AND OFF THEY GO ................
author: Leon Botha
Any competitor who thought he, she or it would be able to go out one Day One and do a bit of shadow boxing, water testing, warming-up or whatever else than putting pedal to the metal, will be in for a hell of a surprise by 23h00 tonight our (South Africa) time.
The first stage today will be 371km of very fast driving, long linked between Buenos Aires and Santa Maria by two open sections of 196 and 166 respectively. Why the hell did we call Army underpants, “Santa Maria’s”?
Looking on TV this morning at some of the stages and terrain the competitors will have to cross, I firstly suffered a faint heart attack – I mean the organisers chipped away some rocks to MAKE a path! Now what about the broader cars like the Hummer? This surely is not fair or is this how we should look at “Off-Road” events?
I know that we, the rally fraternity, got a bit soft and we are sort of critical about every little bit of roughness – mainly because of the cost to repair damages – but things looked a bit too rough to me on the Dakar route.
This will mean that luck will play a much bigger role than I believe even the three top teams anticipated – but what about the trucks? Will they manage just to get through – let alone race to the end?
Today, the first day, will claim its first victims as the pace will be fast and furious as competitors will not believe their own commonsense that the race is long – very long and a few minutes behind anyone will not matter before the halfway mark!
Now try and tell that to Giniel and company…….
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