Aussies doing Saudi DAKAR (2020) now 2021

Richard Sainct died a few hours after a crash in similar circumstances. Got back on the bike after being found by following competitor Meoni, complained of headache and blurred vision etc iirc. Crashed again and this time was gone. RIP.
Best to bow out under medical supervision, come back next year.

Houlihan still in 52 overall, he dropped a couple of places early in stage but has come back

Looks like Chucky finished 4th on todays stage, which should have him in 4th outright.... Approx 26 mins from the 3rd step.

houlihans been doing it tuff, he dropped to 60th, has come up a bit a long way to go, he’ll be out late

It was a bloody great stage

So who's keen for next year?

How the fuck did he find a bee in the desert?

maybe he was riding a T7

Well done to the 3 Aussies on bikes making it to the last stage today, Chucky, Michael Burgess and Andrew Houlihan. Good luck boy's, the finish is in site.

MICHAEL BURGESS

I am 41 years old, born in country Victoria, Australia. I now live in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia with my wife Kelly and 3 children, Madison 14, Harley 12 & Felix 8. We own a small but busy Caravan Park (Avondel Caravan Park). As a child I enjoyed all sports, participating in athletics, Australian Rules football, basketball and tennis. My riding as a kid was only for farming purposes as I grew up on a dairy farm. I didn’t really take riding seriously until I was in my 20’s when I started racing. I raced off and on until 2014 when my body had enough from contact sport I turned my full attention to riding. Over the years finding success in many different facets of racing, the stand outs being class win at Gascoyne desert race 2014, AORC round class win, Finke desert race class win 2017, outright & class win at the Kalgoorlie desert race 2017.

In 2015 I competed in my first navigation race, the Condo 750 in Australia. This is where I found my real passion & my love for adventure riding begun. In an event that I produced my worst result in years but it did not matter… I had the biggest grin from ear to ear and wanted more of the navigation style of racing and adventure where results did not matter, it was the journey & the un-know destination that made it so fun. After my first navigation rally I thought that the Dakar rally was way out of my reach. As time went on I grew more eager and curious on the possibility of making it to the Dakar start line. In 2017 the planning begun, with some setbacks along the way with a broken sternum and then 12 months later a broken neck, nothing stopped us from our objective and here we are…..nearly, Dakar 2021!

When I’m not on my motorbike, I enjoy keeping fit with mountain bike riding, boot camp training, snowboarding, water sports, pretty much anything that is active fun. I love doing these things with my family and friends. I’m a typical Aussie that loves a laugh and a good time.

My girlfriend's ( also Kelly) brother is married to Michael Burgess sister.
I meet Gasha (Andrew Houlihan) when we both did Finke in 2016. We spoke about riding an outback nsw loop a few months before Dakar, but covid19 lockdown put a spanner in those plans.
And of course, I've met Toby a few times now. And ridden at Chucky' s parents place at 3 Bridges.

7 degrees of separation or something...

Anyway... go Aussies, bring it home . A short 200 odd k stage and it's done.
Brilliant effort by all.

Nearly there... edit! @ASS P50 well done

Yamaha has had a shocker, and now I see Van Beveren has disappeared from the standings on the last stage

this was it

1. 08:39 A big blow for Van Beveren!
   The nightmare continues for Yamaha! After Ross Branch, Franco Caimi, Andrew Short and Jamie McCanney, now Adrien Van Beveren, the last official representative of the team from Iwata, has run into technical problems after 30 minutes of racing...
   

He’d have to be pretty stoked

The 7 minute penalty didn't help Chucky must have been the Honda riders who dobbed him for holding them up.

The 19 min he lost in stage 1 with a nav error helped less