PICS :- Dakar Rally 2011

[yamaha_george]

http://totallycoolpix.com/2011/01/dakar-rally-2011/

[ragedigital]

Fantastic pics!

[yamaha_george]

Very cool pics! Thanks for sharing!

Some where in that bunch of characters is Ian Drysdale builder of the Drysdale 1K engine fame special normally resident in Australia who was the guy who arranged for the photo's to be posted so us mere mortals could sit in wonder at Chile's deserts & such

[yamaha_george]

From Ian:-
I'm back from the wilds of South America, with many tales to tell.

Our main rider ( Jacob Smith ) finished 32nd overall, which would have
been 25th if weren't for a 3 hour penalty he copped when some of our
team were spotted helping out another competitor.  Just a naive mistake,
they didn't even know the guy.   We started with 4 riders in our team,
and ended with one.  Poor old Simon didn't even see a competitive stage,
he had to return home due to a family tragedy, Mark was out after
breaking a couple of ribs, the culmination of a day where he passed out
with altitude sickness after passing thru 4850m on top of the Andes.
Our 3rd rider to drop out ( Warren ) injured his shoulder badly after looping
his bike in a series of wash-outs, earning a ride in the medical chopper.

The Honda CRF450's went well, actually so reliable mechanically that
they didn't even require a valve adjustment in 7 days ( engine replaced
mid way ).  There were issues, but all with accessory stuff, the main
issue being the rear fuel tank, which was sourced from the British Honda
team and untested prior to the event, never a good idea.

Characters thrown up by this year's Dakar included:
- 64 y.o. Michael Stanfield ( KTM dealer from Kansas City )
- Mike's team-mate Luis Belaustegui, who was on a KTM 150cc 2 stroke.
- Ignacio Chivite who rode a 1974 Bultaco 370cc Pursang.

Coincidentally, all 3 dropped out on Day 6, the day before the rest day,
but getting that far is still a massive achievement.  Michael swears that
he'll be back next year, as does Luis.

Most memorable event for me was inadvertently ending up on the race
course (after following a GPS track for the media supplied by the organizers).
We bogged our support vehicle to the axles in the sand ( wasn't me driving ),
then had the frightening sight of seeing a KAMAZ coming at us at 200 kph
on the same track.

A friend of mine, Steve Riley, dead handy rider in his day, was in a car this
year and broke down at one point.  He said that he saw the "Camions" take
on a 2 ft high sharp edged step without backing off, just knock it down a
gear and open it up!!

I've got lots of pics, I'll work out somewhere to put them up.

When he does we have a link for sure :-}

[WSM]

Here are some more:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/0 ... _2011.html

[yamaha_george]

Ian's quote:-
Rumor around the pits was that a truck was 4 or 5th outright on one stage
this year ( the Copiapo-Copiapo loop ), but checking the Dakar site, it will
only let me see Stage13 results, where the lead truck would have been 14th
outright.

Speaking of top speeds, the 450's were topping out at 152-162 kph, depending
on which team and fuel loads etc, this was on level hard dirt / gravel roads.
In '09, the 690's in our team were pulling 172 kph in the same conditions
( other teams geared for 180 kph ), so the 450 rule has knocked ~20 kph off
the top speed.   One stage was at 3500m altitude and the top teams were
struggling to get 125 kph in the dirt.  Going over the top of the Andes, the
carburetted bikes sounded like dogs, and sick ones at that.   These speeds
are from the GPS BTW, so dead accurate.

Actually, speaking of gearing, pretty well all the 2011 Dakar top runners were
using 5 speed gearboxes ( KTM 450 Rallye, WR & YZ450 Yamahas, Honda
CRF450's, Aprilia V-twin ) which I find odd, surely 6 speeds would give a
better spread for slow stuff and then the ( up to ) 650 km transport sections?
KTM would certainly have had the choice of 5 or 6 speeds in their motor, I
guess they made the 5 gears wider for extra strength ?

Rules for 2009 allowed 2 spare engines ( 3 in total ), with top end
rebuilds free
but no bottom end rebuilds ( cases not allowed to be split ).   That said, I
didn't hear of any gearbox breakages.


&
Ian thought that this guy was on a Pursang but:-
There you go, I didn't know that Bultaco did a "low pipe" Frontera, I thought
they were all high pipe ( & blue ).   All the Europeans in bivouac were calling
it a Pursang, so I thought I was safe.........

Gets a man thinking though, just imagining how good something like a
490 Maico would be in the dunes, good steering, plenty of bottom end grunt.
Ummm.......

UNQUOTE

Err that is an 'late '70's early '80 Bultaco we are talking about in 2010 doing wonders it seems ................geez i know my Alpina was bloody awesome & the Pursang I rode under sponsorship at time was agreat bike but 30 years later it is still cleaning up

[chefen2006]

WoW ........very nice pics

[yamaha_george]

WoW ........very nice pics

we aim to please :-}