RawHyde's Dakar Rally Tour 2010 Blogs & Videos

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Below are the Blogs sent from the 2010's Dakar Rally; sent to RawHyde's subcription list at random intervals by Jim Hyde. Enjoy!

Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 7:45 PM
RawHyde: Tales From the Road - The Dakar Rally

Hi everyone - greetings from Argentina and a quick note from the Dakar Rally - this is the first of three or so "reports" I hope to send to our "family" of adventure riders over the next two weeks.

I don't quite know how to convey the magnitude of what it means personally to me to not only be witnessing but also "riding" the Dakar Rally. This is one of the things on my "bucket list"... and truly one of the things that I wanted to do before I die. So yeah - it's a big deal to me at a personal level. No, I am not "racing." I am not a competitor in this "the mother of all races," I am actually just a tourist tagging along the route! Many of you will remember seeing a couple of emails about our efforts to get a group of our clients together to do the Dakar. Well - we accomplished our goal - and here we are in Cordoba, Argentina - 11 "Norte-Americanos" planning to ride 3000 miles (mostly "off road" ) in 11 days as we mostly follow the course of the toughest off road races in the world.

My thoughts carry me back to when I started RawHyde Adventures, and for some reason I have always equated the Dakar Rally as one of the things that really defines the word "adventure". The idea of taking a motorcycle and traveling thousands of miles through forbidding terrain in undeveloped parts of the world has always appealed to me... so here we are.

As to the race- mostly we will watch it from a safe viewing point as the racers to by...although "safe viewpoints" are kind of an illusion - sadly yesterday one of the race cars lost control in a turn and ran into the crowd ( with dire consequences). So we will keep a safe distance. On top of that there will actually be many places along the route where we will be traveling the same path as the race. In these places we will be forced to stay vigilant as a dust cloud coming up fast in the mirror may the only warning we get before buggy or a 12 ton support truck ( like the one in the picture below) flies by us.

We got our rental bikes today... all BMW's - of the 11 guys in our party we have 5 riders on 1200 GS's, 3 guys on 800's and 3 on 650's. We spent the afternoon "kitting" the bikes... putting GPS mounts on... tank bags, adjusting and tinkering as you do when trying to make a rental bike "your own".

The picture attached shows the gang as we putter with our bikes and adjust to "jet lag". We left from Los Angeles faced with an 8.5 hour flight to Lima, Peru... change of planes and a 1 AM departure for Argentina - we flew on through the night to Cordoba. Kinda like taking a "red eye" to New York... only worse. We arrived at 6:30 in the morning and were greeted by our hosts and whisked off to the Pampas "Lodge". The lodge is a beautiful facility situated on a "small" estancia... (only 6000 acres) which is pretty small by Argentine standards.

So - we hit the road tomorrow... 350 miles mostly "off road" to the town of La Rioja. La Rioja is located in the "valley of the moon"... named for the fact that the appearance of the terrain is "moon like." Apparently its Argentina's version of "Death Valley"... my guide book for the area says it's a No-Go Zone in the summer time... yet here we are. It's supposed to be the hottest place in Argentina. I'll let you know about that in a few days.

Otherwise the next update will be from Chile... after we have crossed Passo de San Francisco. (PSF) PSF is at the top of the Andes... a paved road to the pass from Argentina... and a dirt road "down" into Chile from an altitude of 15,600 feet. That's the highest I will have ever been on terra firma.

There is another picture attached here... and it's just proof that in fact we are at Dakar... One of the really cool aspects of Dakar is the competition between the support trucks... here is one of them that we caught at a gas station near Cordoba as we were being taken out to our meeting point... the next emails will have more pictures....

I am really looking forward to the next days... You'll hear from us soon and hopefully you'll enjoy the reports.

Cheers,
Jim Hyde

Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 8:17 PM
“Utterly Amazing ...”

Hello to all my adventure riding friends... another Dakar update.

What a wild experience. There are 575 motorcycles, cars and trucks in the event (more or less changing on a daily basis as they break down and stuff) but what a spectacle. We are now in our second day of riding along the route and each day we have stopped at least twice at "viewing stations" to watch the race go by. It's just crazy, thousands of people lining the streets screaming like maniacs for their favorite drivers. Robbie Gordon is a big favorite in his hummer. Yet at the moment the Volkswagens are dominating the car section of the rack. We saw Robbie go by yesterday as he hit a big jump must have jumped 30 feet or more. It was in an area where there were at least a thousand people and they went nuts as Robbie's car went airborne. We saw a section of the bikes go by but I actually find them less interesting than the trucks and the cars. If Dakar still allowed the "big bikes" I'd be fascinated since that's "our world" but this year the bikes are all 450's and whiles it's still a very tough race, the 450 class of bike is truly a dirt bike and it seems less dramatic to see a "dirt bike". That's the cool thing about the big trucks; It's just awesome watching them hit the big jumps and do things that seem so darned un-natural. We have not yet had the chance to see the big trucks in action yet... but tomorrow we will. In the meantime here is a picture of two of them at the gas station this afternoon... They are so cool.

Now here is the really cool part, and I am really kind of at a loss for words to describe what we have experienced the last two days here in Argentina. I really more or less knew what the Dakar was all about from a "mechanical" standpoint. I mean the motorcycles, the race cars, trucks and all the usual furor that surrounds such an event. What I was completely unprepared for was the "human experience"... utterly amazing are the only two words I can think of to describe what we have experienced. We are being treated like "Rock Stars" - It's just awesome. Everywhere we go people think we are somehow connected with the race and we don't speak Spanish well enough to let them know that's not the case. We sort of do "look the part" however, big BMW's covered with electronics, and all of us in "rally suits". All our bikes have knobbies and we are absolutely filthy from all the dust and mud so we do look the part. But - honestly we all feel a little "sheepish" with the attention but at the same time it's so incredibly cool. Frankly the people don't care at all whether we are part of the race; they are reveling in the "experience"... and we are definitely part of that.

As examples of the interest the locals have taken in us - yesterday a "mom" just shoved her baby boy into my hands and climbed under my arm so her husband could take a picture. At every gas station hundreds of people are hanging out to get autographs from anyone on anything that looks remotely connected to the race. To the right is one of our guys; Tom Petrillo signing the shirt of a little kid that just stuck a pen in Tom's hand and pointed to his shoulder. Every single time we stop we are "swarmed" by the locals; most of them want a picture with us. Many want an autograph; many want to climb on our bikes for a picture. So we hang out and enjoy the hubbub. It truly is an awesome experience for us to be a part of an event that has the power to generate such enthusiasm among the population of a country.

Another cool aspect of this is that people are fascinated by our BMW's. As I mentioned above, everyone wants to sit on them. The picture (left) shows 3 kids on one of our 800's and a whole swarm around a 1200... It's crazy...

So the last cool thing that has happened to us today has to do with our "accommodations" in a little town called Fiambola. It's really a small town near the Chilean border and there are only two hotels in town - and they were booked a year ago. So our options were pretty limited since we did not actually get a plan together to do this trip till a couple of months ago- thus we did not quite know where the heck we were going to stay. Well - the locals figured it out and many of the homes in town have been turned into motels for the night. After all there are 6000 people who need places to stay and have money in their pockets so tonight I and my friend Raphael are staying in a modest but very clean little house that is about the size of my living room at home. The lady who owns the house is "Estella" and she is a local computer science teacher. My bet is that it's pretty meager living because she also has a second job and works ten hours a day, 6 days a week. She was pretty darned excited to rent us her house for a night. She has gone off to spend the night with her sister, leaving me and Raphael alone in her home with all of her possessions. I don't think I could do such a thing but we are pretty trustworthy so I guess her stuff is safe. Below are two more pictures; Me taking her son "jerimiah" for a ride on my bike with Estella taking a picture in the back ground and the second picture is our "home" for tonight.

OK... that's enough for now. I hope you are enjoying the stories and photos.

All the best,
Jim Hyde

Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:51 PM
Dakar update number three... Passo de San Francisco

Howdy everyone. Well - here comes another unique experience that would only happen at an event like the Dakar. In order to gain perspective let's put ourselves in the shoes of our guides from Argentina and say that today we have to take 11 "gringo's" ( and gringo means simply "foreigners" to the Argentines) and they have to take these 11 guys over one of the highest mountain passes in the world. What to do regarding the possibility of altitude sickness? Altitude sickness is a real consideration because Passo de San Francisco is a little over 15,600 feet. Damn High... of course our guides are worried about us because we are riding rented bikes, and if we pass out or wreck the bike because we get disoriented it falls on them - right?

Coca leaves... that's the solution... just like the indigenous people did for thousands of years. Only now they make cocaine from coca leaves, but in its native form coca leaves are considered a "mild stimulant" with properties that minimize the effects of altitude sickness. So - the picture (right) shows a brick of coca leaves in the hands of one of our guys that were delivered to our house around dawn on our day of departure for Passo de San Francisco. It really was kind of like a "drug deal" because a cute girl showed up at our door with a shopping bag full of the little green plastic wrapped bricks shown below, then a cash exchange and she was gone! Just like that.

It looks for all the world like a drug deal... but its legal here, and it really does help counter the effects of altitude. I found out myself although Coca leaves are just plain nasty to chew. They calm you and the effects of altitude just don't hit you. What you do is take a "lump" of the leaves about the size of a half dollar, fold them up and put them in your mouth and start chewing. Once the leaves sort of get "mushy" you put the lump between your cheek and gum (like chewing tobacco) and you just let it sit there. The juice sort of provides the needed effect, although if you cannot stand the taste (like me) you can make a "tea" out it for the same effect.

I found out what the real effect of altitude can do to you when we ran across a guy who had become so incapacitated by it that he was delirious. He could not stand, or talk clearly, or continue riding his motorcycle. The image left is him lying on the ground incapacitated, and the 2nd picture below is of me riding him out after we put his bike on our support truck. Unfortunately there was no room in the truck for a passenger so I had to give him a lift on my bike. It was only 75 miles or so on a really rough dirt road and it was all he could do to hold on without puking... so there we were riding two up, with the big Dakar race trucks flying by every few minutes just a few inches away... made for a nerve wracking couple of hours.

Tomorrow we enter Chile, and the Atacama Desert. It's the driest place on earth. Makes the Sahara Desert look like a jungle. More fun stuff coming soon.

All the best,
Jim Hyde

Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2010 8:13 AM
" Dakar... the money shot. "

Greetings from Chile and here is the day 8 update from the Dakar Rally. AND I am so excited because I had the chance yesterday to get the photo of a lifetime! I'm jokingly calling it my "Money shot" because it alone made all the costs of getting here worthwhile- and it's the one photo that I am going to make a poster of to hang on the wall of my office. It's just awesome - (to me anyway) See just below!



So here's the story - over the last three days we have "shadowing the rally" through the Atacama Desert in Chile. The Atacama makes the Sahara desert look like a jungle. There are no oases here nor is there life. There are no birds, there are no insects. For hundreds of miles there is absolutely nothing alive, not a single blade of grass and thus; it's a perfect place to race. The picture to the right illustrates what I'm speaking of.

The race "zigzags" back and forth over the desert and every time it crosses a paved road there is a checkpoint and thus; a place for us to watch the action. A car or truck will come "hauling" out of the desert. The guy at the check point starts frantically waving his arms to make sure the driver sees him. The vehicle comes skidding to a halt, the guy at the checkpoint stamps a time card presented to him by either the co-pilot or rider and they hit the gas again... there are police standing in the road to stop traffic... and that's how it goes.

So yesterday just after the checkpoint shown above is where I got my "money shot". As some of you know I am fascinated by the "big trucks of Dakar." They seem so ungainly, heavy & frankly out of place when racing. I mean they weigh 12 tons... but yet they haul ass on the race course. I compare them to my 1200 GS adventure - Many people think that the GS is an ungainly, hard to manage "beast"; yet if you know what you are doing they are amazingly capable. Just like the big trucks. So, we had gathered a half mile or so down the course to watch the action. It was awesome. We were alone & less than 50 feet from the edge of the course; no barriers, no "minders" to keep us safe - all the thrills of standing so close to a race track.

So suddenly one of the guys said; "hey - let's try to get some photos of ourselves in on the action". And so it started, we would line up along the edge of the course and as a bike or car or truck came by we would hit the gas and try to pace the racer keeping a safe distance away from them and also angling away from them so they would know we weren't going to cut them off or do something stupid. Talk about a rush… flying across the desert at 80 miles an hour parallel to the vehicles. Several times we got "thumbs up" from the co-pilots of the 4 wheeled vehicles.



I and my BMW GS Adventure - At Dakar. I know its kinda corny but humor me OK? We must have spent 3 hours just racing up and down along the course trying to pace the racers. What a blast!

All the best everyone,
Jim Hyde

Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 6:09 PM
Tales from Dakar... Chiles REAL ghost town and other stories

Hi everyone. Here are a couple more little stories and some perspective from Dakar. It's getting increasingly harder to find the energy to do these updates because the "fatigue factor" is setting in. We have been riding about 350 miles a day and I know that does not sound like much but combining the miles on rough back country roads with stops to see the race; the days have been minimum 12 hours and by the time the group has dinner etc. its midnight before I get time to sit down at the computer. Twice I have fallen asleep at the keyboard trying to put my thoughts together so this comes to you as a result of about 5 days of effort - mostly after midnight. I started this a few days ago.

So here are a couple of cool little stories of things that have happened along the way. Most of what I have written previously has pertained to the actual race but as we have been storming along through some of the most amazing landscapes in the world I started pondering the larger experience.

I mean here we are, riding BMW GS's through South America - a continent I have never visited. I am adding two new countries to my list of life experiences. Yes of course the Dakar Rally is the focal point - but more importantly I am having the time of my life on a GS. As said above - I have never been to South America before and the only real connection I have ever had with Argentina or Chile has thus far been a bottle of wine or two. So when you really boil it all down this trip is way more than just following the Dakar; we are having an amazing interaction with the people, eating all kinds of new food, learning about life below the equator and we are enjoying a magnificent adventure. The point of this email is a couple of cool things we have seen that don't really have much to do with the Dakar.

The weirdest ghost town I have ever seen. It's in Northern Chile - San Pedro de Valdivia is the most legitimate definition of a ghost town I have ever visited, and I have seen some pretty good ones. On top of being a "ghost town" this place is right out of the "twilight zone." Here's the story - it was a company town, serving the salt industry. A bustling little place of four thousand with a major hospital, two churches, a theatre, a large regional school and all the other services necessary to support life in the middle of no-where & it became a ghost town literally overnight when the company that ran the salt mine just shut down.

So - the picture above shows me riding down the main street of town. Empty apartments line both sides of the street, most don't have a roof because the roofs were all sheet metal and over the years the recyclers have stolen much of the metal roofing. But here is the really interesting part; none of the roofs on any of the buildings are weather tight. No tarred seams, no "flashing," no shingles - just sheet metal. Why?? There is no need for a waterproof roof as it has not rained in this part of the Atacama Desert for a long, long time. What is a long time you ask? Well - something like 400 years. According to our guide book which we got at AAA; there has been no rain in this region since the Spanish came to South America in the 1600's. The only reason there is a roof on any building is simply to provide protection from the sun. It doesn't get that cold in the winter so you don't need a weather tight roof... but you do need shade from the summer sun. How is that for a drought? No rainfall in recorded history!

Next... the freaky part. I rode alone down the main street into town and on to the main city square. The cities school sat on the square and I had been told that much of the furniture and books and desks were still there. I thought it would be cool to see so I parked my bike in front of the school and pulled my helmet off in preparation to go in. Keep in mind that I was alone in the town. My companions were still at the entry to the place finishing their lunch. So - to say it was an eerie place would be an understatement; and then I heard the music... Yeah - from a radio. I looked to see if perhaps the sound was coming from a visitor's car or something but that was not the case. I really was alone in the place. So I walked toward the square to see where the music was coming from. A pair of dusty and very old outdoor speakers on columns in the city square was the source of the music. And then the music ended and a voice came on describing events from nearly 30 years ago. As I looked around in disbelief (thinking twilight zone) I noticed that the lights of the square were lit. It was totally creepy... but pretty cool at the same time. It turns out that the place is a national monument dedicated to preserving the history of life in Northern Chile Much like Bodie Ghost town in California they are letting the place slowly decay. As to the music and commentary from the old days, I can only guess.

After I figured out the source of the music I heard the comforting rumble of a couple of my companions bikes... (still thinking twilight zone ) so I went on into the school. It was doubly eerie. The desks and chairs were in many of the class rooms. Books were still on the tables, cases and boxes of supplies were still in the closets of the rooms and there was a very thick (half inch or so) layer of dust on every surface. In the picture to the left, tables, chairs, text books, bowling pins etc were all left as if the students would return after lunch; but yet it had been 25 years since the kids were there.

Elsewhere in town things were equally eerie. The hospital for example - The surgery was intact. the surgical lights still hanging from the ceiling, the big sterilizers still in place, scrub sinks, x-ray equipment and more; still intact and in place as if waiting for the return of the doctors and nurses. Weird I tell you...

A great glimpse into the simple life. We had a great lunch in a tiny little beach town a couple of days ago but the cool part of it was that it's clearly a place that never sees tourists. Our guide knew of it and took us there just so we could have lunch near the water. Just like many of the places along the way we were swarmed by the locals the minute we got there. Only they knew nothing of the Dakar; they just thought it was cool that some tourists would come to their little town. The town had a pier and we thought it would make a great photo to line our bikes up on... so we did. As we chatted with the locals a little boy started bringing up samples of the local sea life to show us (see picture below of Pedro and his town). As things like this go, the little boy ingratiated himself to the group and someone gave him a candy bar, another gave him a ball cap, someone else gave him a sticker and he sure loved it. But in a few minutes he disappeared and we thought "oh well, he got a souvenir or two..." and now he's gone. BUT - a few minutes later he returned with a big plate of freshly cooked local fist to share with us. I was surprised. He and his family were clearly poor by our standards & had next to nothing compared to us and we were total strangers. But we had shared with him and he desperately wanted to give us something in return so he brought us part of his family's ration of food. We were all deeply touched by the gesture; which in turn brought another round of gifts and the remainder of our lunch for he and his family. Little things like that reaffirm my faith in humanity.

Defining Adventure in a slightly different way - & back to the rally; one of our guys had a close call today with one of the big trucks. We were following a group of rally vehicles on a "liaison" which is a non-timed transit from one stage of the race to another. We were riding as a group and just as we started to pass the truck you see in the picture here (lower right), the right rear tire simply blew. Big shards of rubber flew off the truck and struck one of our guys in the helmet. Good thing he had his visor down... and fortunately it was the "right" side tire because the truck veered off the road and into the desert. I was riding "sweep" in our group and all I saw was a giant cloud of dust as the truck careened through the desert before coming to rest as you see it here. You can see from the odd angle of the rear wheel that something is wrong and you can see the spare tires and all the stuff that had been neatly organized on the top of the truck in disarray. Take a look at the terrain the truck bounced through and imagine how rough the ride was inside the cab as the driver tried to keep it upright. I mean each of those "berms" is nearly two feet high! The truck was doing at least 60 when it went off the road. We all stopped to make sure everyone was OK and it took a good two minutes before the guys started to get out of the truck. They were all pretty shaken up but OK. Whew... close call!

I'll try to get one more post made before the rally ends...

All the best,
Jim Hyde

Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 7:32 PM
Dakar update. Day 3 modified and day 5 added - a bit late. Sorry!

Hello folks... I am resending with some additions to an earlier email because some complications from the road.

A sincere thanks from me for the notes of encouragement that I have received from many of you regarding the emails. I feel quite like an ambassador to our sport, telling stories which will hopefully inspire you or your friends to take your bikes and go exploring. Dakar is something that we plan to do again next year if it stays in South America - so stay tuned. 15 lucky people will have the chance to join us IF it stays in South America.

So a couple of more stories & a brief comment about another amazing part of the race which occurs near a town in northern Chile called Iquique. Iquique is near the Peruvian border and it has the largest sand dune in the world (according to the locals) - over a half mile high and the rally course goes right over the top of it. In the picture to the right you see another of the big trucks. But if you look directly over the truck to the top of the dune you see a dust cloud coming down; that is the next competitor - hurtling straight down a near vertical drop off - no brakes - full throttle. I can see that in a car or a buggy perhaps, but a big truck!? Wow! The picture does no justice to the actual steepness of the dune... it's incredibly steep.

Those trucks went flying down well over a hundred miles an hour. 10 tons of steel and fiberglass storming down the face of that sand dune with no real chance of controlling anything that might go wrong... awesome.

We saw Robbie Gordon in his hummer and one of the big Russian Kamaz trucks going head to head at over a 100 mph trying to beat each other to the finish line. The ground shook as those two went by.

Next a quick shot of the camaraderie on the track. A major goal of many racers is simply to finish. In order to finish you must complete all the stages. A racer is disqualified if he fails to complete a stage, so if your machine breaks during the day and the driver or rider thinks there is a chance to fix it; he still has to complete the stage for the day. In the picture to the left the guy on the bike is being towed to the finish line by a fellow competitor. The rider on the motorcycle was so tired that he could barely stay on the bike. In fact, two of the people standing next to the bike were not only helping to push the bike, but were also holding the rider on the bike. I snapped this picture as everyone took a break. Fortunately the finish line was only a half mile ahead. The guys helping accompanied him all the way to the finish line...

We later heard he had been towed for nearly 50 miles by the guy on the quad. And that effort cost the guy on the quad a lot of time. My guess is that the quad rider simply wants to finish the race. And I am guessing that he's not really competitive in the race; so he was willing to help the rider. It's a good way to earn credit in the "karma bank"

All in all- it's been quite an experience - and I am getting a little "numb." We have been riding 12 to 14 hours a day which is easy to do because it stays light until around 9:30 PM. I'll probably only be able to do one more update before I leave South America. We have a very rigorous schedule the next few days. I have enjoyed bringing all of you a glimpse into the Dakar. Hope you have enjoyed it too...

All the best,
Jim Hyde

Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 12:14 PM
Dakar final wrap up, The Bivouac, The Winners & A Few Last Thoughts.

Hi everyone - again this Dakar update has been a few days in the making and to be honest I am finishing it up after the fact here in Medoza, Argentina taking a few well deserved days of rest. It was a grueling last few days and I fly home tomorrow. I am almost fearful of the workload awaiting me but I would not have missed this opportunity for anything. It may sound funny to say this but I feel like this trip truly legitimized RawHyde as an "adventure company." I mean, we do some pretty cool stuff - our California desert tours and our Adventure Rider Challenge etc. But "Dakar"... wow... its big stuff. We have an awesome partner in South America so we can do this again next year if the chance presents itself & if the Dakar organizers bring the event back to Argentina in 2011 we will be here. But if not; this was the realization of a lifetime dream - Thanks for sharing it with me.

So, here is the final chapter for Dakar 2010.

Here are the race results for those of you who are interested - The winners in "cars" are all Volkswagen Tauregs. 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, with Carlos Sainz, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mike Miller (an American) driving in respective order. Robbie Gordon with his hummer came in 8th overall and in motorcycles - Cyril Depres won the motorcycle category (on a KTM) and our hometown boy, Jonah Street, came in 7th. I had the pleasure of meeting Jonah and you will learn a bit more about his team in my "bivouac" story below. He's really a nice guy, humble and approachable. And last but not least, my favorite, "the trucks"... were won by the Russian "Team Kamaz." Vladimir Chagin was the lead driver, he won for like the 9th time and amazingly the difference in overall time in 9000 kilometers of racing was only 7 hours between the lightweight racecars and the 10,000 pound trucks. That's less than a half hour per day... Wow!

On our side of the coin - we as a group rode about 3400 miles in 10 days. It was not easy… the days were long but fun and I have to put in a plug for BMW at this point. Collectively we put in a total of 37,400 hard miles (11 guys - 3400 miles each). The only problem we had: one flat tire! We thrashed our rental bikes with a lot of high speed street riding, hundreds of miles of beat up back country roads and lots of tough dirt roads with no mechanical issues - not bad eh? BMW makes a great product - and I am happy to be affiliated with them.

So anyway, below is the last Dakar Experience that I wanted to share with you all from the "bivouac" about 5 days ago in Santiago, Chile:

Well, today we had another of those once in a lifetime experiences and that was the Dakar Bivouac. What's that you ask? Well – "Bivouac" is mostly a military term for camping out in the boondocks. The Webster's dictionary definition is; "a temporary encampment in the open with only tents or improvised shelter." The term has been used for many years as the evening encampment for the race teams of the Dakar Rally.

The Bivouac is without a doubt the biggest overall spectacle of the Dakar just by the sheer magnitude of it. It is a giant moving city. It moves with the race each day - thousands of vehicles, tents, shades, generators etc. The "city" only exists for about 12 to 14 hours. Then trucks arrive between 12PM and 2 PM - the racers arrive between 2 PM and 8 PM (typically). Maintenance is done ASAP and they (the trucks and support teams) start the process of "moving out" between 2:30 & 4:30 each morning in order to get to the next day's Bivouac again around noon to then set up and again provide service to the racers as they arrive. And so it goes for 16 days.

In a few places the Bivouac was located at the "fairgrounds" or something similar at many of the small towns the race passed through. But in all the other cases the Bivouac was out in the boondocks - miles from anything else. Below are a few general shots of the "organized chaos" that defines what the bivouac is... enjoy. We had the chance to get in to the Bivouac on day 12 of the race as it passed near Santiago.

To the left is a snap of the Volkswagen support trucks. VW as I noted above took first, second and third place in the race (in the car division) and they had 7 of these big trucks - plus nearly 30 other vehicles providing support. It's hard to fathom the effort and money necessary to do this over 9000 kilometers of action in two different countries, in some of the most rugged terrain in the world.

Speaking of Volkswagen, I'd like to share a little story about the code of corporate ethics that at least Volkswagen has with regarding the event. We had something happen with Volkswagen and one of our riders that impressed the hell out of me.

On about day 4 of our ride, one of our guys, Charlie Walton - a surgeon from Las Vegas, was riding his 800GS on the highest leg of our trip. We were crossing "Passo de San Francisco" at an altitude of about 15,000 feet and Charlie had a pretty good wipe out in a hair pin turn. It happened that he wiped out in front of one of the big VW support trucks. There were actually 3 of the big VW trucks (shown left) traveling together and the first truck stopped to make sure that Charlie was OK. Then the other two trucks stopped, all three drivers got out of their trucks and approached Charlie and each driver asked Charlie (in succession) if he was OK. They did so with great intensity and genuine concern clearly trying to determine if, in fact, Charlie was all right.

The first question they asked was what language did Charlie speak? He said English - and the conversation went like this...

VW drivers: Are you all right?
Charlie: Yes I am OK!

VW drivers: Are you sure you are all right?
Charlie: Yes I am sure...

VW drivers: Are you alone?
Charlie: No I am riding with a group!

VW drivers: Is there anything that we can do for you?
Charlie: No - not that I can think of!

VW drivers: Again... are you sure you are all right?
Charlie: Yes... I am OK!

VW drivers: All right then... if you are sure you are OK...
May we have your permission to leave you?
Charlie: Yes.

The thing that is so cool about the exchange above is that all three trucks had every intention of staying with Charlie if he felt that he needed help. The VW guys made it very clear that it was Charlie's decision, not theirs, as to whether or not they could continue. They needed his permission to be relieved of their "obligation of service" to a rider in trouble and to carry on their way. I was and am totally impressed by the experience. The Volkswagen race team is a class act. I was impressed with their commitment not only to the win but to a "downed rider." Corporate responsibility AND sportsmanship at its finest.

The picture to the right is one of the VW race cars at the end of the day - wheels and fairings taken off, getting new tires, new brakes, all the dust being blown out etc. One of the cars was getting a new transmission, another was getting a new engine... the "bustle" was just amazing.

Below... a sample of the hospitality and food prep to feed all the misc. staff and journalists etc. The photo shows one of two "roasting pits" where nearly 60 pigs were being roasted to feed the contingent of racers and staff for the evening meal.




To the left is a picture of Jonah Streets bivouac setting with Charlie Rauseo the owner of Rally Pan Am. Rally Pan Am provides race support to "privateers" who want to run the Dakar. Charlie was gracious enough to get a few passes to enter the bivouac for three of our guys who did not have guest passes. Just for those of you who wonder, as a privateer, it costs somewhere between 50 and 80 thousand dollars to mount a Dakar effort. Depends on whether you have sponsors and it's a damn expensive proposition either way.

The picture to the right is me and 3 of my fellow riders in the VIP tent. Access to the VIP tent came at a price. It was part of our "bivouac access experience." It's $250 just to get in the Biv, for a look and at how it all works. Freaking expense, but how often do you have to do it? It was a marvelous experience.

So - That's all from South America folks. Thanks for all the words of encouragement. Thanks for reading all my ramblings, and above all, thanks for being part of our little "Adventurer's community"

Cheers,
Jim Hyde

RawHyde's Dakar Rally Tour 2010 Blogs & Videos

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