January 13, 2026 Stage 9.
Today is a long stage again. 217 km liaison, 420 km special, and 110 km liaison. Now you might be thinking the liaison road section is a gimme, and yes, driving it is easy. But it is boring, and cold, and at night on the way back, it’s hard to see. It’s no fun.
I don’t know what came over me, but today I decided to RACE. I was annoyed with cars passing me. My Baja instincts kicked in for the whole day. We were going one way to pitch a tent again. Well, I killed it. We passed 23 cars today, and finished 95th overall, and 17th in our class.
There are not too many classes in Dakar like in Baja. There are two motorcycle classes, an unlimited class, Challenger, SSV (that’s us) stock, classic, and atv. Oh yes, there is one more incredible class – race trucks. Not Baja kind of race trucks, I mean truck trucks. Big giant trucks. You’d think they’d be slow. Oh no. Half of them go by me! They are fast! Amazing to watch.
I did hit a tree today. It was a small tree, and the brakes were locked up when I hit it. Minor damage. Not a big deal. But the power steering was pulling badly to the left. If I let the steering wheel go we would take a HARD left. I drove 75 miles like that.
We pulled into the “refuge bivouac”, got our tent and sleeping bag, rehydrated rations from a box, and went to sleep. No mechanics here.
In the morning, we faced Stage 10, after another bad night’s sleep on hard ground, we fixed the steering ourselves. Well, Dennis did. Some guys had flats and had to be extra cautious today. We did not get any coming here, so we were good.
When I went to start the car, it was dead. We had a jumper box and got it started. We left the jumper box hooked up to the car all day.
The race was wearing hard on everyone now. This race was designed to break you. Nothing would be easy. There’s no calling “no fair”. This is real. Suck it up and get it done, or go home. Nobody can save you. You have come this far. Keep going or quit. If you quit, you still have to get back to the bivouac somehow. Nights are very cold out here.
I focused on what was in front of me, trying to stay present and not think of how far I had to go. Do your best in this moment. That’s all you’ve got.
Today would be a big dune day. We were doing great, but got stuck high-centered at the crest of a dune. A race truck was in the same predicament 40 meters to our left. The car was overheating again. We lost 15 minutes digging out. At least we were not in a hole.
A while later, there was a long section of small dunes and we were behind a big truck. We got stuck in the soft sand at the edge of a shallow hole. We lost another 25 minutes digging out.
We finished 18th in SSV out of 38 starters back in stage 1, despite losing time twice for getting stuck. Since there are at least 14 pro drivers who do this for a living in our class, I’m very happy with that. Well, as happy as you can be when you are beat down, tired, sore, and fatigued in every way.
10 stages complete. I’m ok.
“I got this”.
Looks like camping on the moon!