Dakar 2011 thread

[Zeakiwi]

Sainz won the opening stage.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor...07053519_x.htm

[Mirek]

Wuf van Ginkel -Ginaf, probarly out of the rally. He had an accident on the transit road towards the start. A big piece of steel was lying on the road, he had to avoid it and crashed

Everything wrong for Dutch today. Gerard De Rooy is also out with hurt back after a heavy landing. There was a also a big crash of Polish quad rider Rafal Sonik who was one of favorites. Team Mini started bad. Guerlain Chicherit lost almost one hour due to mechanical problems.

[MartijnS]

Also Hans Bekx crashed..so three fast Dutch trucks out.

[6789]

Here is a pic of that truck rollover

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showp...&postcount=572

[Txus]

No doubt about Sainz spirit. 2 WRC championships and 2 Dakar would be an excellent result before retirement.

[Mixa]

The Dakar somehow isn´t the Dakar when its beeing run at the South America.. Its not bad,don´t get me wrong and is much more safe to competitors and for the teams but something is missing. Example for the trucks its extremely bad,as it was even last year due to most of the route beeing like rallying, so quite narrow and pretty guided. Also buggies when africa had a change to fight against the big boys in here,if them manages to get for top10,you should be happy. Also navigation don´t have such a huge meaning but yeah the roads are still cruel and demanding atleast,how in the Dakar the things should be.

What comes to race itself it started pretty much as planned. I think that VW will be very strong again with all cars while BMW beeing the only true challenger. Mini is just at the testing phase kinda but Chicherit is a fast driver. Also often his speed means problems but also stage wins. For Nissan´s and private Mitsubishi´s there shouldn´t be a prob. Such a shame kinda to think what example some old Mitsubishi factory driver could still do with Racing Lancer.. I mean it still could be competitive.

For bikes and trucks, we all know who are the favourites.. Bikes will probably at the end turn between Despres and Coma. At trucks its pretty much Kamaz vs the rest.

[Zeakiwi]

http://uk.yahoo.eurosport.com/rallyr...veperson.shtml

Would an Offroad World Rally Championship attract more manufacturers ?

(As distinct from the Baja and Cross Country championships)

[alleskids]

Sunday was Dutch-off day. Monday is American-off day. Both Mark Miller (VW) and Robby Gordon(Hummer) are in trouble.

[andreydh]

Daily Updates from the Dakar Rally on Eurosport.

http://fileserve.com/list/Aq5UVyP

[Sulland]

What is the best newssite for dakar, apart from dakar.com? - that dont impress me much - was actually better last year as far as I remember