Pascal Larroque, co-driver of Pascal Thomasse, both of France, pulls their car with a cable from the bank of a river during Stage 11 from La Rioja to Fiambala, Argentina, on January 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Bertrand Metayer, Le Parisien)
More problems with rain at the Dakar. Stage 11 was partly cancelled when the Rio Grande became impassable.
A motorcyclist in the 4th stage of the Dakar Rally 2013 from Nazca to Arequipa, on January 8, 2013. (Reuters/Franck Fife)
KTM Ferdinand Kreidl of Austria kicks up dust on his way up a mountain during Stage 4 from Nazca to Arequipa, Peru, on January 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
OK, We like to poke fun at Robby Gordon for being...RRRRRRobbby Gordon!!! But we love that he's generous in sharing his adventures and misadventures and in his own way, doing a big service keeping Dakar in the news.
Light looks pretty flat in the desert an you can sense how hard it must be to properly gauge heights of dunes and of course impossible to see what's on the other side of them.
Case in point, Krzysztof Hołowczyc in a MINI Dakar.
So, here is onboard from Gordon's truck.
I'm guessing he'll be back, Dakar seems to do that to people.
RRRRRRRobby Gordon never fails to entertain. French tv commentators were certainly amused by his epic tirade on discovering he'd broken reverse after getting stuck on the top of that sand dune on day 1.... Not sure I understand what he's saying there between all the expletives, surely he's not blaming his navigator is he?
In any case, today, he rolled it for good measure.
Robby was not the only one with a bit of an embarrassing fail in the early stages
RRRRobby Gordon maybe should not have been so quick to ridicule Sainz and al-Hattiyah's buggies (he called them "buggly". Not that it's a beauty but c'mon...he's driving a lambo doored Hummer shaped vehicle...)
A pretty mich bone stock MINI Countryman was leading day 2
Dakar is certainly about multi million dollar corporate showcases but perhaps the true spirit of the raids of old are with privateers like rider Lyndon Poskitt.
I posted a picture of Lyndon in the previous Dakar article, quite by chance... we like KTMs and orange here at Axis, I did not know his story until I received an email from Jack McCormack alerting me to Poskitt's quest. For the 2013 Dakar, Poskitt is riding a blue KTM 450RR.
So as you follow the race for the next two weeks, why not keep an eye out for Lyndon's updates on his BLOG or twitter or FB and maybe see the Dakar from a point of view different from that of the big wigs up front.
It may no be as crazy as the early Paris-Dakar but it's still an epic man vs machine vs nature battle through some of the most amazing landscapes on the planet.
We'll do what we can to find extra pictures and clips but you can follow the day to day, starting January 5th though the 20th on the official Dakar site and on twitter, #dakar2013.
Riders are ready, drivers are ready, photographers are ready, sponsors are ready, from major manufacturers to a French porn producers (true story!). The only one not ready seems to be US television, even with its 1367 channels.
UPDATE: As Jerry Smith points out in the comments, 2013 DAKAR updates will indeed be carried by the new NBC SP network, I had missed it in the guide where it's listed under "Sports-non event"!
NBC SP HD is ch 481 on Time Warner Cable, mark it because that's where F1 will be this year.
Lucky for us TV is no longer needed, Meet a few of the competitors in these great pre race videos.
After the jump, more clips, this year's porn star on this dude Hugo Payen's bike ( number 69 of course) and an article from Red Bulletin about mapping the route for the 2013 Dakar you should have a look at.
