dakar 2014 - the show goes on

so on friday i joined dakar veterans and future dakar adventurers at the first aso world tour events to be held in the uk for over 10 years.

it was a great location being the heritage motor car centre in banbury and was sponsored by landrover -it would appear that the tv and pr coverage of the race2recovery's team was the main reason for the aso's interest, as well as the calibre of british riders; stan watt finishing 25th this year and lindon poskit's top ten stage finish, not forgetting to mention sam sunderland's 3rd place in dubai - would have won had it not been for a technical error.

some details for those who might be interested:

- registration opens may 15th and ends for bikes on 7th july, very strict/ no extension.

- everything is managed online now and the upgraded website will allow teams or individuals to enter and manage payments in any configuration that is required ie as individuals or teams.

- if details not completed online there will be no entry

- prices have not changed for competitors, bikes and support, although any 'camping or normal vehicles' will be charged more as they are shipped separately to the race and support vehicles.

- prices will be online.

- in terms of entrant resumes, the 3 criteria there are looking at are:

1/ race experience and intensity ie are you racing weekly or monthly, and what have you already done. they won't appreciate a long list of events you say you are planning to do before dakar 2014 if have no previous experience - there simply is not enough time

2/ race events that require proper navigation; fim and npo

3/ adventure seekers/ self reliant, can cope if stuck in the desert for a few days

- support vehicles, there are 3 tarifs which will be explained online.

- the vehicles must be 4x4.

- aso need to know size of team before september

- vehicles depart le harve 30th november and arrive in ba (i guess??) 31st december  

last year 67% of the bike competitors completed the dakar, the highest percentage ever. this was attributed to the level of riders in the dakar. but they plan to make dakar 2014 a little harder!

2 marathon stages:

one in bolivia. due to the high altitude, riders will be able to leave kit to be transported to the marathon bivouac at the start of the stage. cars and trucks will be doing a loop around salta.

specials will be longer, with shorter liaisons.

sentinal upgraded to create different alarm sounds depending on whether bike, car or truck.

sentinal will also go off automatically in the event of a fall.

64% bikers were european, the highest percentage ever, 7 out of 183 bikes were from the uk, so competition for places is increasing.

there is a training day on oct 11th - not sure where, but will no doubt be on the website - advised to go

there are some interesting events being run by aso in south america in the build up to the dakar which would be great training events, but they are imminent:

1/ desafio routa 40

- registration 13th may

- scrutineering 15th june

- it's a week event running a very similar route to the argentinian part of dakar 2014

2/ desafio inca

- registration 7th june

- 3 days in sand