Spyder 2 Posted January 5, 2008 Not much I can say about this. Read for yourselves. http://www.dakar.com/indexus.html Spyder Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
unclecameron 0 Posted January 7, 2008 Dang, that's terrible, well hopefully John can try it next year, I'm guessing he's pretty bummed Amazing that so few freaks can affect so many of us, truly insane. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RACE 2 DAKAR 0 Posted January 24, 2008 Well guys, trying to pick up the pieces from my little disappointment over in Lisbon. All dressed up and no place to go! I spent the week in Lisbon getting the bike out of customs and working with the race team (Rally Pan Am) and my mechanic Sid from the UK putting the final touches on the pretty Aprilia for the start and get thru tech inspection. Our scrutinaring time was 11:30 on Thursday the 4th which was the last day of scrutinaring, so most of the bikes, cars and trucks were thru and in lock down at Parc Furme'. At about 11:00am we all got on our bikes (Jonah Street on his new KTM 690, Charlie on his Mecca 525, David from Australia on his 690, Don Hatton from Canada on his Mecca 525 and my on my Aprilia 450 twin. As we rolled thru town the cameras were flashing and people were waving. We started to pull thru the big security gates and a French organizer stopped each of us and gave us a piece of paper saying scrutinaring was postponed and a big press conference was happening at 12:00 noon. Remember the race is starting tomorrow January 5th at 5:30 am. Well we all hung around then walked with hundreds of other races and crews into this big auditorium. As we walked in some organizers gave us some translation headphones. Etienne Lavigne the race director began to speak and quickly said the 2008 Dakar Rally must be cancelled, and then went on to explain why. The entire crowd was in shock including me. After 25 years of dreaming, a complete year fabricating, training, prep'ing, anticipating while neglecting work, family and friends I was finally there. The day before Christmas, a few scumbags with machine guns drove by 5 French tourist’s picnicing by the side of the road in Mauritania and shot and killed them. Then a few days later the police stopped them at a road block and they shot all the police too. The French government put out a tourist advisory for Mauritania and pulled out a few dignitaries. Then the insurance companies that were insuring the rally said we can not insure the race because of known terrorist acts in that country. The organizers had no other option but to cancel. After a few really depressing days in Lisbon, except for the one day the Nomad's motorcycle club took us out riding on last years stage 1 course, I jumped on a flight home. So now what's next? I started to look into the NPO Optic Tunisia Rally and was going to enter that, but then I heard the organizers are putting on a free specail rally for all of the competitors that got screwed in Lisbon, and that one is the same time as the Tunisia rally, so I'm planning on doing the free rally which is a 7 day rally in Hungary. I will be at the start of the Dakar again next year if it goes to Africa, but I'm hearing rumors it's going to South America. A South American rally would probably a great rally, but to me the Dakar Rally is in Africa. So if the Dakar goes to South America, I'm going to do the Tunisia Rally next year, then maybe go back to do the Dubai Rally in the fall of 09. It will be a huge bummer if the Dakar as we know it ends... I want to race to Lake Rose..... So to all the people out there who bought shirts and or donated, thank you very much. I will be racing more across the pond and probably some Score races in Baja. John www.race2dakar.com Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
