The final countdown to 2004 and the Dakar Rally has started!
author: Leon Botha
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Dakar - further than far, higher tham high and toughest of them all.
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The intro to the first stage of the 2004 Dakar says: “Thursday 1 January - 1st stage - Région d'Auvergne – Narbonne Prologue : 1,5 km - Liaison : 395 km - Total : 396,5 km”
So what? Anybody can do that!
Get yourself a Hardbody, make a turn at Weskoppies, pick up a volunteer to sit next to you, catch a boat to parlewoes Fransoes or try to arrange for you to meet the gang upstairs in Africa – and there you go. Hit a couple of dunes, scare a few camels and their riders shitless and there you go – you have done the Dakar.
Funny how we tend to underestimate everything we have not yet done, and exaggerate what we have.
I will never forget being a member of the mighty Monument Hoërskool rugby team, we played the biggest and best teams any other school could offer. We beat the hell out of Fakkel, Helpmekaar, Boys High and you name it, we beat it!
Then one Saturday morning we took the bus to go and bugger-up a small school against the Magalies Mountains, called Bekker Landbouskool – that was before it probably became Bafana I-agriculture eskooloe. We sang victory songs on our way there, we laughed and concentrated on the girls of the first netball team. My girlfriend played for the third team, but goodness knows that was the only 3rd she got – the rest was Super 10! So instead of planning our strategy, thinking of what may lie ahead, we planned other strategies for later that afternoon, and evening. This is, I think, where the word quickie originated. You see, we had to be back in the hostel at 22h00 (10pm – not 10am) and the movies finished at about half past nine.
Anyway, in our utterly underestimating mood we ran onto the field against a school that had 300 pupils – before they became learners – sherbit man, have you ever heard of a more inappropriate word to describe a youngster at school – anything else but a learner! Anyway we ran onto the field, after taking bets against who will score at least 3 times – not which team, which player if you don’t mind.
Man were we in for a unpleasant surprise – we were up against 17 madmen, 2 were carried off on stretchers after tackling the goal posts, because anything that stood straight up were tackled by the Bekker bunch. We scraped through to a 2 point victory, losing our flyhalf, and incredibly fast wing – Karel Schneider. (The only white guy ever to beat Paul Nash over a 100yrds.)
Why this story?
The dunes of the Dakar look calm and meagre in photographs, the roads look smooth as silk, but in photographs you can not see the temperature fluctuations. You do not experience the unexpected and severe drops down some of the slopes, you will never be able to experience what it feels like to drive at 200km/h through a place that keeps on looking the same!
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Nissan Motorsport Release
...but catch me if you can!
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Can you imagine sitting in an off-road vehicle for 19 days, covering 11 163,5 kms of which 5 428,5 km is specials stages? The longest special is Tidjikja to Nema and will be 736 km of flat out driving. You have to try this one day when you have time – flat out from Pretoria to about Beaufort West in one single go. Remember to stay next to the tarmac while doing this.
5428kms of special stages, and 5735 of liason kms will take them to the finish.
We have never had a more positive response to our ‘sms’ registration requests, and we know for a fact that the hearts of all South Africans will be behind the Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody team.
RallyStar® has many Mitsubishi, Ford, Volkswagen and BMW supporters. We do receive lively e-mail from our friends from all over the country during the Dakar and last year we received more than 700 000 hits on RallyStar® over this period – but one things is certain never mind their loyalty – every single one of them wished the Nissan team well. Can you imagine number 208, Giniel de Villiers and Francois Jordaan in the incredible Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody pulling off an overall win?
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Volkswagen Touareg desert tests
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But – there is as usual always a “but” hidden behind the scenes, but in this case nothing will come unexpectedly. Nissan knows what they are in for and while they are very worried about the Mitsubishi team, they are also aware of the BMW threat, while Volkswagen will most definitely not allow any team to step all over them. The sheer numbers of the Mitsubishi team makes them awesome competitors, while the lack of numbers may be BMW and VW’s problem in the end.
2004 Dakar is going to be one of the most exciting races the world has ever seen!
Nissan took a big chance to opt for an inexperienced Dakar navigator to team up with Giniel, but the fact that Francois lack the experience will be made up by his will to succeed. He has been my navigator in National Championship rallies for many years and one things I can vouch for is that he is not the nervous type. He has a few years experience in GPS navigation, and that should see him through this event.
The only problem I see is that Giniel is basically on his own when it comes to decision taking and strategy planning, but a definite plus is the fact that he has been involved in the development of the Nissan and probably has more kilometres behind him in this vehicle than anyone else.
All we can do at this stage is to pray that all will go well with this team as they do stand a chance of overall victory.
If not mistaken, the Nissan target this time is to for one of their teams to get onto the podium.
It is interesting to note that Colin McRae and Tina Thorner his navigator has drawn number 202 – not that it matters, as the 1.5km prologue tomorrow will determine the starting positions for the first stage on Friday. The prologue will be in the form of a Super Special and should be very interesting.
McRae should be leading the rally when they enter Africa, but I think that will be the end of his supremacy. He my decide to take it easy over the first few hundred kilometres in Africa, and then come with a super attempt, but problem is that the winner of the event will be the team from Schlesser Ford, Mitsubishi, BMW, Nissan and Volkswagen, who manages to drive flat out to Dakar with least problems.
The team of Ari Vatanen and Juha Repo (205 Nissan Hardbody) is another matter. Ari has enough experience and most of all is quick enough to mix it with anything Mitsubishi has to offer. Problem is that it has been said that the Mitsubishi “creams” the Nissan on straight-line top speed.
During the Dubai rally Giniel and Francois did manage to stay with Masuoka (I think) or another leading Mitsubishi for a number of kilometres where they managed to get some important info on how the competition vehicle jumps, handles and accelerates. This was apparently the case until the Mitsubishi driver decided he kept them company for long enough!
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Mitsubishi release
Hi and goodbye!
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Yves Loubet and Maimon Pascal are also able to give full support to the Nissan team and they should be up there with the front runners.
The fourth crew in a Nissan is that of Kenjiro Shinozuka and Debron Arnaud. Kenjiro has a massive prang at high speed last year where he received inter alia facial injuries. Interestingly this led to Nissan changing some of the safety features in their vehicles to prevent this from happening again. The problem was that because of his small stature, he sat very near the steering and the impact caused his face to whiplash into the centre of the steering wheel.
Kenjiro Shinozuka should also be able to keep up with the top five runners.
Tomorrow we will tell you more about the Mitsubishi, BMW, VW and Schlesser Teams.
Day 1 – Thursday 1st January 2004
The prologue will take place between 12 am and 5 pm, within the Grande Halle d'Auvergne near Clermont-Ferrand. With two parallel tracks built specially for the event, this prologue will serve to establish the starting order for the first special, as well as providing an impressive show.
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Mitsubishi release
Miki Biasion
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The first stages are relatively short and will give the drivers an opportunity to get into the swing of things. Going into Africa the difference between teams should be measured in seconds, with McRae leading from de Villiers, Miki Biassion Mitsubishi, or something like that.
I'd say that the margins between the top teams will be measured in seconds until Tan-Tan and, until there, it will only be important to come through well.
The stages will then become considerably tougher starting the 7th of January. From that point on there are marathon stages, including very selective special stages, and the burden on the drivers and vehicles will increase. The mechanics will be especially challenged; they'll be busy round the clock at times.
Like always, there is much that can't be predicted during this Rally- but it must be conquered nonetheless. We've worked extremely hard the last weeks and, because of our good preparation, I'm confident that we'll be among the leaders”.
A total of 563 participants will be at the start, 140 of which being cars. The Telefónica-Dakar ends January 18th in Dakar.
RallyStar® thanks Nissan South Africa for sponsoring the sms messages during the 2004 Dakar Rally.
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