I wondered what happened to the yamaha guy (908), now he's officially listed as withdrawn.. yea! my bad carma worked!!

 

down to One DS650 in the Dakar

 

i saw an interview with that guy, they showd he's quad, and acording to him he's only got new shocks, extra gas oil and water tanks an some armor and thats it! all the rest is stock! if thats true its one heck of a win for bombardier!!!

 

If he can hang on for one more stage of nothing but dunes he wins!!

Bombs rule! Yammis drool[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

 

Looks like only one quad finished, at least in the top 65!

Congratulations to that team and to Bombardier!

On a side note, do any of these racers come to this board? I would like to get more info on the race.
Also, if anyone wants to sponsor a racer over there, please contact me, I would love to do this! But, I think it would be way out of my league!

DuneDevil

 

I think you'ed seriously need to talk to the people who've done the race before, and maybe see if you could somehow run parts of it before hand to get some idea of what the riding is like. I think some of the write ups on the riders included web links to their sponsors, which in one case I remember was the car dealer the guy who was racing owned. Perhaps you could start emailing that way. Oh, and be sure to get a program to translate for you!

 

There is a site out there I was looking at that specialized in helping begginers at the Dakar. They said to run a motorcycle you need a minimum of about 45,000 US dollars [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]

 

Just playing around last year I figured the cost of fielding a *competitive* team would be closer to $125K. Just the entry fees, deposits on equipment, transportation, fuel, a chase truck with spares... etc, etc will stop the casual racer from competing. The rules do not allow for team riders, one rider has to complete every stage or he's out. As cool as it may be I don't think many American sponsors would pop for the cost of an extremely costly race with so little exposure in the US and no big prize money. But, the other side of this is that if you ever did have the opportunity to compete and finish the Dakar life would be way different[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I know the guy that won the Dakar and he works in a quad shop not far form where I stay. He nearly did not make the race, as he could not get sponsorship. The shops does all right, but he only got the go ahead a short while before the race. They could only afford to send him and his mechanic and a couple of spare parts. This race was won on a very small budget, and no extra money was available for emergancies.

He mostly spends his time racing bombs in the local races we have here. He actually does very well and leads almost all the time.

He however got beaten by a near stock YFZ450 a couple of weeks before he left for the Dakar. It was in a local endurance race called the Roof of Africa. As far as I know he did not race his Dakar DS in the local race but rather used his modified one, which is much faster than Dakar one. So watch out for those 450's next year

I am not trying to burst the bubble about the DS winning the Dakar. It is a damn good result and congratulations to him. Still proud of the guy, no matter what he rides.

When the quad is back I hope to go have a look at the thing.

 

Maybe you could get some pics of his DS...?? please.