Will Calls in at the finish of Stage 5’s Special Stage - Listen Here
We had another good day after just finishing Stage 5 today and a good stage. Finished well and had one flat that was a split rim tire on the truck that we changed in 15-20 minutes. We are all in good spirits and Robby had a better day today and although we haven’t talk to those guys were driving towards camp in the liason stage.
Will
Hello to everyone
I thought I would send in a quick report before going to bed tonight.
We have had two great days in the truck with no problems. Today we got our first taste of dunes and the “Monster Black Rhino” ate them up. We finished 19th today out of about 80 starters. Hopefully we can keep this going all the way to Dakar.
This is a real interesting race and I think I have most of it figured out alraedy. There are only about 15 cars capable of winning overall. The support and the logists that the top teams have is amazing.
Good night….
Will
Stage 1 Report
I am very proud to say that we finished our first stage of the Dakar Rally! We had a good day overall with no problems with anything through out whole day.
The day started with fairly long liaison to the start of our 132 KM timed stage.
It was a great feeling leaving the starting line of the Dakar Rally, Wow!
When we got to staging for today’s race, we had our first little bit of action. Robby had trouble with the clutch at the end of his stage and he pulled over to our truck for a quick adjustment. I think it was a good feeling for him that his new truck was there for him, even though it wasn’t a major problem with the car.
Shortly after that we started our race and it went very well based on how rough the course was for us. It was definitely not a good track for our truck because it was very whooped out and the newer hot shot trucks had a major advantage. I think we finished about mid pack and as far as I am concerned we did a perfect job for the team.
Hello to everyone!
Sorry I have not sent out any updates the last couple days… I didn’t realize this was going to be a working trip! Just kidding… We just finished going through scrutineering and everything thing went well. Both the racecar and racetruck are in Parc Ferme (Impound). Lucky for us, we had one of the last appointments because the last two days have been crazy busy. We have been working outside of town at a car dealership using it as a workshop and we have been putting in sixteen hour days at a minimum.
The biggest hurdle for our three man team has been prepping the Man racetruck that we took delivery of two and half days ago. Robby bought this truck used and relatively sight unseen. I will say in general the truck got delivered to us in fine condition, however we all felt that we needed to raise the bar a bit. The first thing we did was put new seats in it and ultimately made it into a pretty good parts wagon that includes big items like a transmission on down. Today during scrutineering we found out that the truck has a great history and finish rate. It is by no means anywhere close to being competitive for a win but nonetheless will make a great support truck for Robby.
The weather has been outstanding this whole week with high pressure in the area. I got a chance to “look up” today a bit….
The race starts tomorrow, Robby fires off at 9:33 AM and we start at 12:21 almost three hours behind. Robby is car# 320 and we are truck #556. Please check out the live tracking starting tomorrow at www.dakar.com.
Also please check out the latest update photos.
Vroom… vroom…
Will
Hello from
Well we made it to
We had 31 boxes for 11 people and all of it made it with no hiccups right through customs. Today we set up camp out in front of our hotel and started getting all the service trucks organized and started applying the decals.
The trucks have been driven down from
Tomorrow we should be able to get the racecar out of customs and start looking it over? We have a ton of work to do over the next couple days. Please check back for another update tomorrow, this kid is going to bed.
Will
Check out my Dakar 07 photo gallery to view all photos provided in each update.
TEAM Dakar USA Hummer in Lisbon prior to decals being applied.
A walk through Lisbon - TEAM Dakar USA in full Monster Energy swag
