Just wondering if anyone else is following the Dakar Rally this year? I caught the first two days of coverage on OLN, have the third on tape.
I’m kinda-sorta following it on the net, since Mitsubishi Motors is one of our clients and we did a series of “Congratulations on winning the 2006 Dakar Rally” print ads for them, so I’m interested to see if they’ll get used (MMC’s not being arrogant; every company prepares ads like that beforehand just in case). Nothing’s been chosen yet, but if you see an ad that says something like “We never rally off,” it wasn’t my fault.
Just this month, we switched our provider to Dish Network. Apparently, they have a feud going with OLN and we’re not getting it anymore.
Pretty upsetting, moreso come Tour De France time.
It looks like Robby Gordon isn’t in the Dakar Rally this year. Is Loren Roberts doing the coverage?
Robbie Gordon is in the race this year driving a Hummer, I believe as a privateer. Running about mid-pack in the car division right now.
I’m more interested in the motorcycle class myself since I ride a large dual sport, though my bike is more of an adventure tourer than an enduro. There are also a few privateer riders in the race that are also regulars at a motorcycle message board that I frequent, so it’s kind of like I know some of them.
They’ve made some interesting rules changes this year. They’ve made navigation much more difficult by severely limiting the use of GPS. In the last few years the driver just had to follow some waypoints in their GPS, but now they have to rely on more traditional roll charts. The GPS units they use are provided by the organization and only display heading and have no map or position display. They’ve also shortened the fuel stops for the bikes so they’re carrying something like 50L less fuel. That cuts around 80 lbs. of weight off the bikes and makes them faster and more maneuverable.