Hello Mates,

I finally have a chance to chime in from Africa.  Unfortunately I have not had internet access since leaving Spain.  Things are very exciting here.  I am continuing my education in our mother language with the help of  Sid & Ian who are in the car with us.  They are doing a smashing job with the proper use of our beautiful English language.

The last time I wrote we had completed day 1 of racing.  The second day did not have any competition but it was a travel day from Barcelona to Granada.  It was 900k ride that took most of the day.  On leaving Barcelona, we paraded through the streets to thousands of people.  The wild thing about the ride down was that there were scores of people waving and rooting on every highway overpass on the route to Granada.  We were running sweep and we received a call from the lead truck saying that Pedro (our Mexican rider) blew his rear tire at the 100k mark.  We were about 20k behind him so we were there in no time.  We pulled up behind a service station and my 3 partners got out of the truck, pulled the wheel off, removed the tire and moose and re-installed a new tire and moose in all of 20 minutes.  Pedro was right on his way.  I’ll explain moose some other day.   It took just seconds for oodles of people to gather around the boys changing tires.  It seems that every lad out there carries a digital camera with them here in Spain.

Our arrival into Granada was real late and the pits were jammed with people from Granada.  It looked just like the crowd at the Orange County Fair.  Just sheer craziness with people.  Somehow Dave and Charlie were not in yet which was weird since we were running sweep.  They showed up about a half an hour later and Charlie had a bad battery and he needed a couple jumps along the way.  Unfortunately, the KTM support truck was out of batteries.  They had gone through 72 batteries that day alone.  Something was going on with a bad batch of batteries.  We left the pits around 12:30 am to go to our hotel and unfortunately we couldn’t find one person who spoke English to give us directions.  Charlie & Dave were extremely tired and needed to get up early so we decided to go back to the pits and crash out.  I decided to give them my tent and sleeping bag as well as a sleeping bag from Sid since he was in another hotel.  I crashed out in the car and let me tell you, racing seats are not recommended for sound sleep.  A long drive, poor sleep and then bitter cold left me in no shape to drive in the morning.  Sid drove us down and put the truck onto the Ferry.  The Ferry ride across the straight of Gibraltar was pretty cool.  I took over driving in Morocco and drove a few hours down to Rabat.  Got there at sunset and set up camp.  The racers had a small special in Granada so they were behind us and had to wait for later ferries.  Unfortunately for Charlie, his battery was dead so he had to go slow on the special.  He made it down to Rabat but not until 10:00 at night with the other riders.  The mechanics were up until about 4:00 am working on the bikes.  I went to sleep around 1:00 because I had to drive at 7:00.  Another crappy night of sleep.  The pits are non-stop madness.  The inside of my tent is as bright as day and as loud as the 5 freeway because of all of the mayhem going on outside. We were still not able to get a battery for Charlie so he had to baby his bike on the next day.  We drove from Rabat to Agadir in about 10 hours.  The racers were supposed to run a 123 km special and it was cancelled because of fog.  They still had to run the coarse but as a liaison instead and met up with us in Agadir.  On the way to a Agadir, we came upon a twisty mountain road and one of the large Ralliart Mitsubishi support trucks lost control and flipped off of the road and parts were strewn all over the place.  I don’t know if anyone was hurt but it sure looked like it should have. The road to Agadir was also a navigational test for us.  We had some speed traps that we had to obey and lucky for us we only had 2 violations.  The Red Bull VW support team was also on the same route and those Germans were driving like idiots.  They were clocked doing something like 180k on 100kph roads and just blew through the speed traps.  From what I hear, three of their support trucks were kicked out of the race.  Lucky for them they have about 9 Touregs in their support team.  Dumbass Germans.   It took Mike and I a couple times to figure out how the GPS was tracking us and when the speed traps started and ended. This was a good learning tool for us.  Mike has been doing well with the navigation.  It’s not as easy as just following a map with street names.  I’ll email a picture of a portion of our daily road book when I get back home so you can see what we are up against.  Anyway, a late arrival by the racers and tons more work made for another late night for the mechanics. Charlie somehow found a couple on tour from Germany on their KTM’s and talked them out of one of their batteries in exchange for a lesson on how to kick start a KTM.  Needless to say Charlie will be indebted to that bloke for a while.

The mechanics went to bed around 2:00.  Lucky for us, we did not leave the Bivouac until 10:00 so it was an easy morning.

Finally the racers were able to race like they were supposed to today.  It was a 550k run for us and the racers and the racers had a 250k special.  All 8 of the riders and the 2 cars made it to the El Samara bivouac.

To give you an idea of our day, we usually hit the road early ahead of the racers.  Mike will navigate while the Brits sleep.  A few hours into the ride, Sid will take over navigating while Mike naps.  I have learned to live on Red Bull.  We are having an absolute blast in the car.  Learning the slangs of each of our dialects is absolutely fantastic.  You’ll see in a bit.  In paying attention to my driving and the navigation, it’s a laugh a minute in our conversations.  Two crazy Brits and two dumbass Yanks.  Good times for sure.  We usually get to the pits a little bit before the racers and set up camp.  Today, all the racers were waiting for us.  It just goes nuts the moment we get out of the truck.  I can’t believe how much service these bikes need.  I end up setting up all of the tents for the guys in my truck plus for Charlie and Dave.  I make tire runs to the Eurosport station and help the guys in whatever way I can.  Charlie broke his subframe today and needs two new tires.  Jerry Bernardo and his OLN crew interviewed Charlie & Dave so I situated myself right behind them and just laid low.  Who knows, maybe my ugly mug will make the tele.

We go off road tomorrow for the first time.  We are told that we need to drive and navigate very precisely because of impending mine fields.  Smashing good don’t you think.  The lads say that my driving better be spot on tomorrow.  Should be Jolly good fun.

Morocco is weird.  These people are an odd lot.  I think the guy that sells the brown pajamas with the pointy hats must be the richest guy in town. Ian keps yelling out the window, "Hey, there’s Ghandolf".  The guy that sells electric razors must be the poorest chap because these are the scruffiest blokes I’ve ever seen.   It would also be marvellous if they would throw in a toilet here and there.  All they have is a hole in the ground with places to put your feet.  One look at that and that scared my business right back into me.  Man oh man, it’s 2004 and they still use a freaking hole in the ground.  How about an outhouse for poops sake.  Oh, and the toilet in the mother language is called "The Loo"…. I think.  Whatever!!!!

So if you happen to be driving through Morocco in the next couple of days and you  see some chap squatting in the bushes, just honk and be on your way.  I might get the energy to wave back.

Sleep deprivation, cold ass nights and no toilets……… What a great adventure.  If I could only have a nice bed and my lovely wife to spoon for warmth.  I’ll make do for another couple weeks.  By far the adventure of a lifetime. 

Cheers

Zoli

Pilot number 611 RRUK Nissan.  (I’m not letting go of that for a while)

Hello Mates,

Hope all is well state-side.  I spoke to Barbara a couple days ago and she said it’s been raining since I left.  Glad I’m missing that.

To start with, my son David has a shirt that we bought in Glamis that I think reads, “I’ve got sand in my mouth, in my ears, in my eyes and in my butt and I love it”.  Well, I fit that description but unfortunately for me I’ve got red sand & silt in every crevis of my body and NO… I don’t like it.

The last time I emailed you all, I kind of put a fun twist to it because of what I’ve been experiencing.  I do have to say that from the minute I sent off that email, the Dakar adventure has changed dramatically.  Somewhere in the desert a couple days ago, my sense of humor was taken away from me.  The first week was outrageous fun and adventure but the last 5 days has been major work and adventure.  I have come away with the result that the organizers of this event are idiots.  It’s like giving the wonderful adventure of Disneyland and putting it in the hands of absolute knuckleheads.  To see what they put the riders through is wild and then they make it almost as hard on us.

I had mentioned to you that we were to travel off road for a day and navigate mine fields.  Well navigating the mine fields was nothing.  Just stay on the road and you live.. On our trip from Samara to Zouerat Mauritania, the off road adventure was a 15 hour drive for me that just took it all out of me.  The #611 Nissan did great.  I did not get it stuck at all.  About 3 hours into the drive, the Disco hit a huge bump and blew out one of the air bags on the rear suspension.  We sat there with the disabled car for almost 2 hours.  The F350 went ahead without knowing that the Disco broke down.  The F350 finally came back  with a rear spring from a bunch of cool Danish racers as a loaner.  That meant that I had to take on a large box of parts from the Disco since it could now not handle all of the weight.

We continued and the road was rough but OK.  Navigating was a little on the difficult side but we managed.  Later in the evening we had problems with the F350 getting stuck in silt / sand beds.  We pulled it out a couple of times and had those large trucks pull it out a couple times.  The 15 hour marathon ended in a crappy town called Zouerat at 1am.   Lucky for me I had my supply of Red Bull energy drink to keep me sharp.  The minute we got to Zouerat, the boys jumped on the bikes and made repairs necessary for the next stage.  They went solid until 8am and then the riders took off.  I went to bed while they worked so I could get ready for the next day.  We were off at 10am and on a 36 hour adventure to Tidjika.  Now this was an adventure that I just assume find the dude that mapped this out and castrate the bastard for lack of intelligence.  This started with a navigation through sand dunes.  Now the Nissan and the Disco were fine in the sand but the F350 is a 4x4 dually that is not designed for sand travel.  I had mentioned to Beady that I am experienced in navigating through the sand and we decided that I should give the F350 a go.  Ian took over driving the Nissan.  We dropped the tire pressure to 25 lbs. on the Ford and we were off.  Beady led a trail for me in the Disco and man o man was this an adventure.  I have to say that I impressed myself in the driving of the Ford.  This is SO loaded down but the turbo diesel had plenty power and I just cruised the dunes like I do on my quad.  It got that we were doing so well that we had a train of assistance vehicles in tow including some of those huge Kamaz and Tatra trucks.  We made it through the dunes and stopped at a level area to refill the tires.  I stayed in the Ford and kept driving when all of the sudden we navigated ourselves right into another Dune field.  This came up way to sudden and I could not keep up the speed with the silty dunes and the truck was beached.  Beady pulled me out from behind with the Disco and we were back but we were still in the dunes.  I was following Beady with some success until we came up to a sand bowl that was just way too much for me or the truck.  It took us about 2 hours to get the truck out.  In the process the tow rope wrapped around the axle of teh F350 and snapped the right rear brake line.  We capped it off and we were back on the road.  Around 10pm, I was done.  I was out of Red Bull and was totally out of energy.  I hopped in the back and Sid & Ian took over for the next 12 hours.  This was all tarmac.  I drove on and of for another 12 hours until we got to Tidjika.

The competitors took a different route and had a stop off in Tichit and stayed the night and then had another special to Tidjika.  That means they did not have service available that night. The ride from Zouerat to Tichit for the riders was a catastrophe.  The organizers had not anticipated that the gas usage in the bikes and cars would be so high and they rationed the gas to 25 litres per bike.  I’m not sure but about 100 bikes were stranded in the desert because they ran out of gas.  The organizers ended up cancelling that special and let whoever that could get to Tidjika back into the race.  Unfortunately we lost 4 riders.  Mark Elland from Australia was air-lifted out because of a hard crash.  He is now in Dakar with torn muscles in his shoulder more painful than a broken arm..  Mick Tomkinson is out because of a blown motor as is Francisco (Gautemala) because he ran out of gas and has since lost his brand new KTM in the dunes….. sucks for him!!!  Dave and Charlie made it but they were very beat.  The courage and the stamina that these two have is awesome.  I asked Dave in the morning if he’s OK and he just say’s “It can’t be all that bad Zoli, I get to ride a Dirt Bike all day long”!!!  Charlie is always in a great mood and just happy to be there.  Charlie is currently is 72^nd and Dave is in 97^th with 116 bikes of the 230 that started still going.  Pedro Uriarte from Mexico is in 32^nd and Mick Extance is in 69^th I thnk.  Pedro is a very impressive rider. Just low key and a cool customer.  He rides all day long listening to his IPod.

So yesterday we drove another 1100 km and that was nuts.  No coffee or Red Bull!!!!   By the time we finished the 15 hour drive, it was apparent that the organizers were definitely trying to make it hard as possible for the assistance vehicles.

I miss home and you all.  It is still fun but I’m very tired and it’s wearing on all of us.  This is a serious competition that has two kinds of people, half of them are idiots like me that want to experience this event and the other half are the idiots who do it again.  The Bivouacs have been attrocious. I am now an expert in setting up and dismantling a tent in gale force winds.  The grounds that we have been in the last few days are ridiculous with minimal facilities.  If you had a plan on visiting Mauritania in the near future, save your money.  It is a Hell Hole.  It has extreme poverty and the kids are all beggars.  As we drive through the towns, the kids come running out of their shacks and they say “Monsieur… Cadeaux” which means "Mister… gifts!!"   I think the lifestyle of these people here is hey… Lets get married .. have 10 kids and live in poverty.  We saw so many kids everywhere  It made me very uncomfortable when we were buying gas because they were always swarming over us.  We threw out some of our food rations that we did not want and they scurried for them.  We were in some town to repair one of the tires from the F350 and I decided to strike up a conversation with some dude wearing a Muslin Toga or what ever the hell those dress/pajama’s are called.  I asked him why he was wearing that and some of the other guys were not wearing them.  He said that they wear the Toga’s when resting.  For Pete’s sake,  I just found out what the heck is wrong with this country, everyone is always resting.  No-one is working.  No sympathy from me.  Sounds callous but I call it as I see it.  Oh, and the richest guy n this country sells Blue and White Togas.

Speaking of Hell Hole, I was speaking with Gordon MacPherson who is the mechanic for Mick Tomkinson, he is making plans to go home since Mick is out.  It was something like 1am and he was working on another bike and was bitter cold and the wind was blowing, so we’re talking and he said… I can’t wait to get out of here… This place is absolute Purgotry”.  Now although he was correct in every sense, I had to remind him that his use of the mother tongue is tainted like the rest of his British compatriots.  If I’m not wrong, isn’t it purgatory?  Not Purgatry????   I’m convinced that the English language was butchered by the British back in 1776 when the Americans claimed their independence.  Speaking of the British, whatever Tony Blair and George Bush haven’t done to strengthen the American and British relationship, I have completely solidified the rest of the relationship.  Apparently Gordon feels that I’m one of his mates because he came up to me and said… “Zoli, we’re having a skid-mark contest” and promptly put his BVD’s up to me to see.  I don’t think I want to be the ambassador of this type nor do I want to be in a skid-mark contest.  Must be a British thing. 

I did my laundry today.  That was an adventure in futility.  If any of you remember the movie… “ Far & away” there was a part when Tome Cruise was teaching Nicole Kidman how to wash clothes…… “You plunge… and scrub”.  I don’t know if they are any cleaner but they smell better!!

On another note, I received a watch from Santa this Christmas for me to use in the Rally.  It’s a basic Timex Indiglo digital with an alarm and crap like that.  I had programmed it to beep on the hour to remind me of Barb and the boys regularly and to say thanks….. but now it’s flat out annoying because it keeps on reminding how much bloody time I’m driving and how uncomfortable I am.  Looks like I should have brought the instructions to turn that feature off.  Oh well.

I guess that’s it for today.  I would love to be home but this adventure has to be seen to the end.  I am forever grateful for this experience.  Check out the Rally website for other updates and pictures that may be there

Cheers and God Bless.

Zoli

#611

Good Morning from Africa,

I spoke to Barbara the other day following my last email.  She said the email had a dark overtone to it.  With that being said, I slept in for a full 8 hours a few days back heading into the assistance day off.  I woke up early to see Dave and Charlie off on their special that day.  I had breakfast and went back for a 4 hour nap.  For those of you that know me very well, I don’t take naps.  I woke up from my nap and somehow my sense of humor had been restored.  Life was good, I was refreshed and I was ready for anything that Africa could throw at me.  Hopefully this email won’t be so dark.

We took the rest of the day to clean up the Nissan because it was pathetically dirty.  The boys came in late so Mike and the other mechanics worked late into the morning to get the bikes prepared.  The next morning, we were off on a 1100k drive from Atar to Kifir and waited for the boys.  We had heard on the drive that Fabrizio Meoni had crashed and was killed.  Meoni was a star rider that has always been one of the top Dakar riders.  He had retired after last years ride but somehow decided to ride it one more time.  A Spanish rider died the day before from injuries sustained in a crash in Morrocco.  The Dakar is taking it’s toll on riders and machines.   I drove 13 hours that day while the boys slept.  One of them was always awake to help with the navigation.  While we were about ¾ of the way down, Pedro had finished his special and came upon us on the road.  We pulled over and gave him food and drink.  We were off and he passed us up heading towards the Bivouac.  Weird things we’ve been seeing on the roads that we travel here, there are hundreds of dead cows on the side of the road.  Not one dead Donkey or goat but it looks like the land cannot sustain the cows.  It is dry and barren.  It’s like driving past Glamis but the scenery is the same for thousands of miles.   The area is covered with Donkeys, goats and camels.  We are cruising the other day and there’s this Donkey right in the middle of the road. Just chilling out.  I pull next to him and he doesn’t move one bit.  I stare at him and this animal is so dumb, I can tell it’s doing everything it can do just to blink. We seen many many Donkeys just standing in the road.  Must be a Donkey thing.  We even joke about it….  Hey nice ass, hey that guy is hauling ass, that dude is kicking ass… you get the picture. We have yet to see the sky in Mauritania.  The sky is filled with a dusty haze from sand storms and airborne silt.  Very depressing!!!  So I am driving and it’s dark and we’re about 40k from the bivouac and there on the side of the road is a dead Donkey, the other side of the road had a crowd of people surrounding a damaged bike.  Ian yelled out that it was Pedro.  We turned around and Pedro had in fact run right into the Donkey as it stood in the middle of the road.  He was travelling at about 95kph and saw it at the last second. He locked up his brake and jumped off of the bike as it hit the Donkey.  It made a mess out of the donkey and just destroyed the front of his bike.  Very unfortunate because he was in 25^th spot at the time.  Without skipping a beat Ian, Sid & Dennis (Mechanic from the F350) removed the oil cooler and re routed the oil line and the bike started up.  Pedro jumped on the bike and cruised back between the two trucks because his lights were destroyed.  Ian spent about $2500.00 in parts that night but was able to get Pedro to the next starting gate.  Pedro is OK.  Bruises and scrapes.  Absolutely amazing!!!  Charlie came in around 11:00 at night and Dave did not show up until 2 am.  Both are extremely exhausted and are wearing down.  It’s tough on the riders that they are out there so long because it gives them that much less time to relax.  The dunes have been treacherous to them.  Dave showed me a picture of his bike that was half way engulfed in sand.  Mind you this is not from a crash, just dry sand swallowing the bike.  He crashed about 30 times on that leg and was just worn out.  Charlie said he did about a half a dozen end-overs that hurt.  The next day was cancelled because of Meoni’s death, all of the bikes and the riders were put on a plane and sent to Bamakoe for today’s special.  I drove 290k yesterday all off road.  It was some serious off roading and the Nissan did well. Unfortunately the A/C is not working so we had to drive with our windows down and the dust was just heavy the whole day.  The Nissan is filthy again.  We are now in Kayes Mali and it’s a great change from Mauritania, still poor but nicer.  We are awaiting the riders to be here sometime this evening.  This gives us one more rest day.  I’m sure I will take a nap this afternoon.  Mick Tomkinsons motor blew up the other day so we are now down to 4 bikes.  Gordon flew home because his rider was eliminated.  He was very happy to go home. So now you are caught up.

Now for some thoughts and observations.  I mentioned that the villages in Mauritania were pathetic and poor.  So I’m driving a couple days ago (because that’s what I do) and we’re going through one of these villages and hundreds of kids in rags are yelling and screaming for gifts, some dude dressed in his blue toga is pointing is camera-phone at my truck as we pass by.  I noticed this a couple more times.  How can it be that they live in poverty yet the have cell phones that take pictures.  Go figure these people. 

My drive off road was spectacular.  It’s how I imagined Africa.  Rambling mesa’s with tree’s and clump grass.  The villages were awesome to pass through.  The villages were not Mauritanian Muslin villages.  Everyone was happy and waved to us as we passed.  The girls and the women were all dressed in stunning dresses all with vibrant color’s.  Much like you would imagine a Jamaican women dressed.  The girls and ladies were so beautiful.  Such a change compared to the Muslin women who hid all with the exception of their eyes.  I am refreshed by seeing happy people.  They live in Mud huts with grass roofs but they are happy and content from what I see.

 A few days back I was thinking that I was missing my first season opening round of Supercross in about 15 years.  I suspect it was going to be one of the best and was hoping that Kevin Windham would just make a good showing.  Big Dave just sent me a text message saying that Kevin won.   Man I must have missed a great race.

My hair is real fuzzy and long especially since I usually cut my hair once a week.  My beard and my head are out of control.  I can’t wait for Barbara to see me.  Man I hate being dirty.  That’s the one constant here…. Filthy dirty!!!!

I lost my new digital camera the other day in the desert.  It must have fallen out during a driver change or rest stop.  Luckily I had uploaded most of my pictures to Martins computer.  Sucks for me because it was brand new. 

Dakar is getting close.  I am getting very excited to finish this adventure.  I miss home so much. We are all hoping that the 4 riders make it the distance.  This travelling road show has dwindled considerably.  More than half of the bikes are gone and many cars and trucks have expired.  The food is still good but the personal facilities are almost non-existent. Speaking of facilities, we pulled into the Kayes airport yesterday around 4:00 and the locals had a bar set up in the Bivouac.  So we walked over and had a few beers to relax.  That was well needed.  Martin and I walked over to the fire station so we could take showers.  Mind you we made sure we got there early because there is one shower for the hundreds of people.  So I’m relatively clean right now.  Ian grabbed one of those plastic patio chairs from the bar and brought it to our camp.  He promptly cut a hole in the bottom of it and brought it down to the holes that they have for us and it was Spot–On.   I grabbed the chair and had my first sit-down in a long time.  Did I mention that I miss home.  We are off to one more stop tomorrow and then it’s two days in Dakar.  I am hoping to take a shower in Martins hotel room before my midnight flight on Sunday.  I’ve got 1 clean pair of shorts left that I am saving.  I don’t care that it will be cold in Paris.  I will be CLEAN!!!!!!

I’ll try to get another email off before I head back.  The adventure of a lifetime truly is that.  We are all still getting along and still focused on getting our cars, trucks and bikes to the finish.

Hope to see you all soon.

Zoli

Pilot #611 RRUK Nissan

Well our African adventure has finally come to an end!

The RallyRaid UK team had 4 of the 8 bikes finnished and 1 of the 2 cars finish.  50%, not bad at all.  We made it to Dakar on the 15th on a run from Tombacounga.

The morning Tombacounga was a weird one.  We had to be out of the Bivouac by 6:30 am because the bike were starting at 6:30.  We rushed as fast as we could and we made it to the gate at 6:39 and luckily for us they let us go.  We parked outside of the gate and walked back in to get some breakfast and some water and lunch provisions.  We left one person in the Ford and in the Nissan.  Ian came running in about 20 minutes later and told us we had to get out of here now because the locals were starting to jump onto the trucks and trying to steal stuff.  We grabbed our provisions and hi-tailed it out to the trucks. Peter was on top of the Ford with a flashlight keeping an eye out and pushing people away. Somehow Mike never made it back to the trucks.  We waited about 5 minutes and I then ran back into the compound and Mike was talking to Charlie at the start line.  He did not know that we were out yet.  We ran to the truck, jumped in and took off.  Sid had said that when I went back, someone jumped up on his side of the truck to grab a sleeping bag, he opened his door right on the kid and sent him reeling.  This is the stuff that I was worried about.  I had also heard that Dakar would be just as bad.  This was not looking good.  The trip to Dakar was about 500k of good road, dusty off-road and huge pothole roads. We made it to Dakar as the bikes were finishing their special and also coming into town.  Charlie and Mick pulled up next to us and we gave them some cookies that we bought earlier.  Traffic was horrible so the bikes went ahead.  As the race cars started to come into town, they were driving all over the place.  They would honk their horns, split traffic and even ride the sidewalk.  With seeing that, I just blared my horn and started doing the weave myself.  Heck, they don’t know I’m not a race car.  I’ve got a bunch of stickers on my car that makes it look like a race car so off I was.  A team Nissan truck tucked in behind me and we were off. Horn blaring and all of the traffic cops gave us the right of way.  Now if I can only figure how to do this in Los Angeles traffic.  That would be awesome.

Dakar was nowhere near as bad as I thought.  It was actually pretty nice.  The race ended at the Le Meridian Hotel which is a huge resort hotel that looks like it belongs in Hawaii.  All the bikes and the car made it in fine.  We did not have hotel reservations at the Meridian but at a small hotel on the other side of town.  I had to leave the Nissan at the Meridian so I hired a taxi cab to be my personal cabby for the next day.  The hotel was great.  A real porcelain throne and a shower.  I was in heaven.

The next day, all of the support personnel taxied over the Lake Rose which is a huge lake with pinkish red water.  Pretty cool looking. They had a VIP section where only invitees were allowed and we were able to watch all of our riders come over the podium to finish the last special of "The Dakar".  Dave finished his special first because they were release in order of last to first.  Dave waited for Charlie to finish his special and they came over the podium together and it was a great moment for them.  A long and hard fought battle!!!

There was a secondary podium for pictures and we all gathered around to take pictures with the 4 riders.  Pedro finished 24th, Mick Extance finished 48th, Charlie was 65th and Dave was 99th and a total of 104 bikes of the 230 that started finished.

We all made our way back to the Meridian to pack the trucks up for the journey on the ferry to Paris. Another shower in my hotel room and a final dinner at an Italian restaurant with all of the Rallyraid UK teammates for a final farewell.  Charlie, Dave, Mike and I jumped on the same flight at midnight to Paris.  We then split up our separate ways to our home towns.

I arrived Monday afternoon and was extremely happy to see Barbara waiting for me outside of customs.  A long long shower and a nice meal was a wonderful homecoming to a night in a warm and comfortable bed. 

A story that I failed to pass on a while back......  The Bivouacs always had TV crews cruising the pits for stories and such.  We had them come through our pits regularly.  One day, this French TV crew were filming Sid & Ian working on Pedro’s bike.  The reporter was talking next to them in French while they were working on the bike.  Sid & Ian were pretty oblivious to the cameras and were concentrating on the bike.  They were having a hard time with the bike and happened to be swearing and cursing the bike as the film was running.  It just so happens that Sids parents are Brits that are retired in France.  Well guess who happened to be on the late news swearing and cursing in English on French TV.  You guessed it... Sid & Ian.  Sids mom then called Sids wife to let her know how proud she was of here sons masterful use of the English language.  I thought that was classic.  I was very shocked that such language would be used by such upstanding gentlemen.  My mom tough me never to curse or swear.

So I’m home and I’ve just lived the experience of my lifetime.  I helped two outstanding people live out their dreams and it was wonderful.  Charlie and Dave are two great men with warm hearts and a true passion for life.  I was able to meet some outstanding people in the RallyRaid UK camp.  The Fun Bus with me, Sid, Ian and Mike was a true adventure with a great bond of 4 people with the same passion.  There was a time that I thought Mike would soil himself from laughing so much.  We were always laughing, joking and just being silly boys on this long trip.  I saw some extraordinary things in the countries that I visited and got to camp out with the racers that I’ve been watching for the last 5 years.  I don’t believe I deserve a pat on the back for my contributions for this adventure, in my heart I know I did the best I could to help a great group of people live life to the fullest with a common goal.  I will forever remember this trip as one of the highlights of my life.  I can now say that in January of 2005........... I was in   "The Dakar"

I will email some pictures out as they become available.  Be on the lookout starting the 22nd on OLN for a recap of the Dakar.

Zoli

Pilot #611 RRUK Nissan