Dakar Rally 2011

Being the poor, no fancy telly type that I am, I only managed to see a bit of this years Paris Dakar when I went over a mates house the other day. I love a good bit of sand jumping footage! Some of the things those bikes, cars and vans get put through make me think I’m a bit of a pussy for complaining about the odd pothole here and there.

Now obviously the bikes are the hardest work and the cars do some sweet jumping but it is the huge vans and trucks that make it awesome for me. They just plow through anything and everything and these aren’t little trucks either these are arctic sized behemoths that have silly big engines and go faster than my car could dream of… and they do it on sand!

The race ends in Buenos Aires on the 15th of January and I would imagine everyone involved will be absolutely shattered and broken by then. The Dakar website seems to be failing so I can’t tell who or what is in the lead but I think it could be Carlos Sainz in his Touareg. VW vans and trucks seem to be the overall winner this year so far with all the top 3 car drivers, Sainz, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Stephane Peterhansel driving VW’s.

I have been trying to find some footage online of it but they only have a few bits of training videos and things, I guess because Eurosport has all the rights to it and nothing will be online until it has all finished. This trailer is about the best thing I could find, although it only has a couple tiny clips of the trucks!

Pictures Via The Telegraph