Buenos Aires, December 31, 2009. That’s what happens here if you don’t behave well… you wanna mess with the Charlies and the Loctite people? they are gonna glue your shows with Loctite 401 and hang you up as they did with this poor visitor! You better don’t mess with the Charlies.

   

Rally Dakar 2009, originally uploaded by dunerider70.

Sponsored driver Annie Seel arrived glorious in Buenos Aires few minutes ago. With great happiness painted on her face Annie was welcomed by dozens of journalists and photographers who cheerer at her. Everybody clapped hands and many shouted her name:”Annie! Annie! you are the true winner of this race!

Loctite sponsored Motorbike Driver Miran Stanovnik just arrived at the Rural ending the Dakar 2009 with position no. 13 Overall. What an incredible result for Miran, who has been driving excellently with no major problem during the whole rally. Jean congratulates Miran at the arrival in the area where all press is gathered to welcome the participants.

Today, after the last stage with 227 km of special the spaniard Marc Coma reached Buenos Aires winning the 2009 edition of the Rally Dakar. Three years after his first triumph in Senegal, on the other side of the ocean, the Catalan became the first Dakar winner in Latin America.
I just arrived at the press room in La Rural, where there is a unusual and unexpected atmosphere. I was expecting hundreds of people if not thousand of people around, and realized security have blocked the access to the arrival podium which is apparently only open to the press. There are a lot of Argentinians on the street, but nobody close to the podium yet. Looking forward to see all competitors arriving, I will now take a taxi to the Parc Ferme’ at the University Area, where the Bikes are supposed to arrive. Tomorrow there will be the podium ceremony where all competitors will show themselves to the public and the media.

Annie faced a very hard day yesterday, Stage 12 Fiambala-La Rioja. During the whole day the mechanics and myself were not able to get detailed information about what happened and we were all very worried as it appeared she would be stuck between CP2 and the end of the special stage. Laurent, her mechanic, his teammates and myself were running up and down all evening between CPO and the service truck in order to read Iritrack data. We only got information from some drivers passing by. We knew a helicopter had landed to help her, but no more. Finally at 2:00 am Annie made it back to the bivouac. Annie fell between CP2 and the end of the stage. She injured her shoulder which was already suffering from a ligament problem. With a lot of pain, exhausted she was helped by a team-mate motorbiker to get up and a helicopter came to bandage her. She did not give up and kept going, and eventually reached the end of the stage. Because she already had passed CP2, the information that the special stage had been shortened by the organization did not reach her. She fought for ending the original special stage, in pain, without need. All professional drivers criticized vary badly the difficulty of this particular stage. Many said it has been the most difficult stage in their life. Hard to imagine what this means. Just too much! Too dangerous many of them say. The organization decided to shorten the second part of the special stage (after CP2) when cars, trucks and bikes were stuck at the bottom of high dunes, with no engine power left, due to the effect high altitude over 4000 metres has on fuel engines if the carburator is not adapted to the conditions. I was shocked when Annie told me that cars and trucks, because they were not able to climb the dunes from one side, they would be forced to take a u-turn and drive full speed against the direction motorbikers were driving. Bikers would face cars and Trucks with the risk of a frontal impact. I accompanied Annie to the medics at 2:30 am. Annie wanted to be bandaged in order to keep competing the following day. “If I made it today, tomorrow I will also make it” she said. The medics, myself and the mechanics motivated her to think carefully wether to continue racing in this conditions. No way… It is impossible to stop Annie. Annie woke up, jumped on her bike this morning at 6:45 am, holding her bike with the power of one arm only. She is now racing.  ”You cannot stop superwoman” said Laurent, after we both saw her departing from the Meca’System truck. Fingers crossed for her!!!

People welcoming the caravane in Cordoba

The Charlies just love South Americans. The people are so welcoming here. It never happened to us to feel like “stars”. People seem to be so fond of motorsport here that we are asked many times a day to pose with them for pictures. Just crazy – makes us smile a lot.  The passage of the Rally Dakar 2009 is a unique event and probably for some smaller villages the most exciting event in history. In the larger cities the crowds of people welcoming us and the competitors is just absolutely amazing. Hundreds and hundreds of people fill the streets, shout, cheer. Annie Seel at the arrival in Copiapo explained me that many people shout her name while she is passing by. They remember her from the Patagonia Rally a couple of years ago. She was amazed by this. “I have my personal fans here – and they remember me – that’s so great here”. While I am in La Rioja in an Internet Cafe uploading the Blog, she is racing the special stage between Fiambala and La Rioja. Should be very muddy and hard today, as it has been pouring rain all night. Looking forward to see her at the Bivouac this afternoon.

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!