Dakar 2011 Best of

2011 Hell's Gate Extreme Enduro

So once again Fabio Fasola will do his best to inflict torment upon 150 privileged riders who descend upon Il Ciocco at this weekend's Hell's Gate Extreme Enduro. They cannpt afford to let the beauty of Tuscany fool them though, because there will be no rest for the weary.

Dougie Lampkin on his new GasGas, Husqvarna's Graham Jarvis, etc... Who will take it this year?

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Tuareg Rallye 2011 Trailer

Dakar 2012?

With the overwhelming success that has blossomed from the Dakar rally since its transition from the desolation of apathetic Northern Africa to the welcoming arms of passionate South America, it is quite apparent that more neighboring countries will be eager to sample a taste of that success and more importantly, its promotional and commercial side effects. While next year’s participation of Argentina and Chile are most likely certain, no less than three additional countries are rumored to either have already promised funds or are in serious talks with the Amaury Sport Organization, the Dakar Rally organizing body, to play host to at least one or more stages each.

Indeed, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil are all rumored to be clamoring to host stages of the 2012 Dakar rally in the hopes or raising their international profile and tourist interests which can be very lucrative. It is said that for a $5 Million dollar investment to party host the rally this year, Argentina may reap upwards of $170 Million in returns as tourists flock to see the spectacle that is hundreds of motorbikes, cars, and trucks barreling through as picturesque a terrain as can be found on Earth. While the commercial success and attraction cannot be denied, the question remains, and true to ASO history, will probably not be answered until very late in 2011, which countries will the Dakar Rally visit next year? The safe bet is that it will be more than the current two.

As the ASO tries, not forget its history, but to shake off the romantic but unrealistic notion that the only true home for the rally remains in Africa, it can be certain that the 2012 Dakar will impress even the most hopeless of romantics. Only 50 more weeks…

 

Oh no, Casteu

Perhaps some stand aghast that I could put out a wrap up for stage 10 without a mention of French rally stalwart, David Casteu. Such are the troubles afflicting Casteu that I felt he needed, no, deserved a place all his own. His desire to persevere can certainly be understood in the context of the Dakar as for most, to finish is to be victorious.

To a rider of Casteu’s caliber, experience, and ability, anything less than a victory must be a failure. The Frenchman’s speed and talent puts him in the same eldritch category occupied by only two other competitors, fellow Francophone, Cyril Despres, and Spanish sensation, Marc Coma. Their otherworldly performances put them on a distinct level, apart from their immensely talented competition. Perhaps the only other contemporary rider approaching that exclusive club is Chaleco Lopez. Where others possess similar speeds, some others the navigational prowess, it is only these four super humans who are able to turn in consistent, quick stage after stage results with precious few mistakes.

After a promising start on the beautiful little 450 Sherco Rally Replica, outright victory or even hopes for a top five finish were dashed on stage 5 with a transmission failure and a 113^th place stage finish. Up until that point, Casteu was solidly moving in the right direction up the leader board…Stage 1, 12^th, Stage 2, 8^th, Stage 3, 8^th, Stage 4, 7^th. With each stage, David was increasing his chances to equal or better his 2007 finish of 2^nd place overall. Casteu had a similar promising start in the 2010 Dakar, but unfortunately, it was the dreaded stage 5, and a viscous crash that ended his hopes. With significant injuries, quite frankly, David was lucky to be able to carry on, get back to health, and take the 450cc class World Championship in the FIM Cross Country series for Sherco and we are all luckier for it as Casteu is a joy to watch.

Perhaps what says more about the man is his determination to complete the Dakar. With the ambiguity of this year’s 3 engine rule, Casteu has been open about taking his 4^th and 5^th engines and the 40 and 50 minute penalties associated with each. Quite frankly, I’ve lost count and think he may be on his sixth. Casteu is running a new generation transmission this year and unfortunately, his Dakar has become a heartbreaking exercise in research and development as this new transmission has exposed itself as the weak link in the chain. In a rally such as the Dakar, a weak link, any weak link will quickly make itself apparent, usually at the worst of times.

Casteu’s team put in a fresh engine on the rest day only to be rewarded with a locked up transmission shortly into the next day’s stage. He stopped, eventually got the bike into fourth gear, and carried on through the rest of the stage in a single gear. Stage 8 and 9 were much, much better for Casteu and perhaps it seemed the team had wrangled hold of their demons, through an outstanding 3^rd place finish on stage 9. After reaching the bivouac after the difficult loop around Copiapo, the decision was made to take the fourth engine and incur the 40 minute penalty.

Near the breaking point himself, Casteu once again ground to a halt on the huge liaison from Copiapo to Fiambala on the way to the start of special stage 10. Reports suggest that somehow, Casteu was able to take the stage start and then head back to Fiambala to begin the process of changing to now his 5^th engine. At this point, many other top riders may have decided to pack it in. Due to an illness, fellow Sherco rider, Tina Meier did that morning. A few days earlier, Casteu’s team mate Laurent Lazard was shown on the withdrawal list. The only Sherco’s left in the rally are Casteu’s temperamental mount and that of Belgian rider, Simon Tampaxis.

Casteu was hours behind the leaders for stage 10, but he went anyway. After leaving the Copiapo bivouac at his scheduled 4:24am departure time, by the time David completed the stage and reached the bivouac at Chilecito, it was 2:39am the following morning. Yes, that’s right, 22 hours and 15 minutes, most of which was spent in the saddle. Spare a thought for what the timing sheets don’t show.

Sure David Casteu has been let down by numerous mechanical woes, but don’t blame Sherco for this. Instead congratulate them and Casteu for taking the chance on such a huge undertaking for such a small outfit. With Sherco’s 3000 unit yearly output, barely 5% the output of rally leaders KTM, let alone what comes out of the factories of Honda or Yamaha, we say a huge well done to the small company. Let this undertaking inspire all and hopefully let that inspiration translate into sales which will only help further the rally participation that we know and love.

Bravo Sherco for taking on the daunting climes of the Dakar rally. Bravo David Casteu for taking the change and jumping, head first into a promising but unproven project when more known equipment abounds. Last but not least, Bravo to David and his team for displaying what makes the Dakar and indeed the rally world what it is, the heart and soul of racers and teams whose desire is to compete and be there at the end regardless of what the time sheets say.

Stage 10 Moto Wrap Up

After a near flawless run to victory on Stage 9, Jonah Street kicked off the morning’s proceedings fresh as a daisy. Perhaps ‘fresh as a daisy’ is a gross over statement of the conditions with the riders having, by the start of the now infamous Fiambala Stage, already completed a border crossing and a liaison in the order of several hundred kilometers. The stage designation of Copiapo to Chilecito is also somewhat misleading. Perhaps ‘Copiapo to Chilecito by way of Hell in a hand basket’ would be a more appropriate moniker for a stage that is quickly gaining a reputation to be feared, a reputation of swallowing riders, destroying whatever hopes they may have had for good stage times, and then spitting them out, bruised and battered, if they are lucky, at the stage finish.

 

With only a 176km special on the stage, it shouldn’t have been so bad, but numbers are tricky little devils. Sometimes those numbers are misleading as well. Every one of those kilometers would become a battle in themselves and only those riders with the drive to win the war will breach the defenses to take the hill that is the finish of stage 10.

 

Indeed, ‘misleading’ will look to become the best description to define the day that was Stage10 of the 2011 Dakar Rally. The Fiambala stage treats the competitors with contempt and as trespassers who dare attempt to tame her. The stage wasted little time in punishing first on track, Jonah Street. In a self admitted ‘rookie mistake’, Jonah missed the first waypoint and squandered valuable time finding it. As evident by the times at that first waypoint, the previous day’s hero had taken over 34 minutes to find it to Helder Rodrigues’ 21 minutes for the same distance. Helder repeated his stage 9 performance by rocketing to an early lead from his lowly, 11^th place start position. The Portuguese Yamaha pilot was followed in close order by the regulars of the sharp end of the timing sheets. Frenchman, Cyril Despres on his KTM 450 Rally trailed Rodrigues by a scant 14” with team mate and water carrier, Ruben Faria of Portugal a further 26” back in third place. 4^th place was occupied by Francisco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez of neighboring Chile, with American Quinn Cody hot on his heels just 1’01” back from the lead.

 

Of course this was early in the stage, but 9^th place starter and overall rally leader, Marc Coma must have felt a bit left out from the lead pack because as the riders blasted through the second timing waypoint, it was Coma who grabbed the headlines as the stage leader relegating Rodrigues to 4^th. Rodrigues however, was not to be denied the top position and took that back promptly from Coma by waypoint 3. From then, the timing positions remained fairly static. Some jostling for position briefly saw Quinn Cody and his Honda rise to 3^rd place at waypoint 4, but the newcomer was put back in his place by the wily veterans with Quinn settling in about the 5^th position on stage up towards the end.

 

Stage 9 dark horse surprise, Daniel Gouet, the young Chilean, showed that his good result was not simply an inheritance gifted through the misfortunes of others. Gouet took charge of his Honda CRF450X from a 6^th place starting position and began an undulating rhythm up and down the time sheets to eventually end up in a very respectable 15^th place only 37:43” off the lead finisher.

 

At this point, it may be expected that Helder Rodrigues rolled into the finish of the short stage in the lead followed by the current crop of rally heavyweights, however, lest we forget the ‘misleading’ aspect of Fiambala for it was she that would have the last laugh. Just in the short distance between the final waypoint and the finish of the stage, the expected results changed drastically as a plethora of riders became lost in a tricky navigation section. Let’s clarify that. Not lost, but “very, very lost” as Jonah Street described it after the stage. Quinn Cody was having a stellar performance on the day and, due to his later starting time, had hooked up with Jonah on the piste with the two riding together. As they became more and more lost, Quinn was looking to Jonah, a Dakar veteran, for guidance on where to go.

 

Eventually, they found their way in to the finish, but both had dropped over 90 minutes to the lead position and stage 10 winner, Spaniard Marc Coma on his KTM. Cody and Street finished in 50^th and 51^st positions on the stage which was by any terms, a disastrous result.

 

Early in the stage, Yamaha’s Helder Rodrigues repeated his stage 9 performance by taking the lead. Unfortunately, he also repeated his end of stage 9 performance by getting lost as well. Almost exactly as he had done at the end of stage 9, Helder again lost over 27 minutes from the lead time to finish a very disappointing 10^th place. Not all results were disappointing though. Riders such as Azevedo (BRA), Pizzolito (ARG), and Stanovnik (SVN) were the beneficiaries of the misfortunes of others by moving up several positions from the final waypoint to the end of the stage, with Stanovnik jumping from 9^th to 4^th place for the finish.

 

The top ten results were: 1^st - Coma (KTM), 2^nd – Despres (KTM) +9:56”, 3^rd – Faria (KTM) +13:22”, 4^th – Stanovnik (KTM) +21:26”, 5^th – Lopez Contardo (APR) +21:43”, 6^th – Knuiman (KTM) +22:11”, 7^th – Pizzolito (HON) +22:16”, 8^th – Pedrero Garcia (KTM) +24:40”, 9^th – Duclos (APR) +26:56”, and in 10^th – Rodrigues (YAM) +27:46”

 

Stage 10 was marred by the withdrawal of notables such as Tina Meier, Ronnie Bodinger, and Vicente de Benedictis Neto. Germany’s iron woman, Meier rode the massive liaison from Copiapo to Fiambala in such pain, that she could not bear to take the start. She withdrew after consulting the medical staff. Depending on which report is accurate, Tina was the victim of kidney stones or a severe gastro-intestinal illness. Either way it is amazing the fortitude that these competitors have, to carry on until the absolute limit has been reached.

 

As if the timed stage itself was not torturous enough, drama continued on the final liaison into Chilecito. While riding behind one of the assistance trucks, a massive dust cloud was kicked up. Jonah, not being able to see clearly in the dust, clouded into a gas tank the size of a washing machine in the middle of the road. He was thrown from his bike, but was largely unhurt. Enraged, Jonah threw the tank off the road so no one else would hit it and then clamored on to track down the trucks that were in front of him on the road. When admitting that they had seen the tank in the road, Jonah could only shake his head in disbelief that they wouldn’t have stopped to pick it up, thereby preventing anyone else from hitting it like Jonah did, when he asked them why they didn’t do that, his question was met with only silence.

 

Stage 10 was a dream for few and a nightmare for most. As the rally really begins to wind down to its completion, many riders are simply giving up on competition and turning an eye towards survival. The recent stages have bested many, but still nearly one hundred riders continue to battle on towards Buenos Aires and the humble, understated finishers medal that means so much to so many. Don’t be misled by the simple time results at the end of each stage. This Dakar has been jam packed with amazing stories though and through. 

 

Tina Meier Out

RallyRaidReview is very sad to report that German rider, Tina Meier has had to call it a rally at the start of stage 10 due to a severe stomach illness. Tina broke the devastating news via a Facebook post to her fans and friends. Keep in mind that she did this after riding from the bivouac in Copiapo all the way along today’s liaison to the start control. A woman with unimaginable toughness! We at RallyRaidReview congratulate Tina on her outstanding performance and sincerely hope to see her back next year, on her Sherco, for a flawless, trouble free run to the finish.

 

Get well Tina!