Are You Following Dakar 2016? If Not, You Should Be!

Every year we talk about the Dakar Rally, but what is it about Dakar that makes it such a special event? First and foremost it is the scale. Each day’s racing stage is equal to an entire modern WRC event in length with transits as long or longer than the racing stages. It is not unheard of for teams to leave their bivouac before dawn and arrive at the next overnight stop after midnight. Then there are the conditions. The Dakar throws everything at the teams from wet and muddy…

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RALLY – Dakar Stage 13 w/ Robby Gordon

The Dakar Rally has been over for not quite a week now, and already the media arm of Robby Gordon’s off-road truck empire, Team Speed, has produced this very cool video of the final stage, which he won in the car class. It never ceases to amaze me how much control these drivers have when they appear to be completely out of control.  About 2:20 into the video, Robby bicycles the truck on a sharp left-hander, rights the truck and carries on, ultimately winning the stage. The video is mostly…

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Dakar – Welcome to the Brutality!

The Dakar rally is an interesting beast. The format is similar to a shorter, more traditional stage rally, but it’s spread out over two weeks and the distance is far longer than any conventional stage rally. This years route is 6,000 miles for cars, bikes and quads while the big trucks have a route of about 5,000 miles.  For all classes, about half the distance is non-competitive transit stages and the rest are full-on special stages. One interesting addition to this year’s Dakar is a Marathon Stage. The stage will…

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