who rode Dakar in 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBE8grTdb6E but then they kicked him out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnR8hqv-tsY He had two other guys riding with him to pick him back up and help at stops. Just ridiculous. Makes me feel bad because I get a paper cut and cry about it for a week. builds character fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 23:48
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Vampire Panties posted:Thank you for posting this OP. The Dakar rally is one of those mythical things that I know what it is, but the only three things i know about it are: Yes, these are accurate. Here is a podcast I really like and listen to. It is moto focused but includes things like, in episode two, a real, long interview with Ricky brabec where he actually just talks about the race and what it’s like and strategy. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dakar-rally-daily/id1546787071
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Dec 31, 2021 02:54
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https://youtu.be/A3mXs6Vrdrc The coronel brothers race and entertain. They are not good. https://youtu.be/nwaXtTFl1fU But still a lot better than me. Anyway, it’s interesting because you can see the navigation and what the navigator sees and what he says. One exclamation as I understand it is “lol floor it” two is “go fast take chances” and three is “holy poo poo slow down or you will die.” You may remember three exclamation marks in the road books from such hits as “Rest in Peace Mr Quintanilla.” https://youtu.be/f1Kym9RsT3Y He was in second, ripping to try to catch up on the last stage. It did not work.
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Jan 1, 2022 01:19
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Classic Class! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=390064439491575     Damnit Carlos Sainz, I want to root for you but this isn’t f1 or WRC. Stop making excuses and just be French instead. (It is a joke because the organization always bends the rules for French competitors and also f u if you don’t speak French) https://www.motorsport.com/dakar/news/sainz-electric-audi-penalised-dakar-2022/7033320/ This one is just because….  
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Jan 1, 2022 02:19
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busalover posted:fml that hurt He finished the stage! Iirc he broke his hand, leg, foot and ribs and tore all of his everything. Like 6 months healing maybe? Which, for a pro athlete is a lot.
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Jan 1, 2022 02:57
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https://mobile.twitter.com/dakar/status/1477223899272302597 Day One  The first day is always short. Usually it’s just a super fast 20k or the like to show off to the VIPs. This year, the bikes have done two things differently to make folks really race on the prologue. Ordinarily start order is same as the finishing order for the prior day. But it’s bad to go first because breaking trails is more difficult. So first, you get to pick start order the next day and the way you pick is a reverse 15->1 but you get to bump anyone who chose before you. So 15 chooses and then 14 goes and can pick any spot, 1-15, including the spot 15 took and 15 is bumped if they do. Interesting. Maybe good, maybe bad. Probably good I think. The other, far far bigger and dumber thing they did is they made time differences count 5x. That’s not a huge problem on a first stage that’s mostly gravel roads, but on a first stage like today, with huge dunes where it’s easy to lose real time? Just so, so stupid. This is not a gravel road.  Anyway, first things first.  And don’t forget Ricky.  Toby Price is fast too.  Gas Gas has a real chance to win this year with Sam Sunderland and Daniel Sanders. Sanders even won the prologue which is largely meaningless but not a bad start.      Slow down for exclamation points. https://mobile.twitter.com/dakar/status/1477215385694969861 In cars, Nasser finished first. You can tell the truck is excited when it hops like that. Super cute when they’re exuberant. But results don’t matter because they don’t have the same bike (and quad) special rules. https://youtu.be/a9c-osEwWLo Classic cars are awesome but oh so slow. https://youtu.be/gCZGeAudDnw These highlights are crazy long for Dakar. Let’s hope it continues! https://youtu.be/OerN7WTBl6Y https://youtu.be/0K4dnhZgV0Y Trucks, kamaz took 1-4 but it still doesn’t matter because tenth was under a minute back. A minute is nothing. Five minutes, on the other hand (bikes!) is a real hole on day one. 
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Jan 2, 2022 04:25
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busalover posted:If you're tired of hunting down the relevant info on Instagram, Youtube, etc., the Dakar subreddit is pretty convenient https://old.reddit.com/r/DAKAR/ Nice! I didn’t realize this was a thing. Well worth it for just this https://old.reddit.com/r/DAKAR/comments/rubf1v/how_carlos_sainz_lost_over_2_hours_with/ but also looks great generally. Sorry you’ll see a bunch of stuff repeated from there now. 
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Jan 2, 2022 16:08
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 Day Two  Things have already started getting interesting. Day two (Stage 1B according to the officials) saw tons of drama and more pictures.  In the bikes What? No. You are not a bike. Wait your turn.  Sanders bet on the prologue paid off and he finished stage 1B in first.  Quintanilla on Honda was two minutes behind and then Walkner’s KTM eight minutes further back. In fourth is Skyler Howes 2.0, American Mason Klein. American moto rally has been strong in the last few years, with only the Australians having a better claim on things. It’ll be interesting to see how long we can carry the torch, but for now we have Klein and Howes.  Brabec, on the other hand, had some navigation issues and is now 56 minutes back along with Everyman hero, and pie lover, Toby Price who’s 44 minutes back.  That definitively shook up the potential podium with two super fast Dakar winners now almost guaranteed to be out of the race. Benavides too finished 34m back. Not impossible to come back from but extremely unlikely.  I think Walkner has to be the current favorite just because Quintanilla is on a new bike this year but it’s early days yet and lots of guys still have a shot. In other news, there was a big ditch. Seriously. Like 2/3 of all pictures are of the ditch. Fabulous wheelieing Frenchman, AVB!   Someone else.  If you’re slow the ditch is more fun.   Not everyone needs ditches to have fun.  Or to get their picture taken.  But it helps.  It really helps.  Until it doesn’t.  I beg your pardon sir, that is not a ditch.  Also not a ditch, but you are forgiven.  Jesus Christ.  OK, last ditch pic.  The cars didn’t fare much better with navigation.  Carlos Sainz had a disaster of a day and is now over two hours back hanging out with these dudes.  Nasser is still in first. Obviously. With Sebastien “but they both have rally in the name, how am I not the best at this?” Loeb 12m behind in second. (Not loeb but same kind of car)  But what about this “Mr. Dakar” character you told us so much about? Yeah… uh, about that.      Absolutely huge for the rally with Audi’s top two drivers out of competition. Carlos Sainz because he got lost and Peterhansel because I don’t think it’s supposed to bend like that. In other car news… What  the gently caress?  (Fortunately the rider was OK) A classic car would never do that.  Let’s check in on the quads, shall we?  Trucks are still Kamaz 1-4 with 5th place now 24m back. Boring, but let’s see how they dealt with the ditch, shall we?   Next stage was supposed to be the marathon stage, but it got shortened because it’s wet. Very, very wet.  You cannot put a bivouac in that.   Nope, not better.  Still not better (and the actual bivouac site).  No matter how cool it might look.   But now it is time to sleep before day three tomorrow!  Goodnight, sweet prince. 
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Jan 3, 2022 05:33
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Day Three Well, if there's one thing this Dakar rally has it's navigation fun. https://blog.ktm.com/dakar-navigation-tricks-of-the-trade-by-rally-guru-stefan-huber/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNRS_cEtdYg Rule #1 of navigation: DO NOT HIT THE CAMELS. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1477955262359220226 Each competitor must follow a road book to various waypoints and checkpoints. Generally, the roadbook has directions that are something like "take a right at the tree 800meters on." Only there are a bunch of trees. And who's to say where you're at? Sure, the first 800 meters is easy but little differences add up as you follow the road book so that if we're talking "take a right at the tree 32.8k into the stage" and there's a tree at 32.8, a tree at 32.4 and a tree at 33, it's very easy to get mixed up about which one it is. Theoretically, you address this by adjusting your trip meter whenever you hit a direction that you know is correct. So if you hit a huge Y at 31km into the stage you adjust your trip meter to 31km as you go by it and then you're far more likely to be accurately at 32.8 when you hit that tree. https://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2021/01/02/jimmy-lewis-ricky-brabec-andrew-short-dakar-rally-navigation-wizard-desert/ Cool, cool. So far so good. But what about if there aren't any trees? Well, sometimes it's just cap headings. Go 135° for 10km, then 180° at 10km, then at 11.5km, 210°. Again, the same issue arises that if you're off by a little bit, then you start looking more and more off. So, when you see something like this you can see bang bang barreda straight as an arrow navigating perfectly (honestly a bit of a surprise to me) and then you can see whoever is teal coming in at slightly the wrong angle, realizing that they've made a mistake, Cutting right until they cross over JBB's tracks, then backtracking to the first navigation point that they're 100% sure is right and setting out again. On the wrong angle. Oops? They almost certainly lost a ton of time as a result.  When you're lost, usually other people are lost too. You try to help each other. Does this make it better or worse? Yes!  With the help of navigation difficulties, Joan Barreda Bort finished in first. Sam Sunderland raced well, finished five minutes behind and is top overall now.  Daniel Sanders finished 35 minutes back and is in seventh, thanks 10m penalty that showed up as I was writing! And in second, AVB on the Yamaha. Third goes to Matthias Walkner on KTM. So that's a GasGas (red KTM) in first, a blue bike in second and another orange bike in third. The nearest honda is Pablo Quintanilla in 6th, 12m31s back. Ow. But, based on the navigation so far, it seems like there's a real possibility the leaders will all end up dropping 30+ minutes in a day so... who knows?     Mason Klein is down in 14th which is still excellent but not quite the top ten he was before.  Traditionally, Sunderland raced like crazy until he crashed and Walkner was the savvy expert navigator. But it looks like maybe Sunderland has been learning. It'll be interesting to see what he can do with the rest of the rally. Skyler Howes is only ten minutes back in fourth so his rally is going well and he's lucky to not have to lead out tomorrow but can follow Sunderland and Kevin Benavides who's an excellent navigator as well as bang bang barreda.  MotoGP race winner Danilo Petrucci's dakar is over thanks to a mechanical failure. https://www.gpone.com/it/2022/01/03/dakar/colpo-di-scena-danilo-petrucci-si-ferma-dakar-finita.html    Dictionary, define forlorn.  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x86qvjv In cars, Sebastien Loeb won over Nasser by 3m28s. One of the real issues the 4x4s (toyotas) had vs. the buggies (pugeot, who's not competing this year but there are still some buggies like the one loeb is driving) was that their smaller tires and massive four wheel torque (I guess? really I think it was just tire size) led to getting a lot more flats. With a bigger tire, Nasser had his first flat today and we got this fantastic front-of-the-rally pass which basically never happens. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1477994403595579394 Nasser is still 9m16s up and I think it's his rally to lose. He finished the stage on a broken tire because he didn't want to change it.  Audi is complaining. Let's see how that works out for them. https://www.caranddriver.com/es/motorsport/a38653424/dakar-2022-audi-reclamacion-trampas/ What could go wrong if I hung out in the middle of the course? https://twitter.com/Dakar_arabic/status/1477931308693213185 Now your shame is forever captured on the internet. Totally not jealous though. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=459920732254605 Remember these? Snapchat lets you just browse around looking at randos videos on a map. It's fun but feels weird to me. Not weird enough to not do it though! https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYdWNsbmptb2ZxAX4et5vGAX4eoLPMAAAAAA/@26.995173,44.706027,9.41z Look at the lights on that truck. https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYcWp3ZXhvcWxhAX4g10I6AX4g10H7AAAAAA/@26.995173,44.706027,9.41z https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYZGJ3bGVvZmhkAX4gPOsjAX4gPOrqAAAAAA/@26.995173,44.706027,9.41z Red Bull's coverage is great but they're up to stage... one. Not sure why they're behind this year. https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/dakar-rally-2022-stage-1 Eurosport is the other place to watch and it looks like they have more short clips this year. https://www.eurosport.com/rally-raid/dakar/  Nasser is fast. https://www.instagram.com/stories/nasser_dakar/2742494790422846970/ More Nasser v Loeb. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYRIkJ1tmHM/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CYRRUOrN5Qu/ In truck news? https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478028377265106956 Kamaz! https://www.facebook.com/dakar/videos/640691470684235 The really interesting thing in trucks is whether Sotnikov or Nikolaev will win. They're both russian kamaz drivers who have won the dakar previously and they're only two minutes apart. Three seconds in and there's Xavier de Soultrait wheelieing. I don't know why he and AVB both love wheelies so much but god bless them, every one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAH-Qz5-uKg https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478023344234639362 Changing a tire is easy. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CYPDCtAh07y/?utm_medium=copy_link builds character fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 19:51
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Elviscat posted:I was all like "wow look at all those tire irons to change that tire" This is also how I look at things I'm trying to fix. It typically works out just as well for me.
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Jan 3, 2022 19:52
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First, lada! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=374446951192760 Second, let's talk a little bit about navigation. I'm just going to copy and paste part of a post I had from last year. builds character posted:OK, now on to the boogeyman of Dakar, the mapmen So that's how it was. Now, the bikes get the roadbooks about twenty minutes ahead of time. And I think it's a very open question about how much of the navigational errors are because the orga is making it more difficult vs. not having a dude poring through google maps all day and then giving you a walk through of the stage and potential tricky bits you may face. Just gonna quote myself again on that. builds character posted:This is the first thing that happens. The next step is giving the bikes ipads instead of paper so that they can be changed but fundamentally you have to say where you're starting and where you're finishing and you publish the elevation and the course composition so a clever person with google earth can still end up mostly figuring out what the stage looks like. But not all the way. From https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/2022-stage-2-klim-dakar-rally-daily-episode-31/id1546787071?i=1000546809051 they have a good discussion of what happened with navigation including an interview with Sam Sunderland at 23m in. Here's the short version: Direction was principal piste. That means " the main road/trail you can see." It should be fairly obvious. But it was washed out by the rain. And a vehicle had gone through after the rain and made it look like there was another main track. Then it was "cap heading 42, then average cap 10." Average cap 10 is just hey maybe you turn a little but generally need to be going this way. But the cap 10 heading should have been for only a short time and then something else. The difficulty in the note was that 1. it was unclear how far the average cap 10 was and then 2. there was nothing hard to confirm for 11 km. So Brabec ended up chasing Barreda (which, you know, don't do that...) and it was 11km later they figured out they were wrong. And had to go back. Going back 11km and circling around is just brutal and that's how you lose an hour on a day. E: here is the offending note. 
builds character fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 01:11
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Day Four These folks had the best pictures last year too but it looks like they're working for the rally now as they're only posting a couple each day but their stuff is showing up on the official page. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYT4kxOD-zQ/ Look at those trucks starting off (click the heatmap). https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYZWhwaGVzaXRkAX4km-HNAX4km7_GAAAAAA/@26.764743,45.334767,16.52z And then once they get going, they really get going. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478365605250142208  In bikes today, Joaquim Rodrigues won the first stage ever for Hero motorsports (an Indian manufacturer that definitely didn't just re-use the BMW G540X and I don't know what they're actually using for a bike now but I'm sure it's 100% their own design). https://twitter.com/autocarindiamag/status/1478355488513294349 It puts a small damper on the win when you hear this from Daniel Sanders who says that he stopped for three minutes right before the finish to have a snack and so that he didn't have to lead out the next day. On the other hand, win's a win. As I tell my kid, fair ain't got nothing to do with it. https://www.dakar.com/es/noticias/2022/etapa-3/moto/daniel-sanders-he-parado-tres-minutos/174968 Mason Klein, 20 year old american and dude with a story that just isn't as good as Skyler Howes but I still have to root for the americans sorry, gets his second stage podium of the race coming in third.  Overall, Sunderland is in first, with AVB four seconds behind him and Matthias Walkner in third a minute and a half back. Skyler Howes is 3m55s back and Daniel Sanders is 8m54s back. Quintanilla is the only Honda in the top ten at seventh, 16m51s back. It's not over yet, but after winning two in a row it has to hurt.  Here's Walkner marking up the roadbook before starting out. I'm sure this is very low stress and easy. https://twitter.com/Dakar_arabic/status/1478235421050089472 Skyler Howes continues to be exactly at the right spot on each stage and in great position for a podium - he seems to be riding a steady race and not pushing it too much so hopefully Husqvarna's faith in giving him a factory ride is rewarded.    And Daniel Sanders continues to be fast as gently caress.    Some nice POV footage of the bikes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Befv-FZbxc8 Petrucci can't navigate but he's not wrong about the fastest guys riding just on the other side of the absolute edge of safety. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgtxHgiKuk Another perfidious car hit a noble motorcycle. https://www.facebook.com/stories/144193940351691/UzpfSVNDOjQxNzQxMzIwMzQxNjEyMw==/?view_single=1&source=shared_permalink Dakar Classic. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478385732003762180     I love you.    In cars, Carlos Sainz wins audi's first stage with the 100% electric and not at all powered by an ICE car. https://twitter.com/audisport/status/1478342731307139091 Peterhansel, having taken a 24h penalty for not finishing the stage (that has to be worse than just having his support truck tow him through the whole stage, doesn't it?), finished third and Nasser was in eighth 5m10s back.  It is a german engineering joke.   Loeb was 38th, 33m34s back. That puts Nasser in first overall with Loeb 37m40s back in the overall. It really is Nasser's to win already. Of course, with cars, it's easy to get a puncture or two and lose a lot of time. That can add up. But with the Audi out and Peterhansel and Sainz out of contention, Nasser really should just cruise to victory.  Unless he does something dumb. Really dumb. His DQ has been suspended until the end of the race but his mechanics "forgot" to reconnect the black box that records performance data so if that happens again he's out. https://racer.com/2022/01/04/dakar-leader-al-attiyah-fined-hit-with-suspended-disqualification Just like Kamaz. Stop me if you've heard this, Kamaz finished first and second again on the stage but JANUS VAN KASTEREN (NLD) finished third for Iveco! AMAZING!  Kamaz is still top four overall with Ales Loprais driving for Praga in fifth, 47m8s back. Ow. Kamaz will have to have their entire bivouac explode overnight for someone else to win at this point.  Dakar's media team has gotten new folks this year. It's nice because they're posting a lot more and making fast and the furious references and talking about truck memes. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478350501880033281 I just hope it's the beginning of letting folks actually shoot and then use large amounts of footage from the race. When Lyndon Poskitt was doing it he had a strict limit of 10 minutes of total footage a day and he said it was incredibly difficult working with the ASO to get even that. This is well worth going back and watching if you like dakar at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_aYcxUtsEQ If you're not up front with the bikes, there's not much navigation to be done.   How did you get that wheel up?   Trucks being bros. https://twitter.com/Ibra_AlZubadi/status/1478279323480174593  SxS are also a class. Really two classes. Modified and basically stock.  Let's check in again on the quads! https://www.instagram.com/p/CYQc7ALJ6O-/ OK, wheelie on a quad deserves respect but don't think I'm not still posting all the other quad crashes.  This picture is for Rev. 
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Jan 4, 2022 17:47
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Vampire Panties posted:When I first saw the pic, I was like 'huh blown CV shaft, seems like its universal. At least it all tears apart pretty easily... hrrmm the cv-shaft looks fine.. OH. Oh. ohhhhhh' I'm glad you like it. More ditch today with the quad video too. In an interview he says how far they lasted but I forget exactly certainly some number of kilometers from the finish anyway which is ridiculous on a race truck. I think the possibility of heartbreak (although, honestly, not for Petrucci) is part of what makes the rally so good.
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Jan 4, 2022 17:56
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Just more pictures and extended highlights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_2lL9SOR1Y https://twitter.com/epaphotos/status/1478400385299722249 This shot of a bike roosting the helicopter is just so good.    I did this once. Looked exactly the same. The landing was slightly different, however.  loving kamaz.  
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Jan 4, 2022 20:50
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:thanks for these daily updates, just started following but enjoying the posts. The very short version is that the car class and trophy trucks are very roughly the same thing. The longer version is that Dakar is fundamentally a European Anyway, it was originally the Paris-Dakar rally and as such you have to be able to drive the truck on the street in Paris. All cars have to be road legal in their country of origin. There are, of course, some little loopholes and such but generally it's a street legal vehicle. Next, it's a navigation race over the course of multiple weeks. This means a bunch of things that really shape the vehicles. First and foremost, it means that the competitors help each other out (and that help on the course is limited to only other competitors). There is no single race track that you can pre-run. And there's no bumping the car on the road in front of you. For a couple reasons. First, it isn't civilized. Second, you might bump them and then be out of gas with no water in the middle of the desert and the guy you bumped sees you and lets you die. It also means you have to be able to carry more gas. Today's stage had 195km through dunes before you got gas again. I'm not an expert on the Baja but I think it's generally ~60 miles between stops. Which, with the engines the trophy trucks run, means you've got a 20 gallon tank. That same engine getting 3 mpg is going to need a 60 gallon tank for Dakar and I don't think today's stage was particularly long between fuel stops. And there are no whoops, so the need for super long travel suspension is lessened - you're never going 100 blasting through 4 foot whoops. If you were, I'm sure the rules would be modified to permit longer travel suspension but it's just very different terrain. So, horsepower is a lot less for a couple reasons - big engines are heavy and require too much fuel. Plus, you know, against the rules. Car size is limited and weight is limited, but even if they weren't, there's heavy incentive to keep weight down just because it helps your power to weight ratio and requires you to carry less fuel. But what about tire size? This is also restricted. I expect this started out without restriction as folks were just running "regular" cars but then ended up becoming restricted at some point. I would guess that the limited engine size and weight plus deep sand provides incentive to keep tire size down, plus the tire providers/advertisers wanted to keep the look of the Dakar and sell michelins and minis that looked like rally cars. You and I will never race Baja 1000 in a trophy truck, but for a long time there was the possibility that you could just take your lancia out and rally dakar (you couldn't, but the dream seems more approachable). So... dakar is full of wusses and baja trophy trucks would easily beat them!? Actually, no. You know how I mentioned deep sand? Trophy trucks are not built for huge sand dunes in the same way. My understanding, and frankly I don't know what I'm talking about here, is that they are not good at dunes. There have been baja trucks (although to my knowledge never a full trophy truck) that have competed in dakar and they've always just done terribly. Mostly because of the sand. Dakar = bad, Baja = owns? I hear you ask one more time. Interestingly, that's exactly what Robby Gordon thought a few years ago. And to his credit, Robby looked at the rules and figured out that the 2wd buggy was the way to go. And then Nasser won anyway, and mini figured it out and did it a lot better until finally this year they became the audi factory team you see. Anyway, this is pretty interesting, I think, particularly as an intro to dakar if what you know is baja. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQWiIFVPBdU His intake in 2014 was huge and dumb and he was wrong, but what can you do (other than be french, because the ASO who runs the race is french and if you are french things just tend to go your way). e: I don't know about trucks, but you can buy a dakar rally ktm 450. https://www.ktm.com/en-ke/models/travel/ktm-450-rally-factoryreplica2022.html spoiler: it is expensive. The yamaha raptor 700 that basically everybody runs in the quads is also available to buy. https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/sport-atv/models/raptor-700 Although for both this and the bikes I know there are some trick parts added on. For the bikes, it's basically factory suspension, factory cams, exhaust and a factory tune. But that rally replica is the bike that all the non-pros ride in the dakar and it's the base model the pros use with those extra parts. SxSs used to be off the shelf (presumably + similar pieces like the bikes have) but they just added what's essentially an unlimited class as well. I don't know a ton about how different it is, but as a general rule I think you're supposed to be able to go out and buy anything you see at the Dakar rally. The big exception here that's entirely unclear to me is the cars class. E2: ok maybe you can buy the cars too, but no way that these base models are in the same league as the ktm rally bike. Supposedly this is the site where you can buy the audi RS Q e tron but it just takes me to a german "lol nothing to see here" audi page. https://www.audiusa.com/models/audi-e-tron This top gear page says that toyota is selling theirs for only https://www.topgear.com/car-news/modified/you-can-now-get-toyota-hilux-gr-sport Loeb is running a brx hunter and it has the ford ecoboost motor and is also apparently for sale. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/prodrive-make-road-legal-version-its-dakar-racer So I think that's the requirement - that, theoretically at least, anyone can go out and buy one of any of these. I'm not checking on Kamaz because I don't want to live in a world where I discover there is an exception to my dream of stepping out my front door and buying a dakar truck.
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Jan 4, 2022 22:33
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Hey I got a large pie here. Did anyone order a large pie? A large pie for... uh Danilo Petrucci? https://www.instagram.com/p/CYWIb9hqZ8B/ Day Five  (picture is from yesterday but come on, look at it) Today was the longest stage of the rally. Something that's well worth talking about at this point is how the rain has changed the rally. Traditionally, the dakar rally has huge sections of deep, deep sand and giant dunes. But the torrential rain just tamped it all down and and made it all hard packed. This makes the riding a lot easier and the tracks a lot more apparent. So, one of the interesting questions as the rally progresses is whether or not that will change and if it does change what that will do to the less experienced riders.  At least the liaison portion of the stage is short.   https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478748119823093761In bikes, Barreda proved once again that he is very fast as long as he has to do zero navigation and finished in first with Quintanilla making it a Honda 1-2.  Sunderland was sixth, with walkner a minute and a half behind in seventh. Overall that means Sunderland has slightly extended his lead, 3m back and AVB now 4m54s back. It is a literal crime in the kingdom of France that "wheelie wednesday" is not just van beveren (#42) and de soultrait(#12) trading wheelies for one hour and the Dakar media person is going straight to jail after this. At least they feature briefly so they may avoid more serious punishment. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478676404799782914 Anyway, Sunderland and Walkner are both experienced and KTM's team is a machine so they definitely know what they're doing and are holding back a little. I expect them to just keep racing fast but not pushing it like crazy until after the rest day at least. Slowly building or maintaining their lead on the other top competitors and just keep increasing the pressure until other folks make a mistake. For AVB I am sad to say this is likely to be a just ridiculous yard sale crash, but I'm crossing my fingers that he finishes this year. Character building, you say? Sam Sunderland posted:The desert will always be your biggest competition, ROUGH DAY! Km 200 I hit my disk on a rock and bent it so was was without a rear brake (seems to be a habit of mine) then at km 300 while searching for a waypoint in the rocks I was looking down to check the gps and hit a big rock and had a barely dingle right out the front door and gave my head and shoulder a good whack the rest of the stage (160km) was survival mode with no rear brake and lack off focus made for some character building 🥸Still leading the overall which is a nice positive after day like that! We will try to learn from it and look forward to tomorrow! 🔨💪🏻🤘🏻 Brabec is still 55m back. He very clearly thinks his rally is over and he's not pushing to make up that time for whatever reason. Just brutal that you can train so hard for a year and then lose it all on a navigation error because some rain and an early vehicle messed up the track.   Perfectly taken jump here. Man, if you took this wrong it would be REALLY REALLY BAD. I sure hope that doesn't happen later on in this very post. https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYb2x5ZGt1c2F1AX4pLEgNAX4pKbGoAAAAAA/@27.630119,45.721962,10.00z Click through a couple and there's a SxS on its back. https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYZHlqZm15anhuAX4po6TIAX4pnH3iAAAAAA/@27.751730,46.271669,8.96z Truck jump! https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYaXJsZHZyZHZhAX4pYbrWAX4pYP4vAAAAAA/@27.751730,46.271669,8.96z Just a random little fire. Look how nice that firewood is. https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYeGVvb2h1a2JtAX4mOCAnAX4mOB_iAAAAAA/@27.751730,46.271669,8.96z Broken toyota. RIP (j/k it'll buff out). I wonder how that happened. https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYZHN4cHpycWJrAX4pSySmAX4pSxyVAAAAAA/@27.888630,45.940640,10.94z  Support truck not stopping. You had one job! Fortunately the spectators were able to help stop the truck and the car was repaired. https://twitter.com/amja_d94/status/1478580225818734594 Holy poo poo. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYV6YB8AcEi/ https://fb.watch/aluDGUc3Nq/ HOLY. poo poo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYcrdWLrRdU OK, also holy poo poo. https://twitter.com/2highmountains/status/1478653601857912834 In cars, Nasser finished first with Loeb 25s behind and Carlos Sainz 52s back. That puts Nasser up front by 38m still.  It's a little boring, but he's just going to ride it out until the end. Don't make mistakes, make everyone else push and try to make up time and break their cars. Speaking of breaking their cars, didn't Peterhansel rejoin the rally? Mmmm, new manufacturer first-dakar blues. THIS IS NOT AUDI'S FAULT. I don't know how, but don't worry. Audi will tell us in their official complaint. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478655119394750469 Not winning makes Peterhansel sad and confused.  In trucks? You guessed it. Kamaz. Nikolaev first with Sotnikov in third 5m35s behind and Shibalov sandwiched between them. Nikolaev is now 6m10s back in the overall with Shibalov 25m5s back. Still Kamaz's rally to lose and always has been. This is from stage three but just absolute lol at the truck accidentally crushing the car at 1m30s in. This video is actually great and well worth watching even if you do need to put on subtitles. I wonder how Kamaz got the ASO to agree to let them run a 21m video. Maybe they just drove a truck into the orga tent and said something in russian and that was that? I assume they drive the trucks everywhere. I definitely would. A couple other notes - look at those trucks just zipping up the dunes at 8m22s. More truck jumps at 17m40s!  LADA CHAT AT 18m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6h6JL8vqr8 Fueled by pizza.  Not fueled by pizza. Turns out pizza is a terrible fuel.  Onboard footage from not-pros. 1m26s has to be the easiest crash of the dakar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNJbd6D6w4w Not a kamaz.  Day five and he's just exhausted. We'll talk about the Dakar snowball later. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=notif&v=653567995682174¬if_id=1641330048690901¬if_t=live_video_explicit Still the best photographers. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYWekB_jWwj/ Daily highlights - serious crash at 45s in too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvzqjPC5qXk Official dakar highlights are following along, apparently. Weird, but thanks! https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1478761961189904384 I think this is also from yesterday but still a cool picture.  You may remember this truck from the video where it crashes and they have to cut out the paraplegic driver.  Do not worry, it is a truck.  This is what everyone rolling coal imagines they are doing. They are not.  double zero car sponsored by E BRO. I think we're now at the stage where you just say friend?  This looks like so much fun.  Too bad the rest of the race is unimaginable suffering.  Probably helps to go back to a trailer with a personal chef and a masseuse though.  Someone get this kid an account.  Cross checking the roadbook against GPS (THIS IS NOT ALLOWED MR DE SOULTRAIT but it is OK because you are french so you will not get in trouble)  There's a ridiculous new crop of racers coming up. Mason Klein is like twelve years old (20!) and currently in 14th.  Then there's Daniel Sanders whose face is just always broken. You may remember him as the guy who was stung by a bee last year. His nickname is chucky. I don't know why. But it is. Anyway, he chucked the bike today and broke his face again (ok, he just smashed his face on the nav tower and didn't crash because he is much better at riding a motorcycle than I am). https://www.instagram.com/p/CYWC1BTr3Mj/ Ow. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYWL4vfslAF/ And of course, #1 in our hearts, Skyler Howes. Look at that suspension squatting under acceleration and definitely not from just landing that jump.   Until tomorrow. 
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Jan 5, 2022 18:36
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Onboard from that crash. Note that there are no exclamations visible on the roadbok for a caution there which, uh.... ooops? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8J7c-KaqRU And here's a discussion of chuckie's crash in the motorhome. Look how goofy Matthias Walkner is. I love him. The other thing to note is that GasGas is technically a different manufacturer than KTM (albeit one wholly owned by KTM) but the way they run things, they're all hanging out together and are clearly one big KTM team. So that's three Honda riders vs. seven (3 KTM, 2 Husqvarna and 2 GasGas) KTM riders. https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=901385097237652
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Jan 5, 2022 21:40
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This gets its own post. Because it deserves it. https://mobile.twitter.com/AutoFmRadio/status/1478857299351552002?s=20
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Jan 6, 2022 04:04
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 Day Six https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479071500606992384 Last year's Dakar classic winner, Marc Douton does plane sales stuff for Dassault aviation in france. Look, here's an ad with him in it. https://d.facebook.com/dassaultfalcon/photos/a.132187553638504/1707860059404571/?type=3&source=48 He drove a 79 sunhill buggy. Yes, I definitely knew exactly what that was and did not have to look it up but just in case you do not here is a nice article on it. https://silodrome.com/dakar-classic-2021/ The current car, a porsche 911 with awesome wheels has titanium everything. For weight reduction. Because it is important and not because it is shiny. https://www.silverlakeprojects.com/pages/silverlake-projects-in-the-dakar-rally-2022 His navigator owns this shop and I was sure I would get some pictures of the car if I poked around in there but nope. Just pictures of other restored cars and a little blurb about leaving france. So now you get the result of me not being able to show you more pictures of Douton's 911 safari. https://www.nantes-prestige-autos.com/ https://www.nantes-prestige-autos.c...-2022_ad26.html MORE DAKAR CLASSIC PICTURES  Nice gallery here. I stole some of these. https://offroadcracks.com/dakar-202...Ghz30v_5SCeuJ-U It's like a teddy bear, but safer.    "Baby Boomer's Adventure Classic"    More porsche. https://www.autoweek.com/racing/more-racing/g38651084/gallery-amy-lerner-and-porsche-911-at-dakar-classic-2022/?slide=1 Belgian everyman and amateur mechanic (I've seen the posts in the Garage/Workshop Chat thread, I know what an amateur garage is supposed to look like) Diego Delespeaux is driving car 775. Here's a reenactment of his wrenching preparation. You can tell it's a reenactment because there is not a single merde anywhere to be found in this video. His navigator's name is Bertrand Droupsy and because of that allez Bertrand (et diego)! https://www.notele.be/it32-media105820-diego-delespeaux-a-la-decouverte-du-dakar-classic.html    It's just a little truck.      Bivouac break.      This is the right amount of happy to be racing dakar.   No, not you.  Basically me, working on my van.    Back to racing?  First fuel.    A little liason.  Then back to racing.              This stage splits up the cars and trucks and the bikes to show that cars know how to navigate and not just follow bike tracks. Then tomorrow they run the reverse of the course they didn't run today. Or maybe it's just to make the logistics easier by not moving the bivouac for an extra day. Who can really tell?   In bikes, the stage got off to a good start but then... was cancelled because of a sandstorm. "But they pilotes au cœur d'acier, what do they care for the futile howling of the sandstorm?" I hear you ask. It's not the riders or the drivers, it's the air support that's the issue. The medical support is helicopters and if the helicopters can't fly they don't run the race.  Before we proceed, I have to issue a formal apology. Dear Pizza, I apologize for saying you were a terrible fuel. You are obviously the perfect fuel and I will be eating at least one pizza every day from now on. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYW7McpoxRp/ Petrucci became the first motogp race winner to also win a stage at the dakar rally!  He also won despite crashing to avoid a camel. Petrucci posted:I took a bad flight at km 60 to avoid a camel. It was a group of camels and the only black one came towards me ... I had to go off the road but it was full of holes and bumps and I I was thrown to the ground. Today I pushed to the end and I'm happy with how it went. It was a good stage, even if I didn't feel at my best on the dunes also because of an ankle that hurts me .  In literal worst news of the rally, Skyler Howes crashed and had to withdraw. He was flown to the hospital but checked out OK.  Sam Sunderland finished in 13th 8m back with Walkner 30s in front of him. That tightens their gap to 2m29s with AVB still 6m back and Sanders 8m behind him (Sanders 10m penalty on stage two was overturned so he's now back in the top five). Brabec is... still not winning the rally but at least he seems to have gotten his head back in it, down to a mere 48m27s back.  Toby Price is in a similar spot, 37m19s back after a 6m penalty.  In cars, Nasser continues to just keep his lead comfortable. Nothing personal. Just keeping a nice easy race cruising to an overall win...    Remember when Loeb passed Nasser to win a stage? Nasser remembers. I think Loeb must have had some technical difficulties because they toyota isn't actually that much faster but it still looks awesome. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/1081148902663004 Nasser's teammate got in a teensy tiny bit of trouble after running over his second motorcycle. Can't imagine why. I will try to remember to talk more about this and what I think happened later. https://www.autosport.com/dakar/news/de-villiers-gets-five-hour-dakar-penalty-for-second-motorcyclist-incident/7089201/ Peterhansel had to donate some of his suspension to Carlos Sainz. This is quite typical for the Dakar. In bikes they are called water carriers and you saw it last year with Andrew Short giving Toby Price his wheel and then riding home on just the rim. A slower teammate, or one with no chance of winning or placing in the rally will donate whatever parts of their vehicle are needed for their faster teammate to continue and salvage something. Then they'll wait for the support truck (also technically a competitor but not actually competing with Kamaz, just hauling all the parts necessary to rebuild a car around) to fix whatever their problem is. Hmm, it's almost like we've seen the audi have a problem in that exact same spot before.  Kamaz continues to be the best of the trucks and their videos are the best of the media. If you only watch one dakar video a day, this is the one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puypHnPK0YI Sotnikov started to pull away, putting 3 minutes on Nikolaev to be 9m53s in front.  Other trucks also compete.  They do not win.   This one had to withdraw, but really it's just the bikes that you get the absolute lonely heartbreak pictures.  It's even worse because he had bad luck early in the rally with some fuel injector screws being tamper proof from the factory (because, remember, you have to be able to buy these and a lot of the yamahas are just modified WR450Fs which you can actually just go buy for like 10k) and now he's out after another bout of it.   Let's check in on the SxS class. https://twitter.com/sauditoday24/status/1479045318947835907  WHAT'D YOU DO RICHARD?  I respect this man's ambition but somehow I don't think it's going to work out the way he hopes.     
builds character fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Jan 6, 2022 17:39
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busalover posted:What's in the back of those Dakar trucks? Nothing? Water, to meet a certain weight threshold? Mostly nothing, but they do carry tools and spare tires which are huge. It also depends on if they're one of the trucks that's really racing or a support truck entered into the race with the real purpose of carrying spare parts. If the latter, spare parts. You can see from this video that there really isn't a whole lot in there though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NSY57hck9s
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Jan 6, 2022 20:10
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busalover posted:1-2 litres of diesel per kilometre, jfc If my math is right that's between 1.1 and 2.3 mpg. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479159581259407363/photo/2
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Jan 6, 2022 23:57
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https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=303962045009283 Day Seven  https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479438673271742465 Today was the last day of the first half of the Dakar Rally. Tomorrow is a rest day and then they resume the second half. Stage six (seventh stage because of the stupid 1A and 1B nonsense), stopped after 101km for the bikes because of safety reasons. The orga said that the terrain was impassable but let's be honest, there's literally nothing the fast guys can't ride up over and through. Lyndon Poskitt, who is in fairness, very very good at riding a motorcycle finished 33rd racing malle moto (NO OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE) in 2018 and then took his rally bike to erzberg where he did incredibly well. Give the raw footage a look, it's ridiculous and he's not as good as the pros. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxY4GRGV3Bo There is just no way that the terrain was impassable for the bikes. Buuuuuut... nacho cornejo on his facebook gives us the real reason for the stoppage. nacho cornejo posted:todos los helicópteros médicos estaban asistiendo a pilotos caídos  All the medical choppers were out evacuating riders so they had to stop in case someone else got hurt. This is the flip side to splitting up the cars and trucks and the bikes. You now have two stages to cover and that means you basically need two sets of helicopters. Ross Branch AKA the Kalahari Ferrari crashed out but is doing OK. (pic from yesterday's stage)  Looks like petrucci should have been wearing elbow pa...  oh, oh he was. That thing is just shredded. https://www.facebook.com/100044361072720/videos/pcb.493555635466468/252851566822620 "Hey danilo are you really into the offroad world now?" *definitely not crying* "They are so loving stupid to let us race in the track after the trucks race." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ynJJ1YduZI Sam Sunderland who 100% plays with his life every day on the dakar rally and is still riding in first place after getting a bad concussion on stage 3 posted:You just play russian roulette and you can't see nothing and just huge rocks and stones. I like my sport and I like my job but I don't want to play with my life. Anyway, in the shortened stage, Sanders finished first with Sunderland and Walkner 2m26 and 2m36 behind. Sanders is cutting into Sunderland's lead a bit but this still puts Sunderland into the rest day in first with Walkner 2m39s behind. They're two savvy veterans, but Walkner is in the best position to win right now, I think. Sanders is riding fast and hard in third, but is too prone to crashing and you can see from Sunderland's interviews that he's really hurting. I have to think that he really got his bell rung in the crash and is just a pro athlete with ridiculous doctors somehow continuing on even though he should have retired from the race. Speaking of pro athletes being just absurd... Remember how I said bam bam barreda tends to go fast until he crashes? Well.... he crashed yesterday and it turns out he broke his collarbone.  Of course he still finished today's stage.  Andrew Short is good at motorcycles.  biek together strong https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479382943160221696 Mason Klein finished today's stage in 6th and moved up to 10th overall. It's a ridiculous start to his rally but not as ridiculous as Sanders's was last year. But he'll be someone to watch over the next ten years.  I believe this is a father son duo riding together. I wish.  In the cars, Nasser put another 20 minutes on Loeb, dropping Loeb into third 50m back in the overall and putting Nasser's teammate Yazeed Al Rajhi (from saudi arabia no less) in second, 48m back.  This is still 100% Nasser's race to lose and I expect him to continue to just keep putting pressure on everyone else by driving a calm, smooth race. With 48m the only thing that will really bring his rally to an end at this point is either getting lost or a serious mechanical failure. Tire punctures are a few minutes each but not that kind of time and if he finishes each stage in the top ten he's never going to have to open up so can use others' tracks as a guide.  THUNDERDOME https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479385378075332609 TWO CARS ENTER, TWO CARS LEAVE BUT ONE IS A LITTLE BEHIND THE OTHER     A couple of the cars going full bore. https://www.facebook.com/100003846555615/videos/472897331025002/ Checking in again on the SxSs, hey guys how's it going? https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479420361309667335 This is about the landscape and the helicopter not the SxS!  Speaking of landscape, if you don't look at this and think "yes please" I cannot help you.   NOT SO EASY WITHOUT BIKE TRACKS TO FOLLOW IS IT? https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479400819866931202    Luciano Benavides, Kevin Benavides's brother.    Great picture, I'm sure but please don't die. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479351786091819013 Here you can see what a good driver and navigator do - they just cut the course a tiny bit every chance they get. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479329450319695873 Really interesting seeing the different lines everyone takes up the dune and then how they all kind of converge to do the car tiptoe over the top. https://www.facebook.com/100001420118449/videos/pcb.4850650641658892/1589210001477529 And with the race near Riyadh again, it's interesting to see just how many spectators show up. Not quite the same as South America, but not bad!   https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479394210830819329 Nasser with some 4wd drifting. "slow and steady" just like I said. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/458216105894110 From yesterday, but look at that truck hauling. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/4721875717925940 Look at two minutes into yesterday's kamaz video and you can see what the bikes were dealing with today after all the other trucks rolled through and made it worse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2wgnVHE-VM  In trucks, there was a SHOCK UPSET with Kamaz capturing only spots 1, 2 and 3 on the stage and Shibalov falling to 7th. But don't worry, he's still 26m up on fourth place in the overall.  I love riding through puddles.  It's generally dumb because you just never know, but I still love it.  https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479154548098752512 You changed your name to loven classic dakar?  https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1479505612488728580  
builds character fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jan 7, 2022 |
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Jan 7, 2022 18:47
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:Are there any of these desert rally type races held in the US that involve navigation? I'm aware of the Baja type races and some of the road rallys but didn't see anything or was looking wrong for off-road rallys like this. In the US? No. In mexico? Yes. https://sonorarally.com/ e: there are a couple of issues in the US. The biggest issue is where will you do this? You need a lot of space. And you need a lot of space that whoever owns that space is OK with you driving a ton of huge trucks on. This is, for the record, not any division of the US Govt. The closest we have is probably vegas2reno from the best in the desert series. https://bitd.com/ I was going to race that two years ago but then COVID and I sold my four stroke bike and bought a two stroke. There's also rally cross which is a lot of fun too. I've raced sandblast a couple of times and went up once to canada to race rallye mekinac (and then thanks to organization drama they're not doing it anymore which is probably for the best because holy poo poo it was so absurdly cold). Here are some pictures because pictures make everything better and you should race because it is fun and good. https://www.sandblastrally.com/ Some folks are organizing a new rallycross organization. https://www.facebook.com/USRallyFederation/ If you have any real interest in doing any of this let me know and I'm happy to provide all the encouragement you need (I also believe there are one or two folks here who are ever so slightly better at this than me). Pictures of it being cold. So. SO COLD. The guy on the quad on the left broke his shoulder and I got to hang out with him until someone who spoke french came along. It was sweet.    That guy was faster than me so he started in front. Everyone was faster than me. I was rapidly dying of freezing and could not feel my hands. I operated the front brake and clutch by pulling my arm back and my frozen claw engaged them. https://i.imgur.com/U7A06Sc.mp4   Not a SxS because it only has one seat.  If you're cold, they're cold. Bring them inside.  Elviscat posted:Wasn't expecting a taste of the pure, concentrated pain that is Erzberg to show up in this thread today. Yes, this is good. Just keep going and the bow wave will keep you safe. Right? builds character fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jan 7, 2022 |
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Jan 7, 2022 23:05
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New ford commercial? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_smXaLyybis Rough timing on Skyler Howes getting a Portraits of Dakar video. Next year! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8D59msW7ro I like all the bikes following the truck back to the bivouac after the stage was cancelled. Like the pied piper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7OZOoD2KR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P53ToSZndMQ I forgot to post this earlier because I saved it to the wrong spot, but Daniel Sanders is awesome.  Little odd though that he doesn't include Sam Sunderland in there when Sam's the other gasgas rider. And today Sunderland said it was crazy they continued while Sanders lamented the fact they cancelled the stage despite him having a real advantage with his enduro background. DAKAR DRAMA! (probably not though)
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Jan 7, 2022 23:46
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:None of the BITD races are rally raid style (right term?) with roadbooks yeah? The BITD website is pretty light on details, but it looks like 'baja-style' racing for lack of better terms. Yeah, that's right. I think generally they're called "navigation rallies." Or at least that's how I think of them which I guess isn't the same thing at all. Do you have any experience racing anything ever? You have a dirtbike, right? If yes, then a bike is WAY EASIER TO BUILD and WAYYYYYY LESS EXPENSIVE. A truck or car is easier during the race unless something breaks. If you can't ride a motorcycle and I'm thinking of another poster then Rallysprint is another name for what I call rallycross. It looks like there's an organization in the PNW but it only has cars and SxSs. https://www.nwrallyassociation.com/rallysprint-rules/#vehicle-classification Despite being an absolute cesspool for many things, advrider has probably the strongest US navigation rally presence on the internet. For example, some googling led me to this. https://advrider.com/f/threads/2021-socal-roadbook-rally.1488736/ which I bet you could sign up to advrider and just message that guy and be like "yo, I live in the PNW and rally is in my blooood" and then in a year you'd be posting here "amateur, wtf are you doing with all this dakar nonsense speculation, here's how it be" and post a bunch of pictures from the bivouac and tell stories and I would really like that. So, get started! For serious though, if you're actually interested in racing I would start out with a harescramble. They're a ton of fun (I am also bad at them). Closed course, off road, nice folks and usually just a 15-45 minute lap depending on how fast you are, that you do for two hours. Also, and this is important, they are super cheap. So if you actually hate racing you can just not. Then work up to something like the stumpjumper 100. https://stumpjumpers.org/sjmc/events-and-races/desert100/ Then you just have to bite the bullet and travel to a race but at that point you should have a pretty good idea of what all you're looking for and what you enjoy and be willing to spend a little more (and I recognize here I'm spending someone else's money so...) to travel. e: these guys have a school. https://rallypanam.squarespace.com/ But really what you want is this guy's rally school. https://jimmylewisoffroad.com/ This guy is super nice if he thinks you are worth talking to and uh... not if not but he has a nice video on the taste of dakar https://www.altrider.com/taste-of-dakar-2020/pid/1391 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDNvO7r5Jpk builds character fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jan 8, 2022 |
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Jan 8, 2022 00:02
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ArmZ posted:this, to me, is also cool I was so worried this was going to be quads for some reason, but nope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPdyvb3rvbI  ArmZ posted:this is cool, to me You can see the fast cars have caught the slower bikes and at this point it's not really about navigation for the slow bikes anymore, more about getting the gently caress out of the way. Even the slow riders are so fast.
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Jan 8, 2022 00:16
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Ferremit posted:The thing I love about the Dakar trucks is they used to be MORE mental until they got tamed down by the rule book. Things like twin 1000hp engines, massive suspension setups. They were legit faster than the cars in a straight line- I can remember seeing footage of a Dakar truck just monstering in and passing the lead car across a clay pan like it wasn’t even moving. The most amazing thing here other than the effortless “look now I’m here with you” before it slows down a little to actually pass is how it’s passing the car when the car has a much better line. https://youtu.be/AWCNnlk8rkU That sounds awesome. I assume they mean caught like “saw” and not “matched speed with” because…  Even as is, the trucks still have to have a governor. Just ridiculous.
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Jan 8, 2022 15:43
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Day Eight - Rest Day We’ve made it half way. Today is ostensibly for the riders and drivers to rest, give their bodies a break and catch up on some much needed sleep. Instead it is actually a day of media interviews, mechanics working like crazy to rebuild as much as they possibly can and for the medical tent to deal with long lines of major injuries. It only seems like a rest day because they’re not waking up at four AM to ride for 12-19 hours. All that said, since the dakar moved to Saudi Arabia and with the bivouac near Riyadh, there are some real perks to the rest day. Like the factory teams getting a hotel for the night. Honda, for example, is currently at the Hilton. Classic Week One https://youtu.be/EDWLOWwWmSU Red Bull interviews https://youtu.be/QuYjTxQ-l3k Week one highlights https://youtu.be/3X7Judv42l4 Yesterday’s Kamaz video. These continue to be the best videos of the year, even though you (i anyway) have to use auto translate https://youtu.be/SxcDsSmUKA0 Dakar had a presentation on the future. It’s hydrogen trucks. Diesel, electric, hydrogen, remove the governor cowards! https://youtu.be/de8K1a1Ppd4 Slow motion suffering https://youtu.be/RCPvNqMKNrg Six wins on a bike. Eight wins in a car. Wins in Africa, South America and Saudi Arabia. Stephane Peterhansel is unequivocally the best ever. https://youtu.be/YayFflzTKR0 Nice discussion of just how much they’re changing out on the Toyota. https://youtu.be/rQQPHZwDT2M Similar for the bikes. You can see, they’re really taking it apart and this is a minor sort of semi-pro effort. https://youtu.be/bsSHKq_djp4 Honda’s video is ever so slightly less illuminating. https://youtu.be/CQSaFXXPrJY BIG SHOCK! Racing is having a bbq. They know kamaz is winning so why worry? https://youtu.be/WgQYpH8rwLA Laia Sanz used to race on a bike. She is also unequivocally the best. She’s won ten or eleven women’s trial titles and used to compete in the bottom of the top 15 overall. Just incredible. She’s moved to cars now though after a super tough bout of Lyme disease a year and a half ago. She is also good at racing cars. https://youtu.be/0XMxQIde5ck I will leave you with a bit of Dakar Drama and hilarious pouting. Daniel sanders, a ridiculously fast enduro champion is mad because he was going to ride faster than Sam Sunderland who lives in the UAE and rides dunes all the time. The stage was cancelled and Sanders gave a couple interviews in which he said some riders were being princesses and pretending to be worried about risking their lives and if they only wanted to race on sand dunes they should do sand races. Sam Sunderland, in addition to riding dunes all the time in the UAE also gave an interview where he said he thought it was too much and they were risking their lives. This is more fun because they’re the only two riders on the gasgas factory team so they have to share a motorhome. For the rest of the race.   Back turned and just look at his face. 
builds character fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Jan 8, 2022 |
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Jan 8, 2022 23:04
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 Day Eight - Stage 7 One of my favorite photographers for the Dakar started posting again! These are well worth just scrolling through. I've used a couple in this post but restrained myself from just posting all 100 and if you've been reading along and enjoying the pictures at all you owe it to yourself to click through and look at all of them.https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=mmphotocz&set=a.319075670227425 Yesterday was the rest day, which Sanders may or may not have spent sulking (he certainly wasn't in the official redbull interview with Walkner and Sunderland!). This morning he woke up angry. On fire. Ready to dominate! Then he crashed into a curb on the liason right here https://map.snapchat.com/ttp/snap/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYZWxseGFheW9lAX4-DRK7AX4-DQ52AAAAAA/@25.271019,45.245242,12.82z shattered his elbow, broke his wrist and messed up his kidney so bad they have to wait to operate on his shattered elbow. Hopefully he makes a full recovery and comes back full of the same kind of speed he had so far this year. On stage, AVB, the wheelieing french rider who's long been #1 in our hearts (it's a pretty big tie for first tbh) finished 12 minutes back but because Walkner and Sunderland finished further back he's now #1 in the overall as well! By five minutes. Not a bad cushion, and he's in great position having finished 11th instead of second like current-third place Kevin Benavides (who, wow clawing all that time back over the course of the rally is incredible) but unfortunately for him, Walkner and Sunderland finished even further back so they should be able to just cruise by everyone following tracks and make up a few minutes. It's still a great move by him to take advantage of Walkner and Sunderland having some navigation issues today.  In cars, stop me if you've heard this before but... Nasser still in front, still his to lose. I expect him to cruise to victory at this point.  Kamaz? Kamaz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxcDsSmUKA0&t=33s Look at how 4:15 in (and holy poo poo, the last ten minutes is just live in-cab footage - yes please) the driver cuts the tracks. It is a HUGE advantage to be able to follow someone on stage and do things like that. Maybe he only gained a second or two there, but particularly on bikes you can also see what happens when they hit obstacles and how big those are, so you're not only cutting the course a little bit but you're also not slowing down the same way someone who's riding to their site lines might be. If they hit a bump and you see them fly up a little but not too bad then you can just hammer the throttle. Similarly with a dip that they might have slowed for, if you see them just go down a touch rather than being swallowed whole then you can, again, just hammer down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyE7vYzfhyk  Skyler Howes - not so injured he can't stand. Not injured enough that he can actually walk. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=4621885547924512  Funny how english is the universal language of  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_W8x4uhwU  Trucks don't usually crash like this. Everyone was OK, obviously and I expect they'll finish the race. Because it is a truck, you see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xybkmF7J5rk            Get. Off. The. Course.  
builds character fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 9, 2022 |
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Jan 9, 2022 18:16
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bolind posted:Me and my four year old appreciate the posting. Thank you. Well, now I can never stop.
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Jan 10, 2022 16:31
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Day Nine - Stage 8 I think these graphs (from trackingdakar.com) are always really interesting. You can see the overall is pretty smooth  But in stage there's a ton of movement.  Today AVB lost, as expected, a lot of time to Sam Sunderland who won the stage and is now first in the overall again. Walkner finished third and is 3m45s back with AVB 4m43s back. So, what does that mean? Let's talk a little bit of strategy.  It is more difficult and slower to lead out a stage and reading your notes vs. following tracks and just confirming your notes. Absolutely huge difference. The top guys all start three minutes apart. So prior stage winner goes out at 0h0m. Second place goes out at 0h3m. Third goes out at 0h6m. This means, when it comes to Walkner and Sunderland that Walkner starts six minutes after Sunderland. So he can follow Sunderland and if he catches him on course he will have gained six minutes on the overall. But what about third place, AVB? He had to lead out the stage and of course lost a bit of time coming in ninth. That means he's going to start 24 minutes after Sunderland and 18 minutes after Walkner and will have plenty of clear tracks to follow. He has the potential to make up huge time!  The very best riders can both lead out and not lose time. In the past, the best (Coma, Despres, Peterhansel) riders could both lead out and win stages but those days are past. There are too many fast racers out there now who are too good at navigation. It will be an interesting test of Sunderland and Walkner to see how much they can avoid losing to AVB. And let's not forget about Quintanilla who is also in the mix in fourth place overall 5m30s back. Unfortunately for him, he finished stage 8 in second place so will be leading out behind Sunderland - a very tough position to put more than three minutes on Sunderland as if he catches Sunderland then Sunderland will just follow him for the rest of the race (and then Walkner will join them and it'll be the three of them riding together to the end probably).  So let's say they all do well and AVB goes screaming by them. The question becomes what about the next day? You end up with an interesting see-saw of trying to lose as little time as possible when you're in front and then taking the opportunity to put a huge lead on your competitors when you're starting behind. And in the middle of all of that, you're dealing with the snowball.  What's the snowball? The snowball is the little mistakes you've made along the way plus the ridiculous exhaustion you feel for racing all day every day for two weeks. They all gather up together and start to gain momentum until they crush you. Just being a little tired and making a nav mistake and then you know you're behind so you push a little more, making it more likely that you make further mistakes which mean you need to push harder which etc etc. The snowball is real and it injures people and ruins races every single year. Sunderland got super lucky because he managed not to lose too much time after a nasty concussion and then got a combined stage cut short + being able to ride straight back to the bivouac (usually when a stage is cut short or neutralized they still have to ride through the rest of the stage to the liason and back to the bivouac rather than being able to just have a short liason on cement back to the bivouac) and then had the rest day.  Walkner is very fast and very good at navigation and he also excels at handling the snowball. I don't know how he does it but he's just better than the other guys at not getting worn down and making mistakes.  AVB on the other hand, traditionally anyway, gets just wrecked. He pushes super hard and then crashes every single year. Except last year when all the yamahas broke. Hopefully he's learned as 2020's crash was particularly bad and he seemed to be doing well in 2021 and so far this year. It will be interesting to see how all the front guys handle it this year but it's something that absolutely has to be managed. And, of course, it's much much worse for anyone without a motorhome and a masseuse. Dear medical persons, is it good if I cannot remember anything from an entire day? Thank you in advance, Skyler Howes. https://fb.watch/as2HYuLApN/ Daniel Sanders also seems 100% fine. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=647008466448406 A little video of where he crashed. Looks like I was wrong yesterday and there was a U turn and he just went straight. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYieITNs164/   Bam bam barreda continues to ride with a broken shoulder for the third stage in a row. This is ridiculous. He's only 14m38s back in the overall too!  Come on Matthias, anyone can read that. https://www.facebook.com/MatthiasWalknerMX/videos/2688778191418734 I've been seeing more scrubbing over dunes this year. I wonder if, as the bikes become lighter and lighter, that will eventually be how everyone goes over dunes.  In cars, Nasser continues to cruise 38m up on Loeb.  Audi did manage to take 1-2 in the stage today which makes me think their car really is quite fast. If only they could have figured out whatever their rear left suspension issue was before the race started. https://twitter.com/audisport/status/1480543809842913282  What do you mean "used to" Danilo? https://twitter.com/audisport/status/1480553930803273734 Nasser is fast. I don't know if you noticed. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/208046101462573 I love the trucks. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/175188264814063 When I imagine what the best moments of Dakar must be like, I imagine them like this. https://twitter.com/OfficialW2RC/status/1480486698492608516 https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1480406946486308865 Tire changing race! Nasser vs. Loeb. Quelle surprise, Nasser wins. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/343611427316213 Look at that bike just bounce up the dune. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/658742532147997 Truck wheelie 35s in and then after that some very solid truck drifting. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/175168671484412 Nasser in the same spot, look at that toyota jump! https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/981010409163021 de villiers, the guy who ran over a motorcycle twice (to his credit, only once was on purpose) has had people be mean to him on the internet. That is very sad. Almost as sad as getting run over by a car at the dakar rally. (again, and to his credit? he really only hit and then ran over one motorcycle on purpose the other one was on a blind dune and he couldn't do anything about it) https://www.motorsport.com/dakar/news/de-villiers-death-threats-bike-crashes-upsetting/7130615/amp/ The Coronel brothers are out after Tim hurt his back (think I posted that video already but lmk if I didn't). It's too bad because they're fun to watch and I'm all for anyone producing content. Also, they've somehow gotten a lot faster over the years so good for them! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXsy9_OFaUY Remember the truck that crashed with the paraplegic driver and another truck came by and tore off its hood to help get him out? Well, redbull did a little story on them. It's nice. The discussion on his gas/brake on the steering wheel is pretty interesting too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9aDBvLXCMQ Of course AVB speaks Italian. Subtitles + auto translate required unless you also speak Italian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMzENz9DVOY In trucks, it's kamaz with a surprise 1-2-3! The real surprise is that Sotnikov put a little more time on Nikolaev to... oh, maintain his first place just like literally every other stage in the rally (except the prologue!). Loprais, in fourth, in a not-Kamaz is now an hour and a half back. Ah well.  Kamaz's youtube channel is a day behind now... This is their rest day video. 42 minutes long! 2m12s in it's already a good video - guy using the "push real hard with your leg on a wrench" method of getting a bolt off. He's a pro so he never has to kick it like some of us do. Not me, obviously. But some of you. The first fifteen minutes are just hanging out talking to the mechanics so if you like this part of it you should definitely watch. Even if you have to use auto translate because you don't speak italian or russian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdBHwXG3E5w Let's take some time to check on the SxSs.   And it's been too long since we checked on the quads! Perfect.      Some nice classic car pictures showed up today too! Some are from stage seven but I know you won't complain.  "Hey, that doesn't belong in the classic class!" Yes, it does. You are just old.  Allez Droupsy!    Somewhere in here there's a joke about the camels being faster.  Not quite...  Ah, there it is.      Just beautiful landscape.  
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Jan 10, 2022 18:09
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net work error posted:Just chiming in that I also really appreciate your posts and thread. I catch the youtube rercaps but these pictures are what make Dakar. I've never been to a desert but you can't help but marvel at dunes as far as the eye can see. I really am glad you're enjoying it. I don't know where you live but it's never too late to go play in the dunes yourself! Ideally, bring a kamaz.
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Jan 11, 2022 17:50
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 Day Ten - Stage Nine Today's (intentionally?) phallic course saw continued close competition in the bikes and more of the same in the cars and trucks.  Well, well, well, look who was right about strategy. If you thought I wasn't going to remind you, then you were wrong.  In bikes, Matthias Walkner got off to a shockingly slow start, dipping as low as 30th before going full throttle to the donkey (throttle to the donkey is probably my favorite phrase from the South American versions of the dakar rally - I believe it's a very rough translation of dale gas al burro, which I honestly forget which of the south american riders it was that used it a few years ago to say they were loving flying but I just like it) and finishing the stage in fourth.  Sam Sunderland had a tough time on navigation but did manage not to get too far behind, with Walkner never quite catching him on course (remember, Walkner started six minutes behind him and at the last WP Sunderland's time was 2h37m33s and Walkner's was 2h23m36s so Walkner could probably see signs of his dust hanging in the air but Sunderland was still two minutes ahead on course.  AVB is now in third, just 3m56s behind in the overall with Quintanilla strongly in contention in 4m41s back. Kevin Benavides, the reigning champion, has done an outstanding job pulling back all the time he lost early (36m behind after stage 1!!!) and is now actually a real possibility to win again, sitting 10m22s back with Bang Bang Barreda who continues to somehow ride with a broken shoulder another half minute back at 10m57s. Those are your five real possible winners at this point, although it being the Dakar all it takes is a fall or a navigation error and all of a sudden someone else comes from 30m back. But, realistically our winner will be one of those guys. I think Walkner is probably in the best spot but it's all way too close to make any real calls. He's starting fourth tomorrow with two minutes on Sunderland, and Sunderland will have to go like hell to make up time so Sunderland will have to start form the front on stage eleven while Walkner starts further back.  Nacho Cornejo is fast. So. So. SOOO. FAST. He was leading last year until a crash and this year came back to 26m down from 46m back before having a tough stage 7 and losing ten more minutes. But he won today's stage and is absolutely someone who will compete Sanders and Howes as the next generation of racers. I think it's a toss up between who wins a dakar first, him or Sanders. Also, his name is Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo but because he loves us and wants us to be happy he goes by Nacho Cornejo. Typing this up, I just now realized Nacho was short for Ignacio and not just a nickname based on snacks like Sanders's "chucky".   I believe this is how they say "I love you" in Australian. Yup, that's the spot where he crashed. Fortunately he's out of surgery and doing well.  Unlike the cars where Nasser cruises.  Loeb lost two minutes to put him 39m back and at this point it's just the desert doing Nasser's work for him. Loeb has to push too hard to make up all that time - it's impossible without Nasser making a mistake, but Nasser just keeps cruising along.  Trucks is still a Kamaz 1-2-3, with Sotnikov 8m51s up on Nikolaev. It takes four minutes to change a truck tire in ideal conditions, as you see below, so they're still within an unlucky puncture of switching places, but third is Shibalov 41m back and fourth is Ales "not-Kamaz" Loprais 1h33m back so it's really down to Sotnikov vs. Nikolaev for the win. I'm rooting for Sotnikov because, despite being the reigning champion, he's still the underdog vs. Nikolaev who has won an incredible five dakar rallies in the truck class and finished twice a further three times.  Kamaz's videographers continue to succumb to the snowball and are still a day behind. This was posted 12 hours ago, so at the start of today's stage. Stop being a day behind, Kamaz! 6m20s in or so, I can't believe that someone wouldn't get the gently caress out of the way of a truck like that. See the kamaz blue behind you and just move over. It's the dakar rally yeah, but don't die. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UX2A0dP7HM Bikes in the desert. https://www.facebook.com/dakar/videos/471877131040871 https://www.facebook.com/dakar/videos/403391761567007 Danilo Petrucci is great but he's no AVB or de Soultrait. DO A WHEELIE FOR THE CHOPPER. https://www.facebook.com/dakar/videos/286206773502185 sarlacc pit.video - it looks so easy for the best drivers to just zip up and over the dunes (awesome, yes, but also easy) but this kind of video reminds you that for everyone else it's not quite as simple. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/321332399867663 *yakety sax playing* https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/3107689662879278 Nasser surfing his toyota down a dune. https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/2249251608547892 Kamaz... hop! https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/989854811886999 The scientific term for the Kamaz hop is actually a "breach."  This dude has so many good posts and I like how much he loves Nasser. His caption for this one? "Our eternal hero Nasser Al-Atia is approaching achieving the most precious title" https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/461832455385778 "The infidels flew away, children" https://www.facebook.com/majd.iswed80/videos/1098089937669162 Do you like helicopters? Can you speak arabic? You only need to answer yes to one of those to watch this. https://twitter.com/ssc_sports/status/1480882057593167873 Yes, this is correct. https://twitter.com/Petrux9/status/1480883774888026115 Here you can see one of the things Kamaz was complaining about in an earlier video. The fast trucks still have to start behind the slow cars and SxS. But this is never going to change, I think, because the trucks tear up the track so much and it's already difficult enough for the not-pros as is. And while nobody gives a poo poo about the bikes, the cars are bringing real money and lots of french people and if there's one thing the ASO cares about it's france. But if there's two things it's money and france. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1480823937038798848 How long does it take you and a buddy to change a tire? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NHUXafQeEA There are also some pictures from yesterday in here because some of them were so good. "If you truly love Dakar, you can find beauty anywhere. Even in the quads and SxSs." - Vincent Van Gogh      Respect for the car wheelie, however brief and unintentional.    https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1480917424929075200       Can your garbage truck do this? Only one way to find out.             I was going to end on one of these two pictures. They're just incredible.   But somehow, this one seems more appropriate. 
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Jan 11, 2022 17:52
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Let's start the day with some heartbreak. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481191186924716032 Day Eleven - Stage Ten It's appropriate that on this most holy of days, https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481243311478165505 AVB, patron saint of the wheelie, had a great day and ended up finishing fourth on stage, ending up in first with 5m59s on Sunderland, 6m15s Quintanilla and 8m24s on Walkner.  A very, very impressive ride.  And here's hoping he can not lose too much tomorrow and stay on the podium at the the finish. It's a super tight race at this point until the end. One interesting note about the last day - it's run in reverse. So whoever gets first on the penultimate stage starts last on the final stage, second starts second to last, etc until you get the slowest starting first. It's traditionally not a real racing stage and is generally short but it's long enough that if the racers are within a minute or two they'll try to win.    Ricky Brabec still 38m back in the overall. Just so tough that he got caught out by the navigation on day one.  Loeb managed a blistering pace  to claw back... ninety seconds! on Nasser. Putting him a mere 32m40s behind in the overall.  Peterhansel, won the stage with Sainz coming in second two minutes behind, meaning that now each of the Audis has won a stage. If they fix their rear suspension issues they should be competitive next year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBasdZP5U2M Some bikes literally flying through the dunes from yesterday. https://www.facebook.com/100001420118449/videos/610965583314686 Bush mechanic, Toby Price puts a truck tire on using fire. He only catches the truck on fire maybe and by god look at his hair. https://www.facebook.com/106053110845166/videos/402860554949167 Yes, Nasser 100% puts all his own tires on his rims. I believe you. https://www.facebook.com/100001420118449/videos/296804429168687 Kamaz is again 1-2-3 with Sotnikov putting a couple more minutes on Nikolaev who's now 10m18s back.  Nobody else is good at driving trucks.  Kamaz video again is great - look at them driving through those rocks at 3m30s in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FU37lAq5ts This is just beautiful. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481264296835301380 Is this solidarity or is it "get out of the way!" (it's solidarity) https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481219252652752902 I don't know why these clips are always like ten to fifteen seconds. Surely the helicopter follows them for longer than that. Do they think I don't want to see cars racing through the desert for a full minute? https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481204661604564992 That'll buff out.   Stefan Svitko is a very fast pro on a non-factory team/semi pro privateer. There are some rumblings that he would be on a factory ride if he were from a big country but frankly he's just not as fast as the guys who got factory rides - Sanders and Howes finished fourth and fifth last year. He did finish second overall in 2016 so probably deserved a factory ride back then, but KTM had Price who won that year, Sunderland who won in 2017 and Walkner who won in 2018 for their main guys.  A jaunty chapeau.  Up to the top nice and easy, peak over the edge and then gas!     Just some friends out for a trail ride. *cue on any sunday music*  I wonder if the helicopter makes it harder to ride or if hearing it only makes them push even harder.  It must be fun for this guy, driving along delivering some hay when you're passed by a convoy of Dakar trucks.   If you're going to crash, crash in the sand before these rocks. Andrew Short has had a very solid if unspectacular race. Nice to see him on target to finish this year.  At this point his primary job is as a water carrier - to follow AVB on stage and let AVB cannibalize his bike if anything breaks.  This is one of my favorite feelings. If you're hitting a hill just right and your rear hooks up as you come down, lofting the front until you hit flat ground. This picture is how it feels.  OK, hear me out. It's like knight rider meets airwolf but in a desert race.   How it started.  How it's going.  GET. OUT. OF. THE. WAY. YOU. WILL. DIE.  Checking in on SxSs...  There's some real nonsense with records going on this year. Seth Quintera just won his tenth stage, tying the record for stage wins. But he did it by failing to finish a stage and then re-entering the rally which the new rules permit. So does it really count? No. No it does not. But also yes. But really, no.  And let's check in on the quads...  Sorry, the quad pictures were just too good today.  I like the pictures of the dunes but some of these canyons make for just incredible photography.   Still, don't crash on those rocks.  I mean, look at that.  You can tell they're going fast because of the speed.  But this is my favorite.  If you hit it perfect, I bet that rock on the right is a sick jump.  left, right, left, right, GO  My truck is broken.  Hit it with a hammer until it's fixed.  Some beautiful Dakar classic shots.     ALLEZ DROUPSY!  
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Jan 12, 2022 18:05
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Dakar Strategy I have to admit I was counting stages wrong because I had started following dakar's method of counting 1a and 1b as just 1. Ugh. So... there are only TWO DAYS LEFT. What does this mean for strategy and who's going to win the dakar rally (in the bikes class, because otherwise it's nasser and sotnikov)? The last day is a 100 mile stage (that is run in reverse starting order - this has always been true but I can't find it for this year). 100 miles is a short stage and it's traditionally quite easy too so you can't make up a lot of time. Just a reminder, here are the contenders. 1 #042 - ADRIEN VAN BEVEREN (FRA) YAMAHA 33h27m06s +00:00:00 2 #003 - SAM SUNDERLAND (GBR) GASGAS 33h33m05s +00:05:59 3 #007 - PABLO QUINTANILLA (CHL) HONDA 33h33m21s +00:06:15 4 #052 - MATTHIAS WALKNER (AUT) KTM 33h35m30s +00:08:24 5 #088 - JOAN BARREDA BORT (ESP) HONDA 33h37m53s +00:10:47 And the starting order.  A KTM and a husqvarna (remember, KTM, Husqvarna and GasGas are all one team for our purposes) starting out, and then a honda. Only one of whom is in contention for the overall and all of whom have a rider from the other team coming after them but before their teammate. Bang Bang Barreda has the toughest road to a championship starting out third but he's also the guy with the most raw speed. Unfortunately, he tends to ride a little over his head and then crash and he's exhibited otherwordly toughness this year to continue to ride after doing exactly that and breaking his shoulder in the process. He needs to catch Price and Luciano and win the stage by 11 minutes more than any of the other contenders. It's not impossible, but what he really needs is for the other competitors to get lost. All of them. Somehow. I don't know how. Still, he is just absurdly fast and he has led out and won a stage before so if anyone can do it, he's... not really the guy. It's probably Price or Quintanilla or Walkner or Sunderland. Still, he does have a chance! The second contender is AVB, starting out fourth on the day. He is in an absolutely brutal spot because he's close enough to the front he can't just follow all the tracks but he also doesn't have a teammate in front who can lay tracks or slow down and ride with him. This is really a result of the official, factory Yamaha team actually being a factory effort by Yamaha europe (and primarily Yamaha france) and not the Yamaha mothership in Japan. So it's a factory effort but... not quite on the level of Honda or KTM, both of whom have the full support of the parent company. He does have Andrew Short starting six minutes behind him, so if anything goes wrong he can get help from Shorty. AVB's goal has to be to lose as little time as possible and he cannot lose more than 7 minutes. I think one minute is the absolute maximum you can make up on the last day. I may be wrong about that, but I think AVB has to try to limit the damage such that he's in first at the end of the day. It's a tall order and fairly unlikely, but he can do it. Next is Quintanilla in tenth. He's in an excellent spot, just six minutes back, with a super fast teammate in Barreda starting out in third to make sure there are no navigation issues and to keep the pressure on everyone else. He has enough space between him and the start of the race that he can ride fast and still put time on the board, but he's disadvantaged vs. KTM because he only has the one teammate ahead of him and Brabec is starting way back in fifteenth so won't be of any help at all except as a water carrier. Whether or not Quintanilla wins will be entirely up to him. If he can put in a spectacular ride he can win, and he's in the same group as Walkner and Sunderland but he's probably last of those three. He's also on a new bike this year but it may be the best bike and he's adapted very quickly. And then we get to the two real favorites. Both are starting way back - Sunderland starts in 17th and Walkner is in 26th. There used to be a rule that the pros got to move up to 20th if they started further back than that so you didn't have a super fast guy unsafely blazing through the entire field just because he lost a tire the day before. But I don't know if that applies to Walkner. Either way, he has a slight advantage in starting further back over Sunderland for two reasons. First, he gets to follow a few more sets of tracks. Anything that makes things a little bit easier is better and at that point small shortcuts may even become a little more clear. Second, there will be a refueling stop at some point and at a refueling stop you have to stop for fifteen minutes. During that time you can get gas, use the bathroom (although all the pros use condom catheters that have a little hose that empties by their boot) eat some snacks, pose, whatever. You also get a chance to see who's fifteen minutes in front of you and talk to folks to find out who was in front of them. For example, if I start out exactly fifteen minutes behind you, and then when I get to the fuel stop I see you leave four minutes after I get there then I know that I've made up four minutes of time on you. So Walkner will have the best idea of just how hard he has to push in the last half of the stage to win. Sunderland and Walkner have to be the favorites, but as between them it's a tossup. Walkner has a better starting position but Sunderland has 2m25s of time on him. If either of them crashes or makes a navigation error, that's the race. What can the teams do? I mentioned Yamaha only having two riders. They cannot do anything. There are no clever strategies for Yamaha. Just speed. Honda has four riders but two of them are way back and two are up front. If Honda really, really wants to win then I think their best chance is to have Barreda slow down and wait for Quintanilla and then rely on Barreda's ability to ride faster than anyone else on already-laid-down tracks and have Quintanilla follow him. They cannot possibly do this because Barreda will explode from the unfairness of it and Barreda still has enough of a chance that they probably want to give both their riders a shot in case everyone else messes up (or everyone else + one of their riders). But I'd love to see it. KTM has far and away the most options. One of the old tried and true race strategies is pretending you got lost. KTM can have Price and Luciano go out and take a wrong turn at a difficult navigation point and lay down some wrong tracks to throw everyone else off. By the time Sunderland and Walkner get there everyone should have an idea of the right way to go and if they play their cards right they can tell Sunderland and Walkner where they're doing it so they can avoid making the same mistake. I think they're actually unlikely to do this because a vanilla strategy is so likely to be successful for them but if we see Price and Luciano talking about getting "lost" tomorrow in interviews this may well be what happened. I think it's more likely they just play it straight and have Sunderland and Walkner both just go all out following tracks and figure that even if one of them bins it the other will take the overall. There isn't really anyone on factory KTM that is close enough or fast enough to either to meet up and ride with them to the finish. That's the most typical strategy you'll see where you have teams trying to scramble to get a rider who's lower in the overall to put on a burst and finish higher on a stage so they can slow down and ride with the race leader to the finish. That covers you if they crash, if something goes wrong mechanically and in case the navigation is difficult. With all that out of the way, my head says it's going to be Sunderland but my heart says Walkner Extended Highlights from Yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgbH6Fwp9J0 https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481336424829915136 https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481325110749327362 Detailing your dakar buggy is very important. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481315033892077568 Kamaz starting to catch back up with their videos! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epBngqpfWPc One other thing I thought was interesting. Nasser is the overall leader of the rally but the top five bikes are all faster overall than Loeb. Does this mean anything? No. They ran one stage differently so it's not apples to apples, but it's still cool.
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Jan 13, 2022 03:30
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Let's start with a different flavor of heartbreak. Paulo Gonçalves, Dakar 2020 posted:The important thing is that we never give up, and we keep on racing. The target is to do our best everyday, and to be safe until the end. https://www.facebook.com/HeroMotoSports/videos/1094705461296409    Day Twelve Stage Eleven https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481498745695002625 They did it! They actually did it! https://twitter.com/dakar/    Uh, I mean... Toby Price definitely got lost and could not find his first checkpoint. KTM turned out to get a huge advantage from having so many fast riders that one (or two) were guaranteed to finish first and they could throw banana peels like this at Honda and Yamaha and then still have someone like Kevin Benavides back in it finishing first on the stage and able to either lead out tomorrow (or following to make sure nothing is wrong if it's backwards starting order).  And Luciano Benavides was definitely not messing with Bang Bang here...    Then, they both just latched on and followed him. Unfortunately for KTM, he's too fast to get ahead of far enough to do more navigation shenanigans. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481513845248053250 AVB got fooled by Price as well and lost today, dropping to fourth overall. But goddamn can he ride. https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=922393705089719 Quintanilla had a good ride, coming in seventh on the stage and eight minutes ahead of anyone else starting in the top ten.  Meanwhile, Walkner started late but put the hammer down, going wide open throttle. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481506298470584320 But it wasn't enough.  Sam Sunderland had an absolute monster day, finishing second overall and putting himself 6m52s ahead of former teammate Pablo Quintanilla and 7m15s ahead of Walkner.  This is what the refueling station I mentioned yesterday looks like. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481542784708349953 Did you think I'd forgotten about Skyler Howes? Nope. He made it home and apparently can't remember anything from the entire day that he crashed on stage and then got back on his bike and finished the stage. He's recovering but said it felt like he was badly hungover for four days. I'm sure that's fine for your long term health, but either way he'll be back next year! And just look at his friend's mustache. Amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdKPFsiGu2o Ricky Brabec managed to continue being fast but not fast enough to make up for his first day error and finished in sixth overall.  Nasser SUPERFAN posted:The departure of our eternal hero Nasser Al-Atiyah in the eleventh stage in Bisha.. Good luck to our hero, God willing, towards a new victory in Dakar.. #Things_are_good 💪🤲☝️ same guy who just loves Nasser posted:This is the moment to victory✌️ Nasser continued to race smart to the finish, coming in seventh on a stage that saw Sainz and Eckstrom putting two Audis in the top three, and forty seconds ahead of Loeb.  Just to make a point, I assume.  That makes it Nasser 1, Loeb 2 and Nasser's teammate and hometown Saudi boy Yazeed Al Rajhi 3.  Peterhansel with 46m19s of penalties still finished 57th in the overall, ahead of nine other folks. That would be disheartening for them if he wasn't Stephane Peterhansel.  Serial motorcycle runner-over Giniel de Villiers discovered that god punishes as he's fallen to fifth despite having his five hour penalty being reversed. That will definitely not teach him anything, but I can't say I'm disappointed that he finished off the podium.  loving Kamaz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFu4d2LnkMI Sotnikov 1, Nikolaev 2 and Shibalov 3.  To his credit, Nikolaev really tried today and ended up winning the stage.  But he only managed to get two minutes back on Sotnikov.  The king is dead. Long live the king.  Dakar rally media person, the gently caress you think you're talking to asking stupid questions like this? Step into my office. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481619544137469957 You couldn't even afford the hook? https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481608215636758528 Kevin Benavides returned today. One of the big reasons for the change to the rules that now allows competitors to return and win stages in the rally is that the Dakar Rally is now part of the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship rather than just being its own race. Points for the World Rally-Raid Championship are determined based on stage wins/places rather than on overall position at the end of a race. So you can crash out of the dakar rally on stage one, get a 12 hour penalty for rejoining and then go on to win every remaining stage and have a huge lead in the world rally-raid championship. I assume this is a good system without any problems at all. No questions. Thank you. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481611993043779585 Wrong, that would be Toby "the bivouac barber" Price. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481604442197839872 He's just so great at making me think he is fun and good. https://www.redbull.com/us-en/episodes/bivouac-barber-s1-e1 Seriously, look how nervous Sainz is in the background at the beginning. And Price still gets him to wear a bowl on his head. https://www.redbull.com/us-en/episodes/bivouac-barber-s1-e5 This person is the best in the history of the world at doing this thing right here. https://twitter.com/dakar/status/1481572983516938250 We're near the end, so you're going to just get a huge number of pictures that I liked with little rhyme or reason. Enjoy!                                                            
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Jan 13, 2022 18:00
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Another post because tomorrow is the last day. The best interview in the rally. https://www.facebook.com/100000220414168/videos/1144947816247582/ A Dakar classic and for good reason.    Not everyone's bike gets a helicopter ride out.  Just a photographer flexing.   What could you possibly have forgotten that comes in a book and you just hover the chopper like that to pick up?  PEAK FITNESS. (I joke because he's a better rider than I'll ever be and honestly probably fitter than I'll ever be too)  Vent holes for increased bib mousse cooling.  Apparently this happened from a landing off a dune jump.  Clever alternative to a bike stand.  Crouching makes you go marginally faster. He must be going at least 100mph for crouching to make a difference on that bike.  Work permitting, I will do a post on Malle Moto.  Honda video from the day. It is just a bunch of gnashing teeth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3StE3si4c5A Classic car highlights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lONLD56t0oU Believe it or not, this ends well. 
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Jan 13, 2022 19:12
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net work error posted:You might not be able to buy an X-Raid Mini to drive on the street but I just learned that they sell a kit for a standard Mini Countryman... Maybe not full Dakar spec but it looks cool! And who's going to test you? "I don't believe that's a real dakar car, let's go race up a huge sand dune." -nobody That said... I think if you have enough money to buy an x-raid mini to drive on the street you can probably get it licensed. bolind posted:Dumb question: what kinds of speeds do the various classes of vehicles do? They're all speed limited so there are really three questions. 1. What are they governed at? Bikes and cars are limited to 180kph/112mph. Trucks, SxSs and Quads are limited to 130 kph/81mph. 2. OK, but how fast could they go? The bikes I would guess top out at around 130 but that's really just a guess. I had a KTM 450 without any of the fancy engine bells and whistles (or the weight but not to worry I'm sure I made up for that) that these race bikes have and it would do 100 on regular gearing in soft sand. Toyota says Nasser's car will do 200kph but that's limited because of the gearing and I expect the same is true of the bikes. The toyota is 4,400 lbs and has they won't say how many HP but presumably at least 500+. 3. Fine, fine, how fast do they go? This is actually more than one question too! What's their max speed? Bikes definitely get up to their top speed consistently. Any time you see them on a flat straight they're WOT in top gear. I would bet this is true of the cars too. This picture from earlier, for example, I can't imagine they're not going 180kph exactly. What's their typical or average speed? Sam Sunderland traveled about 3,661 kilometers (assuming that he only did 100k of the partial stage 6 but it doesn't really matter much in the end) of special stage in 37 hours and 4 minutes for an average speed of 99kph or 62 mph. Nasser did 3965 km in 36h49m for an average speed of 108kph or 67mph. Sotnikov did 3965 km in 39h54m for an average speed of 99kph or 62mph. Knowing that the trucks are limited to 130kph/81mph vs. the 180/110 for the bikes, this means that the trucks are going fast as gently caress on average and exist in a constant state of fruitlessly raging at their governors. So in short: just ridiculously fast given what they're driving over. For reference, SandBlast Rally is a rallycross event in south carolina in sand that is fun and good but it's on sandy forest roads so it's not like they're racing Dakar. In 2020 (pre-COVID when more folks did it), the fastest car averaged 63mph and the fastest bike (ridden by Bill Conger, an American who raced Dakar in 2012 and 2018 and finished 66th overall after really hurting his back falling (sure, sure, "jumping") off a dune on day two or three so you have a sense of how fast he is) was averaging 66.5 mph. builds character fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jan 14, 2022 |
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Jan 14, 2022 00:43
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