Dakar doc on telly
 

BBC4 tonight @ 9 and iPlayer after I imagine. Right after Toppers.

I think it's by the same people who did the Group B rallying doc which was pretty good.

BBC Four - Madness in the Desert: Paris to Dakar

Ch

Cheers Chris, recording bier

Seen and recorded.
Yes, those were the days, amateur, naive, and great!!

A clear message was not to ignore the politics of a region which just served to remind me of a discussion in this thread a short time ago http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...n-travel-49806
:innocent:
Those who choose to ignore such realities are destined to repeat earlier mistakes.

Dead is dead, whether it is the result of a vehicle accident or a bullet through a windscreen and I certainly did not agree with the implication in one part of this programme that the former is an acceptable risk but the latter is not - to the family of the deceased, dead is dead.

Nice to see some of that old Dakar footage from Algeria, Libya and Niger especially from the core of the Sahara, like the short clips of the balise line in SE Algeria which runs to Chirfa in Niger. The Paris-Dakar press car from 1988 still lies on that route -route A15 in Sahara Overland (see below - using the roof of the rolled car as a table for some mapping at the end of the day). And one of those fancy twin engine turbo DAF trucks can be found on route A14.

and the DAF racer on A14 in southern Algeria...

Yep, we passed the remains of that DAF one time. I think that’s it on fire, below.

I happened to watch the dvd of the ’86 event last week (‘Running Wild’) having enjoyed the VHS when it originally came out.
If you like this pre 'factory team onslaught' era of desert rallying I can recommend the 86 vid: 959 Porches, a couple of boxy 60s and Pajeros, the new Honda NXR 'Transalp' V-twins, Gaston R nursing his 1040 BMW (see below) with a bunch of broken ribs all the way to the end, Hubert Auriol flying his Cag off a Tenere dune at what looks like 100mph, and racing trucks sunk 3 feet in the sands or charging on 3 wheels. Lashings of cigarette advertising too, and plenty of tragedy, not least Sabine’s crash. I only learned recently that J-M Baron (Honda) never came out of his coma till he died in 2010 - and even 'JCO' (Sonauto boss and 2nd in 85 on a 'Tenere') was killed in a car crash last month.

When the race left Paris on New Year's day 86 I was in In Guezzam on my Tenere - and they still managed to get to Dakar before me!

I notice they used our still of the Arbre Perdu where Sabine’s ashes got scattered. We passed by in 2003 on Desert Riders but sadly the reclining Andy B seems to have been airbrushed away.

Ch

I'm not in the UK and I've this message on this video:

"Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only, but all BBC iPlayer Radio programmes are available to you. Why?"

:thumbdown::thumbdown:

RR.

If you look around online you can find info of this nature:-
Software cheat lets people watch BBC iPlayer abroad: An update | Kevin Rawlinson | Independent Notebook Blogs
(some of the comments to that Indy article are quite informative also concerning a few alternatives to expat shield).

When I lived abroad some acquaintances of mine used "expat shield" to see the BBC iPlayer, but there did seem to be quite a few pop-ups with this free software.

The best way I have experienced was for a guy back at homebase to point his laptop screen toward his TV screen with the laptop logged onto skype video - bingo, everyone got to see the super bowl.

It´s already in youtube. Just search with the name and voila :)

So when is it returning to Africa? and what is keeping someone else from doing it?

I don't know why I'm afraid but we used to have that problem when we lived in France.

But you have got youtube nowdays so worth trying to find it there.

Lost my glasses
 

Which is the abandoned one again - the one in the front or the back? ;--))

Its been a long time since we had a full-on Landrover-Toyota debate on the STF.

The important point is that my vehicle made it there.....and home.

Nice to see (on youtube). From the title here I thought it was a doctor giving some report - not a documentary :oops2:

The answer to that ... the problem of terrorism. :funmeterno:
I'd think there will be little possibility of attracting the race back to Africa... unless they get into larger problems in South America. Even then there maybe other places/countries that will want to take it on.

---------------------
Chris - I think your video/photo was simply cropped, you can still see the jacket on the lower left side. Too much trouble to air brush when you can simply crop.

As for the death by either speed/terrain or bullet .. I can see his point, the later the competitor has little control over, the former .. well they should have the speed under control. The organizer should do the terrain?

Land-rover vs Toyota :confused1:.. add Mitsubishi, Nissan,

In sales terms it is Toyota.

======================
Local TV station often restrict their video replays to an area .. so that program can be sold (at a higher price) to other places. Thus you cannot 'see' things unless you do some trickery. They also place restrictions time wise too (at least for some programs) - usually one week here in OZ.

Hell will freeze over before it goes back to Africa IMO.
Why leave south America where there is a large audience that has taken it to their hearts and they have a growing disposal income for the sponsors? Compare with Africa which is still awaiting an electricity supply for them to see the sponsors on their yet-to-be-bought TVs and it is a done deal, for now.
If it goes anywhere else it will be because of a F1 racing type of "deal".

ps BBC iplayer lasts for only a week - no wonder it goes onto Youtube/torrent

So money rules...no surprise there.
The "(Paris-)Dakar" franchise is owned by someone wanting to do it elsewhere.
Senegal don't like it - they want their name back!
What is keeping them or someone else from doing the rally in Africa, as soon as it is deemed feasible? Can't we have two (or more) rallies of the same magnitude?
Weren't the Adrar (Mauretania) tracks the most challenging off-road ever in the race?

French politics led to the cancellation of the PD one week before the start; that is an indicator of how the rally raid is controlled and organised:-
Amaury Sport Organisation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alternatives do exist; the B2B is one.

I think they copied a bit of the tree from higher up the trunk and pasted it over where Andy was. You can see the scar on the tree in the pasted bit appears again higher up - where it originated.

I vaguely remember the Mark Thatcher incident being on the news when I was young so was amused by his own little contribution to this film. “Navigator” Thatcher had is position out by about 200km when the back axle gave out stranding the team. After three days he said he was about to “take control” over the water situation and ration the engine coolant between the crew. Luckily at least someone there knew that the ethyl/glycol in engine coolants is fatal to all animals – even Dakar racers and Tories :oops2:

I agree, for all the reasons listed. Our region has become FUBAR and Dakar was stuck in a rut going up and down the west side trying to find a new variation each year. The advent of terrorist threats necessitating a new venue in SA has been a shot in the arm for the rally; less guilt about 'flash rallies in other people's misery' (to paraphrase the Pistols and some old graffiti on the TSH north of Tam).

I supposed I'm biased but to me the classic era was the 80s: Alg to Niger then west to Dakar - and not least the Tenere 'filter' which decimated the field and help ease the catering workload for TSO. It may just have been the 'popular/naive' phase before notoriety set in.
Crossing Africa down to CT wasn't the same; boring red tracks through jungles I recall watching. Even crossing to Cairo wasn't the same or was too hard to repeat.

Never heard that - can't be any harder there than anywhere else (except maybe the execrable tussocks). Much depends on how far you're expected to cover in a day.

The tree picture was nicely 'shopped but not so well cropped IMO, given what they were trying to show. I guess erasing all of us to show the memorial slab below the tree was too much work.

We all choose to rewrite our histories a little, but I'd be very surprised if he and the cars they were with (before they left him) managed to wander 200km off course. Iirc it was the stage from Tam to Timia on the Mali border, probably along the regular piste via Tim Missao (A13 in SO). We did it a few years later following regular balises.
It all proved to be PR gold that ended harmlessly and added nicely to the event's mystique.

I was out there that year myself. I'd never heard of the Dakar but was mistaken and even cheered as a plucky back marker on the ride across France. How wrong they were.

Hi,

The rallye will stay in Latin America. There are many challenging tracks too

http://www.adventure-travel-experien...merika_075.jpg

125 ccm motorbike trip around Latin America: Chile and Argentina part 1

but in Marokko and other African countrys are still many different private rallyes. Would be great to work for them :)
cu, Tobi

Great Documentary but I think we're past seeing the Dakar back in Africa.

But you can still get a taste

October 2010 saw the return of the Rallye Intenational Du Maroc. Armed with a trusty Hyundai Atoz hire car we caught up with the rally at Ouarazazate.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6029/5...83390ecf70.jpg
P1010498 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6134/5...671a1da722.jpg
P1010531 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6017/5...ddb7733862.jpg
P1010556a by Trackasylum, on Flickr

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6149/5...ee47792ac8.jpg
P1010559 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

Full Set
Rally Du Maroc 2010 - a set on Flickr

The rally was a rerun of one that used to be a regular fixture using some lovely old and very rare rally cars. The citroen prototype has a factory fitted maserati engine :o

....and you can still see the Dakar Teams in action

During our trip last year the OiLibya Rallye Du Maroc was there for a week and we caught up with them in Zagora

Moroccan Team, love the detail on the cruiser at the back
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8382/8...a6200c0402.jpg
P1040631 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8379/8...584507e271.jpg
P1040563 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

The trucks were amazing
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8096/8...a2e4109096.jpg
P1040598 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8097/8...504ae79476.jpg
P1040536 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8093/8...b5a8d5f9bf.jpg
P1040209 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8248/8...cbee797ea3.jpg
P1040216 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

Full Set
OiLibya Rallye du Maroc 2012 - a set on Flickr

This was the final day of a week of racing. The day before we were in at Team Ali Nazir Zagora getting repairs as were a lot of the competitors, fascinating taking to them and seeing the vehicles close up.

Talking to the teams they were all prepping for the Dakar a few months after. A Polish chap we're were taking to moaned he never saw home, Morocco for this then back home for a week befor returning to Mmorocco for pre Dakar testing then out to South America for the race - sounds like a dream job

The OiLibya lot are there again this October 13th - 21st and if we don't do the Western Sahara we'll try and catch up with the rally for a bit