Deep in the Dust: On the Dakar trail

The spectacular plunge out of the Atacama Desert to the banks of the Pacific Ocean is a stunning end to a marathon stage for drivers, riders and spectators alike. But, as with so much of natures beauty, today had a nasty streak.

The first real day of dune racing was always going to be tough, with one spectator injured when hit by an out of control race car - the spectator was outside of the ‘safety zones’ allotted for the public.

Numerous motorbike riders have made the journey back to the bivouac via medical helicopter, and many others remain out in dunes, among them, Geoff Olholm and Steve Riley, stopped somewhere between control point one and two.

Bruce Garland was a late arrival by his standards, a damaged D-max and worse, a damaged driver and co-driver the legacy of his day.

“I misread a sand dune and crashed heavily on the front, I’ve hurt my back,” Garland said, clearly struggling. “I think the boys can fix the car. I’ll go see the doctor’s in a minute.

“Harry’s got a sore neck, but it hit my side really hard.”

The crash happened about 30 kilometres out, and the duo managed to complete the stage. “I got all the way points,” the ever tough Garland said, “I took some panadol and just took it slow.

“When we damaged the car a nice bunch of locals helped us fix it. One of them was a mechanic which was lucky because without their help we’d probably still be out there.”

GHR Honda’s Warren Strange was the first Aussie bike home today. He said his day was positive, but that the stage was much tougher than he expected and not without incident.

“Those dunes are insane, you can’t tell what’s up and what’s down. You can see up the hill where we came down, that track joining it on a sweep about two thirds up? That’s me! I came out way over to the right, and had to slide across the top to join the track. It was pretty hairy, I sort of skidded sideways all the way down that hill,” he said.

“I had a big get-off this morning too. I was passing bikes and going quite good, but I got up to a quad and couldn’t go past him because of the dust, and then I hit a big lip because I couldn’t see and went end for end over the handlebars.”

Strange was lucky to emerge unscathed on a day that saw more than a dozen riders require medical assistance on the stage. “I hurt my knee a bit but luckily the bike wasn’t damaged,” Strange said.

“The worst part was I couldn’t find it! I lay there for a minute because my whole body felt sprained, and then I got up and looked around going ‘where’s my bloody bike?!’ I got separated from it by quite a bit.

“Then I ran out of fuel and got lost, but I’ve made up some time I think,” the Globedrill CEO explained.

Strange has leapfrogged teammate Jacob Smith to take up 33rd spot while Smith is just one spot behind in 34th.

The 22 year old said he got lost when his kilometre counter stopped working. “I got all flustered when it stopped working,” he said, “and I was following some others around but then when I stopped and looked properly I found the way in about 5 minutes.”

Smith’s CRF450X was missing a rear tail when he came in today, the young gun taking a spill in the sand similar to that of Strange - fortunately without injury.

“It wasn’t anything major, just lost the front and went over the bars, so it was no big drama, but mate, this race is brutal. Absolutely brutal!

"The fesh fesh and the bull dust is just relentless, it’s dangerous, it’s got square edges, rocks, it’s so hard on you. So hard, hardest day I’ve ever had on a bike.

“I couldn’t see shit, riding along first or second gear for ages. And I see two or three cars came in before me, I didn’t even see them!” the exhausted Smith explained.

Mark Davidson was unable to start today’s stage after his horror day yesterday.

“I wouldn’t have made it, no way. These blokes, you’re looking at the top safari rider and number five, and they are stuffed. I don’t know where I’d be but it wouldn’t be here in the bivouac,” Davidson explained.

“I don’t think you can understand just how difficult this is, I mean Jake [Smith] said this is the hardest day on a motorbike he’s ever had, and I’m 52, I’m not 22.” Smith overhead this and interjected, “I’m 22 and I can tell you it’s still bloody hard!

“Maybe if I was fit, I could have gone, but with my ribs and yesterday, I would have been gone,” the 52 year old said.

Davidson says the journey has been well worth it, “It’s an adventure alright, and I was running 101st which I’m well stoked with. Now I’m looking forward to the next days,” he said.

“This is the first time I’ve seen the bivouac, I’m so gobsmacked. I was talking to the blokes from BMW, they’ve got 89 people, in the compound, nine trucks, 15 transport vehicles, a media centre and their own security personnel!”

Simon Pavey’s innovative fix from yesterday caused him grief briefly this morning, but the Wales based Aussie says today was a good day.

“Well that bodge job from yesterday sort of worked. I got to the servo and as I soon as I filled her up she just pissed fuel everywhere,” a more cheerful Pavey explained.

"So I fixed the leak and then it worked perfectly, but I was 25 minutes late to the stage again.”

Being late meant more riders in front of him, and more of the famous Chilean dust. “I ate fesh fesh dust for 300 kilometres, then finally got some clear end in the last 100k's.

"It’s so hard this fesh fesh crap, in sand you can sort of enjoy it even if it’s hard, but this is just too much, still it was all worth it for this bad boy at the end here!” he exclaimed, pointing out towards the enormous sand dune looming over the bivouac.

“Coming down that was just madness. Really good fun, I was doing about 130 down there but if I had my time again I’d come down wide open,” My heart rate was up a bit at the checkpoint.”

Tomorrow the Dakar heads to the northern-most point of Chile, just shy of the border with Peru, to the town of Arica on a 721km day with 456km of racing.