Dakar 2013 - Official Event Coverage - thank you ALL TeamF5, lurkers and posters!

I just got back to this awesome news... Bravo Luis!!!!

And every single one else. Pyn, Rod, Si, Craig, Stann, Manuel... the lot of them, champions and heroes by me!

Faria: spot on Troy! He looks like he is ready to pick up the mantle

Caselli: Amazing rookie effort, if you subtract his 3h20 penalty it puts him in the top 10 I believe. And would have chalked up 3 stage wins but for a mechanical.

Jakes: privateer success story extraordinaire

KTM, rally and domination are words that belong in the same sentence once again. And I don't just mean the bike, but the whole racing team effort, from manager to motorhome driver. They just ooze professionalism

Husky Speedbrain: gutted for them this year, they were worthy of so much more. Just hope that the results don't disparage them and they come back stronger. Same for HRC. Regardless of the flak, they need to stick with their 5 riders and just keep chipping away. Which brings me to Yamaha. Dark horses Pain, Casteu and Verhoeven, all seasoned vets, and only a few mentions before the race started. Will be on more people's radars hopefully next year, as for the bike, I believe they had very little mechanical dramas. The YZ is looking like one hell of a rally platform, congrats to them

Team F5: thanks to every single one of the loons that contributed to this thread. Besides riding & racing, this is definitely the most fun thing to do at home (okay, second most fun). A big shout out to our mods, you guys rock! PackMule, Troy, Flood, Ned, Kaia. Mischa for the tracking, Carlos for the graphics, and last but certainly not least, Neil for the awesome stage previews and Google magic



Okay. All ES & Fr4 torrents downloaded, I'm off to the TV room, gonna watch the finish in style, with popcorn and a couple of glasses of this:





Catch you all tomorrow

PS - About the math lessons. You're welcome

Now what?

See if if we're still in a relationship with our SO's?

Looks like ES1 will have one more rally show tomorrow evening...

23:00 GMT

Rally
Dakar Rally - Stage 15 (30min)

talking to myself now.

SHIT! Allmost forgott about her.....

Uhh...I think that's only news to you, Kev.

Well that was that.

I must say I enjoyed the first week the most really, the bike competition seemed to be more exciting than it became in the second week. Verhoeven did great, as did Helder (shame for the HRC fuel cock-ups), an ofcourse there's Pyndon too

Also with the cars, it's such a shame RG had to flip his Hummer over - he would've ended 2nd otherwise, and made the competition with the cars a hell of alot more exciting. Good to hear that he immediately says he'll be back again, even though there were doubts about that prior to the rally.

If he really does, 2014 promises to be a stunner. HRC will be back with a vengeance most probably, as will RG. It's going to be fun one way or another, to see what the Orange brigade will conjure up once CD is gone. Faria new front runner most probably, but who takes his place behind him?

I lucked out that way on the time zones. Evenings here meant no f5 action.

I'm thinking that it'll go on air 22:51 (UTC/GMT), since the feed we're watching in VLC isn't quite the same that's specified in the UK listings. For example: according to the UK listings we should be watching ski jumping by now, but there's snooker. I'm using the Swedish listings and they've been on the spot up until now: http://tv.eurosport.se/tvschedule.shtml

You mean he's an ASS man?

Oh, and from the back of the pack. I've refused the help of the sweep truck and the media helicopter. Wanna know how far back I am? About 84 hours. I pretty sure the race is already over (it's still Wednesday morning in my F5 world). But I'm having too much fun living it sequentially even if slightly delayed. See you FFs in a while. . .

Do you own a tent....or have a dog house?

Or a REALLY nice present..........

i can't wait to hear the tale of LB150. Monumental effort.

Sandi, please insist that the bike goes into a museum so that no one else is tempted to flog her through the dunes ever again.

I was thinking the same. I should of flew in again this year for the finish. How do I celebrate from here and alone.

See?

Silke knows too.

http://youtu.be/3MyZTPPgsZA

(On my phone)

Well my 2nd F5 Dakar is at an end and despite the inconvience of actually having to work this year I managed a creditable 32nd place


Now the awful dawning of just what am I going to do for the next 50 weeks.....

Better fight my way through the snow to the freezing garage and start rebuilding this for the UK Rally season :huh


.

"We're in for another lengthy frame, after the previous one lasting over 50 minutes", the ES commentator just said.

Nice to see Johnny C. finish, 40th position.