by Charlie Rauseo

Last year the Dakar Rally beat me.  I loaded my broken bike and climbed up on the chase truck, exhausted and with a broken rib, 15 km short of Tidjikja, Mauritania.  That was in the second week of January, 2004.  By mid-February, I was in all-out preparation mode for Dakar 2005.  I had to go back and beat the Dakar.  Patrick Zaniroli, the guy who lays out the Rally's route, couldn't claim victory.  I had unfinished business in Africa.  I was also looking forward to having some fun in 2005.  Rally racing is hard, but I love every bit of it; the riding, the navigation, the strategy, the loneliness, and the physical challenge.

Partly for publicity, but mainly because I knew he would be a good competitor and great teammate, I convinced my brother Dave to enter the 2005 Dakar with me.  He is a great rider, and if you hit him in the head with a 2X4, he'll just smile and say how happy he is that it didn't have a nail in it.  Perfect attitude for the Dakar.  All year Dave and I begged and pleaded for money.  No way could we shell out the nearly $100K necessary to properly field a team, so we needed sponsors.  Over the summer, PAi, a financial services company from Wisconsin, emerged as a major backer.  They liked our "little guys tackle big challenge" story.  Later we signed up Top Oil, and lots of motorcycle industry sponsors, and with tons of grassroots support from Dakar fanatics and, of course, our family, we were on our way.  Thanks Everyone!! 

Mike Krynock signed on as our mechanic.  He'd never been on the Dakar or worked on a KTM 660 Rallye, but Mike is an excellent mechanic and pro racer who has ridden with us in Baja, Mexico for years.  It would be good to have such a friend along.  Zoli Csik, a quad racer from SoCal, agreed to be our chase truck driver.  He wanted to get a close look at the Dakar to plan for a future attempt on a quad.  We 4 Americans teamed up with Rally Raid UK, renting a Nissan Patrol chase truck from them, and buying cargo space in their F-350 for most of my last-year's bike, taken apart and boxed up as spare parts.  RRUK also rented Dave and me two used KTM 660 Rallye bikes, which we first saw a day before the start in Barcelona. 

Barcelona, Catalunya.  The start of this year's Dakar!  Bikes, trucks, cars, equipment spread all over the Olympic Park in the chilly winter sunshine.  Our flights were delayed so we did not get enough of a chance to prep the bikes.  The night before the start, Dave, Mike and I were up past midnight adjusting the suspensions, installing navigational equipment, and putting stickers on.

They started us on a beach just outside the city.  Mr. Zaniroli really tried to make us look foolish, struggling with oversized rally bikes through heavy, rutted sand and jumps in front of thousands of cheering fans.  Ride fast and you crash over the kicker jumps.  Ride slow and you crash in the ruts.  (Ride real fast and you are a pro.)  Dave and I both fell plenty and finished 207^th and 174^th out of 230.  The next day we rode about 600 miles south to Granada.  No troubles except that my battery died and fried my rectifier.  Since nearly everyone had battery problems due to a bad batch of new KTM batteries, there were no more spares.  The 660 has no kick starter, so I had to push or jump my bike to start it.  Not again!  I rode very slowly through the short Special in Granada so that I wouldn't stall, and then to the ferry to Africa.  On the boat, Alfie Cox educated Kevin Heath, the third American privateer, and me in roadbook marking and navigation tactics.  Read the introductory notes, write important notes bigger in red sharpie, ride in others' tracks, but keep looking at your roadbook, especially for hazards.   

Agadir to Smara.  January 4.  Now the Dakar really starts?  240km Liaison to a 381km Special over very rocky terrain, finished off by a 33km Liaison.  We freeze during the morning road ride and watch the sun come up while waiting for our start time.  Dave is nervous.  A little after 9:45, I'm off.  After 5km of fast dirt road, I'm completely comfortable and settling into my routine for the next 12 days.  In the Dakar, you've got to manage your time, which means riding fast, but not so fast that you crash or get lost.  Sections of this Special are less trail than just piles of softball to basketball-sized rocks, while other bits are quite fast track.  Always there is the threat of dangerous surprise holes or traps: sharp rocky dips on fast trails only visible when you are nearly on top of them.  I pay attention to the trail and to my roadbook and come through unscathed.  Halfway through, my subframe breaks (no crash, just too many rocks), so I stop to eat my lunch and tie my tool bag to the front of my seat.  Thanks to our poor European performances, Dave and I pass plenty of people and jump the most places in the overall standings today.  I'm up 92 places to 77th and Dave goes up 93 places to 103rd.

Smara to Zouerat, Mauritania.  January 5.  Here's where Patrick Zaniroli stopped fooling around, the first of what the officials called "filtering stages."  121km Liaison in the dark over sandy roads through a minefield.  Checkpoint at the Mauritanian border, then 492km Special section.  The Special started out just like Baja: sandy two-track and lots of high-speed fun.  But the sand got softer and softer until it was easier to ride beside the track in the open desert.   In the track, where tires had churned and rutted the sand, I would constantly wash out the front wheel or get caught in the deep soft ruts.  245km in, we were sent off-track into the desert, through soft dunes and camel grass.  Riding through camel grass is like riding through unevenly spaced, sharp, hard, 3-foot whoops; or weaving through randomly placed mini-dunes with hard centers; or a little of both, depending on your speed and the lines you choose.

Late that night, Zoli and Mikey arrived in the Nissan, along with the rest of the Rally Raid UK crew.  The assistance guys are the real heroes of the Dakar.  At one point, Zoli had to drive for 36 hours straight.  Mikey was up for 5 days and nights straight in the middle of the Rally trying to sort our bikes' never-ending problems.   We were lucky to have such a dedicated crew.  Dave and I rode the bikes, but it was really a team effort.  Throughout the Rally, my bike wasn't happy.  Sometimes, it would suddenly stop running.  I could start it, but it would die again minutes later.  It wouldn't take full throttle and would cough and stumble off idle.  Half of the fuel in the rear tanks also couldn't get to the carburetor, so I had to remove the rear tanks and dump them in the fronts one or two times each day.  Dave stopped and helped several times, spending precious hours.  Mikey did his best each night, but there was never enough time to completely sort the bike before the next day's start.   

Zouerat to Tichit.  January 6.  Every Dakar has one stage that separates the wheat from the chaff.  This Dakar's was today.  A short Liaison and then 660km of soft sand, dunes and camel grass.  We didn't have much time to sightsee, but the Sahara is humblingly beautiful.  243km into the Special, we climbed the very rocky El Ghallaouiya pass between two cliffs rising out of the dunes.  Then, Mr. Zaniroli gave us a compass heading (153˚ I think) and told us to follow it through endless soft dunes and camel grass.  Soft sand is my nemesis, so I concentrated on keeping my rhythm, being aggressive and opportunistic when possible, but conserving my body and my bike, not wasting too much time and energy getting lost or stuck.  The 660 KTM is big and very powerful.  Stay on the gas, and it has an amazing ability to soak up huge bumps.  When it is full of 12+ gallons of fuel, the bike is in charge.  You can make suggestions as to directional changes, but the bike has final say.  Since Dave and I had spent some time early in the stage troubleshooting my bike's running problems, swapping electrical parts, we got caught by the dark less than half way through the stage.  Then we lost each other.   

At the fuel stop, the organization said we could take only 20 liters.  It was out in the middle of some hellish soft sand, and I'm sure it was very expensive to get the 55 gallon drums out there, so they had sent less fuel than normal.  I heard that Giovanni Sala threatened bodily harm to the gas guys until they gave him more.  I knew 20 liters wouldn't be enough, especially since my bike had a rich running problem and fuel pump issues, so I quietly got in line again and gassed up twice.  Most riders weren't so imaginative and many ran out of fuel or out of energy that night.  It was carnage out there in the dark dunes and camel grass.  Bikes and cars stuck and broken everywhere.  Several times, I nearly ran over groups of riders huddling together under emergency foil blankets in the desert cold.  Did I mention the sandstorm and rain?  But I just kept going, mostly standing up through the camel grass next to the torn-up track.  The going was very, very slow in the dark, but I did not want to get a penalty by missing my next day's start.  81st in, I was one of the last ones to make my scheduled start time the next morning in Tichit, but then they cancelled that day's stage.   

Tichit to Tidjikja.  January 7.  This Special was cancelled because, well into the afternoon, most of the competitors were still stuck out in the sand of the previous day's Special.  After the previous night's long ride, I needed to take care of myself.  I wolfed down a big breakfast, a few liters of water, and slept in the bivouac's big open catering tent for a few hours.  Then I got up, ate some more, and looked for Dave.  Dave wasn't in yet.  I also noticed that I had pulled a quadricep muscle the night before, and that it was seizing up badly.  Not good, especially since we had a 200km Liaison ride in soft sand today.  Most of the other bikers were off at 11am, but I wait around until the early afternoon for Dave.  Dirty, battered, and exhausted riders and drivers trickled in, but no Dave.  At about 2, I decided to leave for Tidjikja.  I was hurting and didn't want to risk riding the section in the dark.   

That Liaison was the hardest stage of the Rally for me.  Maybe because of lack of sleep, or because my leg hurt so much I couldn't stand, or because it was not a race section so my adrenaline was not flowing, or maybe because some of the trucks had been through and the soft sand was pulverized and rutted; I fell hard 4 times.  I came the closest yet to preparing my concession speech, but I wasn't going to let Patrick Zaniroli smile just yet.  I get in at dark and hand the bike to Mikey.  Then I crawl into my tent and collapse.  At about midnight, I wake to cheers from the whole RRUK crew.  Dave is in!  All is good.   

Tidjikja to Atar.  January 8.  On tap today:  a 400km typical Dakar Special:  fast tracks, then dunes, then fast tracks, then rock, and then more dunes.  Amazingly, my leg has healed quite a bit overnight.  As usual, I struggle through the dunes, but gain ground back on the fast tracks.  Until a high-speed lowside in a fast, silty straightaway takes away my head of steam.  I'm not hurt, but I slow down.  After one of my periodic "take the back tanks off and dump them into the front" stops, the bike's battery is dead and won't start.  Not again!  I get a jump from another rider and vow to never shut the bike off again.  The first VW car catches me late in the stage, just before a nasty rocky bit.  I pass him back in the rocks to make myself feel good, but get the hell out of the way once the trail clears up! 

Atar. January 9.  The rest day.  Everyone is patting each other on the back because it is supposed to get easier from here.  I know Zaniroli is not done yet.  We don't rest much, especially Mikey, who patches the bikes up well.  Scot Harden, Chris Blais, and Kellon Walch, the KTM Red Bull American pro riders, are showing great class and respect for the Dakar while putting in some impressive finishes.  They've got a 3-year plan to get an American on the podium and I would not bet against them.   

Atar to Atar.  January 10.  Lots of European spectators mixed in with the locals here since Atar is a bit of a resort town.  483km Special including climbing the difficult Thaga pass and some spectacularly big and soft dunes.  That night, we heard Ari Vatanen, winner of 50+ Dakar stages over the years, say that these were the toughest dunes he has ever had to cross.  I must have been getting better at riding in the soft sand, because I made it through the dunes without any great delay or damage to me or the bike.  Still, there are times when the front wheel just disappears into the soft sand without warning, stopping the bike and throwing me over the handlebars.  3 helicopters were busy all day ferrying broken bikes out of the dunes on the ends of 50-foot cables. 

Dave wasn't so lucky.  115km into the Special, at the beginning of a fast gravel section where he was hoping to make some good time, he crashed.  Apparently it was a high-speed end-swapper, and it left him with a lower leg broken in 4 places near his ankle.  You may want to read that again.  Go ahead.  Dave continued and rode, through the worst dunes ever to the end, where the Dakar doctors x-rayed his leg and told him it was only a bad sprain.  (Doctors at home in New Hampshire had a different opinion and slapped a cast on Dave as soon as he got back.)  Before long, Dave's entire lower leg and foot were swollen and purple.  Scot Harden and Alfie Cox thought the leg should be amputated.  Mikey started to drag other competitors, mechanics and tourists to our section of the bivouac to show them Dave's ugly foot.  But, Dave didn't complain.  He only stopped smiling when he screamed putting his boot on every morning.  And he kept riding.  Some people think that is crazy or stupid, but I think that's why Dave is the toughest rider to ever enter the Dakar.   

Bamako to Kayes.  January 13.  We were now in Mali, sub-Saharan Africa.  No more dunes, more trees and villages, ecstatic villagers in brightly colored clothes, goats, cows, monkeys, water, and dust.  I had been steadily climbing in the order starting 67th on the 370km Special today.  The bike still had its issues, but I was feeling fine.  Racing in the Specials, I always felt controlled and focused, never in pain.  I was sometimes off-track, but never lost.  Maybe I'm getting the hang of this rallying thing. 

After the Special, I waited for Dave so we could ride the Liaison together.  Side by side in 4th or 5th gear, he miscalculated a bump and crashed, sliding right into my back wheel.  I tumbled into a rocky ditch.  Dave was even more banged up than before, but I was really hurting with a nasty bruise, roadrash down my right side, and a sprained wrist.  My bike was a mess and would not start.  Nothing broken though, so Dave towed me into the bivouac where Mikey immediately set to fixing the damage.  We headed to the medical tent.

Kayes to Tambacounda, Senegal.  January 14.  Now we could taste the finish.  Zaniroli was on the ropes.  Out of the soft sand, I was faster than most of the riders around me, but it was very risky to pass in the dust and silt.  I fought my way past a few dozen riders and then came upon another crash scene.  This time it was Gary Ennis from Ireland.  We had ridden together a bit over the last few days and chatted in the bivouacs, but now Gary had badly broken his leg.  The medical helicopter was on its way, but, since there were no other English speakers around and Gary seemed to need a little moral support, I stuck around until the paramedic got a morphine IV in his arm.  All the riders I had passed came by, along with a few cars.  Oh well.

Tambacounda to Dakar.  January 15.  A 225km Special between 2 road Liaisons.  Last night Mikey quit trying to sort out my running issues and just replaced the entire carburetor with our spare.  Presto!  Instant power.  Now the bike would leap out of corners and wheelie over holes in fourth gear.  It was only a short stage, with many villages and lots of dust, but I was able to squeeze by about 20 riders.  I then caught Mick Extance, one of the faster guys on our RRUK team.  On my way around him, we went through some deep silt, I couldn't see anything, I hit a hole and fell.  I was fine, but decided to follow Mick to the finish.  No use throwing it all away for the gain of a few minutes just before the end.  Today was my best finish at 41st.  We were all smiles as we pulled into the Meridian Hotel parking lot in Dakar that afternoon.  Dave even arrived before dark.  Only one little beach ride left! 

Dakar to Dakar.  January 16.  Only 31km, but this was not so easy.  We lined up on the beach for pictures, then started 24 at a time.  The middle 10km were soft dunes, so I took it very easy.  At the finish, Dave and I took the podium together, and then invited our teammates Mikey and Zoli up.  After a slow start and mechanical troubles, I was happy with 65th overall.  Dave finished 99th out of 104 finishers, which I'm sure is the best ever for a rookie rider with a broken leg.  It wasn't pretty, but we made it.  Patrick Zaniroli shook my hand, now we are even. 

Dave and I would like to thank our sponsors:  PAi, Top Oil, RallyRaid UK, Shift, Motion Pro, Baja Designs, Aerostich, Enduro Engineering, Ready Filters, Berkeley Honda-Yamaha, IRS Sports, Enemyline, Clixx Motosport, Linkfinity, Design Integrity, Dirt-Bike-Gear, friends and family.