Training in the Sand Dunes of Wyoming

We have just returned from a week in Wyoming, where we practiced scaling and decending sand dunes, in the Dakar Truck. Wyoming is not the first place that comes to mind, when thinking of sand dunes, but as you can see from the many pics posted, on the photo page, there are some impressive dunes, some up to 150' high. Everything went well, and at the end, we dropped off the truck in Denver ( about 4 hours away ) for some service. The new ( 100 Gallon ) Fuel Tank is ready, and the suspension will need to be reworked to handle the added weight.

Summer Summary

We have been attending street festivals, parades, charity runs and funraising benefit parties all summer, with barely time to blog, but we are headed into the home stretch now, since we have been officially accepted into the 2010 Dakar Rally. There are still so many things to do, we need a Freight Sponsor, someone to transport our race vehicle and support vehicle to Argentina.
This is vital, if anyone out there knows of a Freight company, interested in advertising to 220 Million TV viewers worldwide and 3 million race fans who show up to watch the race in person, then we would like to talk to them ! Thanks for your support and always dream big !

A February road-trip ... what could be better ?

I have arrived home from a 8,000 km road-trip ( Denver CO. to Yuma AR. to Toronto ON ) with the Dakar vehicle. Yes, I did get some strange looks from passing vehicles and in almost every gas station was asked " Is that thing street legal ?" ... of course it is, all Dakar vehicles ( all rally vehicles everywhere, for that matter ) must be street legal. It was a good shakedown for the new vehicle and a fairly gentle break-in for the engine ( a corvette LS-3 ) also. I say fairly because I did spend a week climbing the sand dunes of Glamis CA. ( a few miles outside of Yuma AR. ) where the dunes are up to 300 feet high. It performed beautifully in the dunes and on the highway. Just 10 months to go now ... I can't wait 'til next January !

The Dakar ... there is nothing like it !

We are back from Argentina, where we watched Dakar Rally Stages live and up close. Some of the time, on the connecting routes between stages, our rental car was surrounded by competitor’s bikes, cars, trucks & quads. It was on one of these connections near Mendoza that our rental car was bumped by a quad, no damage (at least nothing the rental company could find) but the impression that will stick with me, for the rest of my life, is the incredible excitement of the Argentine people who turned out by the tens of thousands to picnic and catch a glimpse of the dream. Over fifty thousand people with their campfires, lined the road from Mendoza in the dark, it was all very surreal.

Back from Argentina

We arrived home yesterday, after following the Dakar through Argentina. It is an amazing country, where Steak, Wine and Beer are all about 1/3 of the price in Canada. Hotels are cheap also, but Gas prices are about the same as here. An amazing place for an inexpensive holiday.
We received our passes from the ASO, ( Dakar organizers ) once again this year, and were granted access to the vehicle scrutineering area, and behind the scenes preparations, where I met up with the winners of the Truck division last year ( Man on a Mission Team ) from Belgium & Holland ( they have been giving us advice through the forum ). Glenna also met Luc Alphond, Stephan Peterhansel and Robbie Gordon ( who we had met last year also ). We ran into Etienne Lavigne the director of the Dakar, ( he remembered us from our meeting in Mexico 2 years ago ) and wished us luck in our entry next year.
One of our main goals for this trip was to meet with "Rally Raid" and decide if we would use their services."Rally Raid" is an English company, which provides services to Dakar competitors, anything from building you a vehicle, to renting one for you, or just "in race" mechanical support. I wanted very much to meet with them, to see if I got a level of comfort, from a face to face and discuss having them providing mechanical & transportation services for our team mechanic next year, luckily we were able to meet up with Paul Round and the whole "Rally Raid" team in the Red Bull Lounge ( 3 days prior to the start ) and talked for several hours. Unfortunately on Day 1 of the race, one of the "Rally Raid" vehicles had an nasty accident, our thoughts & best wishes for a speedy recovery go out to them both.
We have some new photos on the website and new ones will be going up every few days over the comming weeks !