Early Dakar news

[alleskids]

Some early Dakar news :) . Colin McRae wil drive for X-Raid, in a BMW CC3, on biodiesel fuel. His team mates will be other rally drivers Guerlain Chicherit and Nasser Al-Attiyah. They will meet Carlos Sainz, who (ofcourse) will be present in Dakar too with Volkswagen.
Colin has done the Transibeerico rally (Portugal-Spain) in a Nissan with Overdrive, from former rally driver Gregoire de Mevius, but has choosen the X-Raid team.

[ZequeArgentina]

interesting news, Colin in the x Raid is great news.
Anyway, I think that VW and Mitsu fight is turning everything much more pro, and only those teams are in a level, then could come the X raids, Schelsser, Gordon´s Hummer and so on.

It is always an amazing event to follow.

[Erki]

It will be interesting to see, what car Robby will use in Dakar. As we know, this year, he drives in NASCAR with a Ford... And Hummer is GM(Chevy) Hmmm hmmm... Anyone know what thing did he drive at Baja?

[alleskids]

Hew drove a Chevy CK1500, open truck class. Literally open, without windows. Ford has some same kind of open truck version, so that should be no problem to switch.

[FrankenSchwinn]

open trucks always have a difficult time at dakar. if memory serves me correct they cant even post top ten times. they're like the champ cars or irl cars and the regular dakar cars are like formula one cars. different cars for different applications.

they should also rename that team X-Raided.

[Jarek Z]

Former European Rally Champion, Krzysztof Holowczyc will drive Dakar Rally, too. "Holek" will be supported by Belgians - his co-driver will be Jean-Marc Fortin and their Nissan will be prepared by Overdrive team.

[ZequeArgentina]

Robby has buitl the Hummer shaped pro truk based on a GM 7,1 liter engine.
This is teh last year he can get som rule advantages for thsi 2wd class, mainly regarding wheel suspension travel.
Why could not he keep the Hummer for one more year?
If not he will probably use same base (chassis and suspension) but with a Ford/Jaguar engine and some shape (a Land Rover may be??)

[Josti]

It will be interesting to see, what car Robby will use in Dakar. As we know, this year, he drives in NASCAR with a Ford... And Hummer is GM(Chevy)

Who in a Rally forum knows that :p :

[L5->R5/CR]

Who in a Rally forum knows that :p :



Sheepishly raises his hand...


BUT Monster energy drink is his title sponsor (for the NASCRASH and Dakar truck), and they are a big Rally sponsor in the US as well....


Robby's truck, from what I understand, is so totally custom that he could run it as any marque with a new intake cover and body. Everything that doesn't have a sticker on it is totally custom, so much so, that you could just replace the stickers...

And its not really a "pro truck" per say. Its more what we here in North America would call a trophy truck, which is basically an all custom off road truck with 700+ HP and normally 40"+ of suspension travel...

[alleskids]

Three times German rally champion Dieter depping wil share a works VW in Dakar with Timo Gottschak, who navigated Andrea Aichner last year.