Dakar – lessons from the longest race on earth. Part 7

Stage 2 was 100 Kilometers of liaison and 400 kilometers of special.  At the start we were in rocks.  Now, when I say rocks, I mean rocks you can’t go around.  Rocks with no dirt.  Nothing but rocks.  Flat tires are a big concern.  You carry two spare tires.  If you get more than two flats, your in trouble.  Many drivers got four flats this day.  Good for them there was an area where they can meet their chase teams and get new spares. I saw more than one car on more than one day driving with a flat – sometimes to where the tire was shredded off the rim – but they had no choice but to try to nurse it in.

For the third day of racing, we did not have any flat tires.  Maybe it’s my sharp eye for the smoothest lines from being a motorcycle rider all those years.  If you hit the wrong rock on a bike, it could be disastrous.  At high speed – deadly.

Yesterday we finished 31st out of 38 in my class.  Today we finished 30th.  I was getting my rhythm slowly.  My goal was to finish.  It did not matter what place I finished.  The difference between finishing 15th or 30th was tiny compared to the difference between finishing and not finishing.  I was in it to survive.

When someone passes you they make dust and you cannot see.  You hope for a crosswind.  I would back off so the dust would thin out until I could see because I do not want to make a big mistake.  But by slowing down, the next guy behind you pushes a button to pass you.  That will make a buzzer go off three times in your car so you know he wants to pass.  If he pushes three times on you, you have to pull over and let him by.  That puts you in the dust again, and the cycle is repeated.  

One driver flipped his car and crashed out just 1.5 kilometers into the Prologue!  He was out.  Heartbreaking.  I did not want that to be me.  

The way it works is that if you just finish each day, you will move up in the rankings because each day other guys are out.  I wanted to just keep finishing cleanly, and I had to remind myself that I wasn’t here to race anyone.  I know – it’s a funny strategy for a race, but the right one for Dakar.

On this stage we were in the dunes late in the stage. It got dark on us and we were in the dunes at night.  Cresting a dune and falling into the black abyss is unnerving.  I learned to surrender to it and keep going.  We finished, proud of what we had done.

The next day was Stage 3.  It was January 6, 2026.  We had a very long one today – 725 kilometers.  420km was the “Special”, or the timed dirt section.  We saw cars upside down, a truck on it’s side, and cars crashed all over the place.  Not as many cars were passing me today.  We’d see a car pass us, and then he has a flat tire later and we pass him.  Sometimes they’d pass me again, and then he is broken down and we pass him, with some comment like “Look at you now!”.  I know that is not very sportsmanlike, but in the fury of the race, it seems appropriate.

The terrain was beautiful.  Red canyons with orange sand sloped up in between them by the wind.  We finished the special and had a two hour liaison in the cold wind to get back to the bivouac.  We have no windshield, and it gets cold at night – down to 50 degrees or so.  We were frozen when we rolled in at 9 pm. 

The mechanics loved me – there was not much for them to fix!  No flats again.  They tore down the car anyway, maintaining and tuning, looking for structural cracks and problems waiting to happen.  The poor mechanics, three of them, were up almost all night every night.

Stage 3 complete.  Feeling good about it all now.  

Meanwhile South Racing put Ted to work.  He had to drive our RV from one bivouac to the next.  That could be 7-9 hours on paved road.  And Saudi Arabian roads are boring.  They are flat as a pancake and straight as an arrow.  And aside from the occasional small rocky mountain, there is nothing to look at.  There are no trees, no grass, and well, nothing in most places.  Just flat and barren.  Poor Ted.  

I felt like I was racing in places where few humans ever go.  Amazing scenery in the interior places.  I felt privileged to see God’s creation.

Just 6000 kilometers to go, or something like that – but who is counting…