Sponsored motorbiker Tina Meier (#100), unfortunately dropped out of the race on the second day. The morning of the same day Eurosport transmitted images from her helmet camera with her cheering and greeting her family. The same afternoon, just before finishing the special and having fought against the fesh fesh for all day (the finest sand, deadly for everyone) her bike gave up. It seems this was due to an elecrical problem. But Tina did not give up. She decided to change her role on the rally and joined another team supporting her friend Laurent Meffre (#170) as a mechanic, as as he did not anyone to support him. For the following days Tina would be reparing his bike at night and travel by day with the truck of the swedish army team. Yesterday evening at 22:00 I met her – surprise – on Laurent’s Bike. Laurent had dropperd off the race the day before and she did drive his bike across the andes from 8:00 (Copiapo) to 22:00 (La Rioja). I’m curious to hear her stories about the happenings in the last two days.

We finally arrived safely to La Rioja at 21:00 on the 14th of January, with no change of clothes, no tent, no other belongings than our toothbrush and a shampoo to share among the 4 of us. Same faith happened to the BF-Goodrich colleagues. The amount of people of the street we saw while driving to the bivouac, gave us an indication about the temperature outside… over 30 degrees. After another night sleeping in the same bus, we woke up this morning. The other busses had reached us, and we are now awaiting for the Loctite truck to reach the camp. At breakfast we spoke to several truck drivers who could not believe the bus driver had taken upon him the challenge of choosing the support road for crossing the andes… Luckily we are all safe (for now) and looking forward to see the first competitors reaching the bivouac this afternoon.

Dakar means adventure for all the participants, not only the drivers. The Loctite Charlies and myself were already stuck for 16 hours in a bus which was supposed to drive us from Copiapo to Fiambala crossing the Andes, when at over 4100 meters altitude and half way to go, road workers would not let the bus pass. “This is a piste, the bus will fall down”… We started getting worried when the bus driver did a u turn at the top of the mountain and informed us we would drive back to Copiapo. 

This turned out to be some kind of misunderstanding between the bus driver and these people. After a second u-turn and 1 hour delay on our schedule we kept going direction Fiambala. However this is not the end… we soon realized that the bus driver was chewing some stuff. After a couple of hours of travel through magnificent landscapes, pistes which are really not made for a bus, and life threatening curves, and less confidence in the driving skills of our driver, we received the news that the bus driver had missed the road to Fiambala, and we were going directly to the next stage, in La Rioja with no change of clothes, no tents, no equipment, no food since this morning (as everything is in the Loctite Truck) and no possibility tonight of supporting competitors. After that, I received a hint that the swollen cheek of the drivers was due to coca leafs, as they say coca minimizes the effect of hight sickness. As I write this post I am still in the bus, and have no idea where we will land tonight. It seems to me we are lost in the middle of Argentina.

With the disappointment of many competitors the whole special stage between Copiapo and Fiambala was cancelled due to heavy fog. The caravan with all participants, starting at 8 am, moves on from Copiapo, Chile over the high Andes (over 4000m) to the next bivouac in Fiambala, Argentina. Many of the vehicles reach directly La Rioja as the stages Copiapo – Fiambala – La Rioja are the “marathon stage” where competitors need to take care of their vehicles themselves. It is a long trip – 600 km with peak altitudes ranging between 4100 and 4700 metres.

When Julio Ano (#118) came to us with a little magnet in his hand, we were closing down the stand and could only give him the product for fixing it without doing it ourselves. He asked for help for fixing the little magnet to the wheel, as this was part of his tachometer. Without this, an important part of his instrumentation would be missing. He promised us that if this worked, he would come back and make a photo with us wearing a Loctite cap and stickers. The day after the stage he came, thanking us because the product worked perfectly. Proudly he showed us the work he did with Loctite adhesives and we took a couple of photos together!

While I am at the airport waiting for the airplane to carry me to Copiapo, today the competitors started very early (around 5:00 am) for one of the hardest and longest stages of the entire rally. We are getting closer and closer to the Atacama desert, known as the driest desert on earth. I spoke with many motorbike riders yesterday. Many knowing that today’s stage will be hard, have not pushed them selves to the limit. Tomorrow’s stage will be the hardest of the whole race! Let’s see how competitors face this extreme challenge!

Today the first motorbike started at 5:25 from Valparaiso. The length of the special leg today is of 449 Km with a total length of the stage of 537 Km. This is the first part of a intensive three days journey which will see competitors facing the Atacama desert the day after tomorrow. Once more, lots of sand and dust. This morning the Charlies arrived by bus departing at 4:00 am from Valparaiso. At this moment while I am at the press center updating this blog, the Truck is being unloaded and prepared for this afternoon when the first competitors will be reaching the bivouac in La Serena. While Despres Cyril just finished the special stage at position 1, followed by Marc Coma and Francisco Lopez, Annie Seel just passed CP1 and gained many positions from 61 to 47. Miran Stanovnik (#17) also passed CP1 at position 25.

Rally Dakar 2009, originally uploaded by dunerider70.

The bike-parts piling up at the Service point in the Bivouac in Valparaiso.

Rodolpho Mattheis (#39) had a damage to the tank of his bike, and he noticed this during the race at the refueling station. A hole in the tank probably due to a cactus thorns smashing against his bike. He knew about Loctite Metal Magic Steel and asked another competitor to help him place his bike upside down in order to be able to patch the hole as quickly as possible. With the use of this product he was able to patch the hole of the tank, and lost only 15-20 minutes and no more than a couple of positions in the race. After the race he then came to the Loctite service point where the Charlies re-patched the hole and with more time at disposal, made a cleaner reparation. The driver was extremely thankful for the product. It saved him a lot of time.

The following day, knowing that the new stage would be 150Km of cactus and trees, he returned in order to improve the resistance towards impact with thorns, by applying our plastic repair products and gass fiber. Tomorrow we will know from him if the reinforced tank could survive against the harsh environment.