Rally Rage on the Dakar!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1125000/video/_1129506_rally6_trott_vi.ram

Blimey! :)

Well, the reaction is understandable, since Schlesser and Servia cheated and started ahead of Masuoka, when they were supposed to start behind him. (The competitors are supposed to start in the same order as the results from the previous stage.) This left Masuoka trailing Servia in the dust, obviously slowing him down, when he should have had clear road instead. So he tried to overtake Servia, and his rear suspension broke, and he had to wait for Fontenay to have it fixed. The co-driver completely freaked out, as we saw. Thankfully, Schlesser didn't get away with it, and both he and Servia had one hour added on to their time, which means German Jutta Kleinschmidt now has won the rally for Mitsubishi. I must say I really feel for Masuoka, however, who undoubtedly would have won if it hadn't been for the Schlesser team's unsportsmanlike behaviour.

What I found most intriguing about this report was that the tantrum was described as "In a scene reminiscent of Formula One." That is, Mika Redux! (Note also that putting it this way, it sounds as if this happens in F1 all the time.)

I'm glad a girl won the thing though, no matter how it happened. We are getting coverage about a week behind the curve, so I'm glad of the update.

Saw it on BBC news not long ago. An imperesive display of the male equal of handbags at dawn.

SL

what rally did that happen at?

Paris-Dakar just ended.

about the rage thing... the day before, didnt jutta block schlesser for 140 miles, giving an advantage to masuoka?

you know, if the paris dakar rules allowed for the massive front and rear tube bumpers that we have in the score baha races, nobody would be blocking for very long!

i downloaded the dakar rules and was surprized to learn that no score trophy trucks are allowed to "cross over". maybe thats understandable, as the trophy trucks would smoke anything from mitsubishi or schlesser (until they broke).

why doesnt mitsubishi sell those sweet short-wheel-base pajeros in the usa? are they available in canada?

i was disappointed not to see any isuzu vehicross out there. they look like the perfect dakar "wagen".

speedvision is doing a great job of covering the rally! i want to compete in that race! the paris dakar is the coolest race on earth!

Pedro Diniz would be a perfect Paris-Dakar pilot. He already drives it like he's got half a dozen more like it...

I would like to do the P-D on a motorcycle. That would be getting right into it for sure!

Originally posted by meatballeyes
about the rage thing... the day before, didnt jutta block schlesser for 140 miles, giving an advantage to masuoka?

She only blocked him for a few minutes, as far as I understood, and later claimed she hadn't seen him. She was, however, driving suspiciously slow when she was ahead... Team-mate Masuoka of course at that point led the rally by just a few minutes from Schlesser... I'd call that good teamwork! ;)

Hey meatballeyes, where did you download the rules from? I searched all over the dakar.com site and couldn't find them.

The Paris-Dakar is really a neat race. meatballeyes, how about we team up for next year?? :)

you got it, dude. lets drive one of those cool mitsubishi strakars. those things have a 6-speed manual gearbox!

btw: here is mitsubishis corporate dakar site - nice photos.

http://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp/motorsports/01dakar_e/photolibrary1.html

oh, yeah...

the technical rules can be found on the 2000 dakar site.

go to dakar.com, then select the history section, then select the 2000 website - the rules are there.

rules stability has been in place for the last few years, so the 2000 rules are still valid.

cya!

Found them. Thanks!