There is actually no need to look further than the first paragraph of the first article of the 2010 (can you believe it?) Dakar Rally for a few things to happen. You should be tired just reading about the event, your nerves should be shot after actually seeing the strength of the South Africans and what we can actually expect from them.
The 2010 Dakar will start on Friday the 1st of Janaury 2010 and will finish on the Sunday the 17th January after 4810km of special stages and 4220km of liason stages giving them a total of 9030km through terrain slightly rougher than the entrance to Bela Bela in SA!
If we look at the team cars - ones mind is immediately split in two although it will be a sort of 55/45 spilt? The Volkswagen team with Giniel at the pier and Ralph Pitchford sitting with Mark Miller versus the South African built Nissan Navaras with Alfie Cox piloting one! Here we also need to root for Glynn Hall and the Hall Speed team who were responsible for building these monsters.
We were lucky to see quite a bit of testing by various teams and manufacturers done at the RallyStar track over the past two years and needless to say it remains difficult to come to a conclusion trying to determine how fast and strong the "Dakar" Nissans are - just looking at them go always looking for the roughest possible terrain.
The other reason is that we stay far away from any "readings", detail of settings and so on for obvious reasons. We don't want to be part of any one suspecting that we give detail to any other team. So you can torture us "we know nuffin!".
Fact is the Nissans are awesome vehicles even when not compared to anything else and a lot of development went into them through Glynn Hall who must be one of the best in his field in the world. The story goes that he misses nothing and when he does you can sure as hell drag him from under your car where he will be lying on his back looking at your suspension! Ask Mitsubishi - they will tell you!
Unfortunately we never had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the Tuaregs but ... what I can say is that their testing program budget exceeds the whole Nissan Team's budget for the year! That is development, building, testing, running the cars on events, paying drivers, buying food, accommodation and so on, included! To be honest I believe that just the support effort of the Volkswagen's exceeds the complete budget of most teams!
They are there for one simple but very clear reason - to win the Dakar and keep on winning it as long as they benefit in the market place!
We South Africans are therefore lucky in that we have one of the best drivers in Giniel de Villiers and one of the best combinations with Ralph Pitchford navigating for Mark Miller in the field.
Carlos Sainz as far as I am concerned is the pain in the neck in this team as the Germans seem to think that he can still do a handbrake turn on water and it is amazing that he is not running with Giniel's number One on the side of his car? It is said that there are no team orders but mark my words, if Sainz is leading or a close second team orders will kick in - and for a very good reason as well. Sainz sells cars - while all else comes second in that category. That unfortunately is a fact. Mention de Villiers and Sainz in the same sentence and like it or not few Europeans will chose the former!
Our other hope in the form of Alfie Cox and his German co-pilot and team-owner of PS Laser Racing, Jürgen Schröder are real dark horses - but more than good enough for any position from fourth downwards. The PS Laser Racing Nissan will share the T4 Overdrive Race Truck from Belgium with Krzysztof Holowczyc (Poland) who finished 5th last year, and Alexander Mironenko (Russia) to service while Glyn Hall’s technical team do their repairs and services at the overnight points and the rest day in Chile.
The first handicap is that Alfie will be starting from 28th position which will mean that he will have to fac the dust of every vehicle ahead of him while he tries to make up to get into a better position going into the desert to Atacama.
Meanwhile all South Africans will be holding their thumbs, breath and anything else that will assist Giniel, Ralph, Alfie and Glynn Hall.
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