Date:         Mon, 1 Jan 2007 20:18:43 -0500
Reply-To:     Richard Golen <rgolen@UMASSD.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Richard Golen <rgolen@UMASSD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Dakar Rally starts soon
Comments: To: Malcolm Stebbins <mwstebbins@YAHOO.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <20070102005130.82854.qmail@web30207.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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This is a great event. I've spent the month of January teaching in
Grenoble in 1994, 96, 98 and last year. The Dakar (or Paris-Dakar as
it once was known) is one of the highlights of our visits to France.
Every evening there's an hour-long recap of the day's events, team
interviews and profiles, etc on France 3.

During one of our visits, one of the Dakar's sponsor's - Total, had a
promotion going on....fill up your gas tank and get a Dakar
commemorative coffee cup. Needless to say, we filled up a couple of
time with Total!


Last year VW entered a couple of TDI powered "Touregs", they placed
in the top 5.  The "cars" that are entered are the off-road
equivalent of Formula 1 cars, and make the cars that race in the Baha
and the off-road series in the US look crude. I'm not sure if this is
still the case today, but in years past, the teams had to carry their
own parts, supplies, etc., in their race vehicles. So the teams
created monster sized "race trucks" which had to compete and also
carry repair parts, etc.

One year (96?) one team, took one of the sophisticated Dakar race
chassis and clothed it in a Citroen 2CV "body"...

Malcom, thanks for the heads up and the "memories".


Ric


At 07:51 PM 1/1/2007, Malcolm Stebbins wrote:
>Just FYI:   the Dakar rally starts soon.  Usually there is a half
>hour synopsis every night:
>
>http://www.dakar.com/indexus.html
>
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