Any Dakar followers here?

[double moo]

Race starts in Lisbon, Portugal on Jan 5th - ends in Dakar, Senegal on the 20th... 9,273 km later. Follow the daily updates on www.dakar.com.

Cars, trucks, big trucks, motorcycles, quads - aprox 588 vehicles this year - when you figure cars have 2 in them and big trucks run a crew of 3... there are about a thousand people racing!

150 million viewers in Europe... and we can't even get a TV feed until a week or so after the race is over. Kind of like our coverage of the Baja races.

I guess Americans would rather watch 'go fast-turn left' than try real driving skills! Tune in and see the greatest rae on earth!

[accadacca]

Yeah buddy! I bought my Dad a few motorcycles books this year, including this one: www.chasingdakar.com

[denaliguide]

love the race. i have a klr650 that i would like to do one of the long races with someday.

I guess Americans would rather watch 'go fast-turn left' than try real driving skills!

3 and sometimes 4 wide, at 200mph, on a high bank oval doesn't require real driving skill? i don't know what race you're watching.

[JP]

Great race

[shlingdawg]

love the race. i have a klr650 that i would like to do one of the long races with someday.

I guess Americans would rather watch 'go fast-turn left' than try real driving skills!

3 and sometimes 4 wide, at 200mph, on a high bank oval doesn't require real driving skill? i don't know what race you're watching.

Dude, he's from Draper. He drives in those conditions on a daily basis - but instead of NASCAR drivers, it's those crazy bitches in their Minivans and Tahoes.

[denaliguide]

those minivans and tahoes are the worst bump drafters too.

[RedMan]

Oh yeah.
We've been working to help Mike Penland get enough sponsorship to race Dakar. That a pricey bit of racing.

Mike Penland

[donny h]

I like to follow Dakar, and have since the 80s.

I like to watch/read about the Baja races too.

The TV coverage of these types of races is a sad joke, (and always has been, that's what drove Mickey Thompson to invent stadium racing to try and bring offroad racing to the masses. Did it work? Ever hear of Walker Evans? Ironman Ivan Stewart? Then it worked.)

NBC will run a 1 hour show on the Baja 1000. 1 hour.

450 or so teams racing some 1300 miles across Baja in the 43rd annual race, and it will be boiled down to 60 minutes of tv, 22 minutes of that will be commercials, and another 10 minutes will be shameless self promotion by NBC, and self congratulatory back slapping of themselves for bringing us this fine coverage.

The OLN Dakar coverage last year was just as bad, 1 hour per day, the first 10 minutes of coverage recapped yesterdays coverage, the last 10 highlights tomorrows coverage, and with 22 minutes of commercials, and 10 minutes of self promotion, that left about 20 minutes a day devoted to the greatest race on earth.

[double moo]

The OLN Dakar coverage last year was just as bad, 1 hour per day, the first 10 minutes of coverage recapped yesterdays coverage, the last 10 highlights tomorrows coverage, and with 22 minutes of commercials, and 10 minutes of self promotion, that left about 20 minutes a day devoted to the greatest race on earth.[/quote]

Worse thasn that! The opening day was an hour... the dailies were only 30 minutes. after all the other crap it was 5 min for each - bikes, cars, and about 3 min for trucks. And the anouncer guy was a little 5' tall gay announcer -nice of then to go to all that trouble for such a huge race!

Figure 1000 racers, support crews for each, logistical support for the race, media crews, etc... and I'd bet there are 5 to 10 thousand involved. That's like moving a small city everyday for 3 weeks. and we get a 30 minute blip a month after it happens... nice, real nice.

OLN gives us 3-4 hours a day live coverage of the Tour de France (not complaining here - because I love the Tour)... but they can't get us Dakar within the month.

I guess this time of year there isn't enough time for NBC to give us Figure Skating, Ice Dancing, Pairs Skating, Boitano on Ice, Hamiloton on ice, Kerrigan in ice, Katerina Witt in ice, etc... and still fit in the Dakar.

[accadacca]

I guess this time of year there isn't enough time for NBC to give us Figure Skating, Ice Dancing, Pairs Skating, Boitano on Ice, Hamiloton on ice, Kerrigan in ice, Katerina Witt in ice, etc... and still fit in the Dakar.

You forgot about Harding boxing.

Yup. I have never been impressed with the coverage. I was expecting much more the first time that I saw it.

OLN =

[double moo]

I intentionally left out the Tanya Harding referrence because, quite frankly, it was too easy.

But on a larger note... I would hate for anyone to have assumed a negative comment about Harding was in referrence to Scott Harding... Multiple time Dakar racer and head of the KTM Redbull team. Scott is cool and deserves no association with Tanya.

[ExpUt]

Yup, making it to the Dakar starting line is a long time dream of mine. Really wish there was some decent coverage here in the US.

And making it to a Nascar event has never been on my priority list