April 27, 2008
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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Happy Sunday all!
It has been a busy weekend, with all three series back on the track for the first time in a month, but the marquee event is this afternoon as we see if the cars can make it 499 miles without getting involved in the “Big One”.
One person who will be starting from the back and hoping to make it through the day is going to be the jet-lagged Robby Gordon. PJ Jones has been at the wheel of the 7 car all weekend because Robby has been off in Hungary and Romania taking part in the make-up event for the Dakar Rally.
Last week, I briefly told you about the Central European Rally, and how the route would take the teams from Hungary to Romania and back over seven days. There are several differences between the Dakar and the CER, even if the competitors are the same. The route has been a challenge for the Team Dakar USA guys, who are more comfortable racing through hundreds of miles of sand than over dirt roads and grass. Robby, who owned two teams in this weeks adventure, had much to smile about, but just as much to toss a helmet over.
For the first half of the race, the Monster team with Robby at the wheel was contending for the overall win. He finished second on day one, 11th on day two, fourth on day three, and tenth on day four. When he arrived in camp on Wednesday, he was fourth overall, 4 minutes and 28 seconds out of the lead.
Then came Thursday.
The day had two “specials” which made up the days route. The first “special” was a 157 km route through an old military base in the Warsaw Park near Veszprem, Hungary. Robby was able to conquer the section, winning the special by 12 seconds over Carlos Sainz (the eventual race winner).
“Special” 2 was a mere 54km route, which should have been simple enough for the Hummer to work through. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
"After the special win we were pumped up because we had fought our way back into this thing.” explained Robby at the end of the day. “The only thing left to do was to go hard and keep pace with the leaders. I'm very disappointed after the second special. We flew a decent size jump and the truck just came down wrong on the rear and damaged the rear hub. We finally managed to get it fixed but at that point it was too late.”
When a team breaks down, it is up to the driver and navigator to make the repairs. If they are offered assistance, they can take it, however unlike on a NASCAR track where if you have damage you have a team to come fix it for you, Robby and Andy had to climb under the car and pull the broken wheel off and fix it themselves. The fact that they were able to do it in less than an hour was impressive, however the stop dropped them to 56th out of 62 for the special, 51st overall for the day, and out of the top 10 for the race.
The good news was that they came back on Friday and won the days second “special”, finishing third for the stage and moving them up to 11th overall.
Feeling comfortable they were back on track, Robby even decided to lay a challenge at the feet of Team Dakar USA’s second driver. Before the start of the second special of the day he and BJ Baldwin wagered dinner on the outcome. The bet was to see if BJ could stay within 45 seconds of Gordon's time. Robby lost that bet, with Gordon finishing first, one second over Carlos Sainz of Spain. Baldwin was not far behind, in fact just 19 seconds. So Robby got the victory and BJ got a free dinner on the boss.
The final stage of the Central Europe Rally concluded yesterday with Robby having to deal with yet another wheel issue. Gordon lost a handful of minutes on the stage when his rear wheel came off, but he was able to get it back on and cross the line in eighth place. The result was good enough for Gordon to move the Monster Energy Hummer up into the 10th position for the entire Central European Rally…not bad considering the adventures of the last few days of the race. BJ Baldwin had another solid day, scoring a fifth place finish on the stage which allowed him to maintain his seventh place in the overall classification.
After seven days of racing in Hungary and Romania, Team Dakar USA packed up the trucks and the team members and made the trek back to Paris to organize the vehicles and equipment for shipping back to the United States, and then to catch a flight home (hopefully minus the food poisoning of the trip from Paris last weekend). Robby, however, caught a plane out as soon as he was done yesterday, trying to get back to this side of the Atlantic in time to be behind the wheel of the 7 car for the start of today’s race at Talladega.
"We did not meet our overall objective but this team was strong," remarked Gordon at the end of the CER. "I think the international off-road community knows we were here. These are the best race teams in the world and to go door to door with them says a lot about our program. BJ did such a fantastic job of representing Team Dakar USA and Ronn Bailey's Vanguard. I think he really made a name for himself."
In 2009 Team Dakar USA will race the first ever Dakar Rally in South America. It is unknown when or if the Rally will actually return to Dakar, but until then, Robby is making a name for himself among some of the best off-road racers in the world.
Congratulations to Team Dakar USA. We’ll look forward to next years adventures, and maybe we’ll have a few more wins to cheer for in 2009.
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