Our cuzzie attends first week of Dakar Rally as a media guest of VW. Here's his take:
One million crazy Argentineans. That’s roughly ten times the number of people who attended our World Cup Final at Soccer City last year, and was the number of people who took to the streets of Buenos Aires on New Year’s Day to witness the start of the 2011 Dakar Rally.
I was one of a handful of Volkswagen-invited journalists given the opportunity to witness this spectacle, only to realise later that every part of this rally, billed as the world’s longest and toughest offroad race, fits such gigantic proportions.
The epic route consists of 9000km of road, track and dune; 5000 of which are competition, and 407 vehicles (170 bikes, 30 quads, 140 cars and 67 trucks) started this year’s race. A lot fewer than that will finish.
The trump card was that we would be part of the actual VW team, equipped with just-about-race-ready 120kW BiTDI Amarok bakkies for the adventurous cross-continent journey ahead. Not only were these Argentinean-built beauties liveried with sponsor stickers and our actual names above the rear doors, but they underwent some tweaks including roll cages, five point safety harnesses and uprated suspension.
When your name’s on the bakkie and spectators see things like roll cages, they often mistake you for a competitor and the locals thought I was the Indian version of Carlos Sainz. Besides literally the thousands of excited fans in every town mobbing our bakkie, there are hundreds of kids across Argentina with signed Sainz-Bhagaloo caps, t-shirts and arms.
Following the race involves a lot of driving (I drove an average Jozi-Durbs daily trip), it’s tiring, and getting lost daily is as guaranteed as Argentinean steak for dinner.
The race runs virtually coast to coast from Argentina to Chile and back, split by a rest day. I covered the first leg, which according to the trip meter was a distance of 3389km – but this distance can vary depending on how many viewing points you go to and the tarred routes you take to the Bivouacs (the overnight camps).
Your daily shot of Dakar adrenalin as a spectator is using a GPS to navigate to waypoints, which are generally spectacular. Some are located at serious humps and corners, but the thrillers were the riverbeds and the sand dunes. A riverbed on the Chilean side provided wavepool-like water splashes and serious wheel travel across the rocks, with the view of TV helicopters chasing the cars.
But the highlight is the sand dunes, and the mother of them all was the monstrous 800 metre high, 2 400 metre long dune at the end of the stage in Iquique, Chile. One of the VW Race Touaregs, driven by Nasser Al-Attiyah, managed an insane 220km/h down there, which is about 20km/h and 900rpm over the car’s speed limiter. It’s like a ski slope for cars. And then there’s the trucks, which almost tip toe over the top and hold on for dear life, roaring all the way down to the ocean.
The trucks, especially the Russian Kamaz ones which run with the cars, are a feast for the eyes as they break through the dunes and use their thousand-plus horses to climb ridiculously high sandy peaks.
It’s the third time the race is being run in South America and, according to a straw poll among various drivers, the consensus seems to be that the newer location is much harder on the cars due to altitudes and varying terrain. From a wet and green Argentina you cross the border into a sandy and rocky Chile. And trust me, it’s special driving through the snaky roads of the 4 800 metre high Andes, followed by the world’s driest desert, the Atacama.
Unfortunately, if you’re ever planning on going the spectator route, it’s virtually impossible to get to the juicy viewing points without the right vehicle, the right accreditation, and accurate information. I saw loads of fans who had to stick to the main roads for some action.
Watching a Dakar works team in operation is a sight to behold. Each of the four R13-million racing Touaregs is supported by a truck, the entire team consists of around 100 people, and they set up a little village run to German precision every night.
The daily race and Bivouac logistics are about the equivalent of an F1 race everyday, and that excludes moving the road show town to town. The Bivouac alone handles 2 500 people and 850 cars, and gets through 1.5 tons of food daily. Not to mention the organisers’ 11 helicopters and seven planes, or the three medical choppers, or the 25 000 national security guards along the route.
One thing’s for sure though, the Dakar has earned its reputation as the hardest core offroad event out there – in fact, it may also be one of the most scenic too.