Dakar 2022 It's starting! January 1st - 14th.

[skibum69]

Ok, here's a little info. This is a page of the roadbook from the Rally Mongolia. Funny as it's written in English by Japanese organizers. There were a few funny translations such as warnings for "clacks" meaning "cracks" which were actually washouts. You learn to understand the lexicon for what it is despite language. You can see the ICO on top left which is your adjustable ODO that you have to keep in sync with your roadbook. The GPS is only for CAP heading which is your compass direction as you can see on the roadbook. If you get lost you have to go back to your last known location and reset the ODO to match the roadbook. I could navigate ok up to about 80 kmh but faster than that I was making mistakes and getting off track. The competence of the pros running over 100 MPH and navigating is insane. The roadbooks this year are far more complex with crap in there.


What you saw of folks getting lost was a dodgy tulip, (the middle symbol on the roadbook), in the roadbook that had them lost looking for a waypoint. Most of them wasted time looking for it while a few sensible ones skipped it and took the 10 min penalty instead of wandering for an hour. There is a very high level of strategy played at the pointy end of this game.

I for one am following every day and I have just started getting up at 02:00 to follow in real time. As I said the ADV thread is the #1 place to see what's up in real time but the focus is mostly bikes. My friend Teruhito Sugawara is the factory Hino driver and this year they have a brand new hybrid truck with 1000HP of combined power. Pretty incredible stuff to watch if you like that kind of thing. This year for the first time there are 4 or 5 Americans in the top 10 if any of you care.

[Voni]

https://newsletter.advrider.com/camp...c5bbe18b84c03a

[skibum69]

Stage 6 today was shut down mid stage. This stage was following the same track that the cars and trucks ran yesterday. Early reports claim the cancellation was because the route was impassable because of the earlier car/truck traffic and recent rains. Tell that to the first 9 guys that made it to the finish before cancellation. Definitely a bit of drama here.

AngryPete on ADV has his pirate radio station getting some super knowledgeable folks on talking about the rally. Well worth the listen.
https://mixlr.com/angry-pete/showree...y-tour-part-ii

[20774]

I guess it's all over! I'm really disappointed in the coverage by the Olympic Channel. I put the airings on series-record on my DVR, but for some reason I never got to see about 3 of the stages. I never saw Stage 2 (was it canceled due to rain???) and then two more after the rest day. Stage 11 was never recorded...or aired as far as I can tell. Maybe the channel kept bouncing the air times around...but the DVR is supposed to keep up with that per the grid. Oh well, there's next year!

[skibum69]

Pretty brutal trying to find good coverage. The Red Bull channel does good reports and most say noe of the big French channels is very good. A few people were surprised at how good the Dakar channel was this year too. Personally I get 99% of my info on the ADV F5irehose and watch the odd videos that get posted on there. There truly is no better place to keep up on what's happening in the rally if you want to know about the bikes. This year was pretty much a nail biter right to the end. Congrats to Sam Sunderland for taking the win and Congrats to Bam Bam for not crashing himself out before the end.