Problems - Stage 3
Posted on 11/01/06 13:17
Author: scott
Category: Dakar - Past News
It’s early morning now, and we wake in our ferry cabin for another day of Dakar. We put on all our riding gear and head for a 5 minute breakfast. While grabbing a piece of bread, a juice, and cereal, there is an announcement that we must got to our vehicles to prepare for unloading. We slam down breakfast in 2 minutes and head for the vehicle deck.
After unloading from the ferry, we installed the roadbook sheet and lined up for the start of the Liaison. It’s freezing out, and we think of putting our rain suits on for added wind protection. But no time for that now, we had just enough time to put on a new chain. The used one looked ok, but slightly loose, which would only come from stretching. This chain uses press on rivet links for maximum strength. We used the fancy press tool we carry in our tool kit.
After removing the front sprocket cover to help guide the new chain in, my heart sunk to the ground and I think my face went pale. The teeth were almost completely gone from the front sprocket. Before I said anything Duane asked how it looked. I said “you don’t want to know”. I think he knew exactly what I meant, as he must have seen it in my face. He didn’t even look at it, as he knew what the consequences were. For a split second I thought “our Dakar is over right here”, but no, there had to be a solution. I would make new teeth one at a time with a welder if I had to, but we were not giving up here.
Most mornings at the start of a Liaison we would be at a bivouac where our assistance vehicle and all our spare parts are. But this was an odd case. All the assistance vehicles were sent directly to Er Rachidia, our end destination for the day. They were not allowed to see us here in Nador at the ferry landing. So, in a way it’s like a marathon stage. Here we were, with a badly worn sprocket, and 672km from our spares. We had six new front sprockets in the assistance truck, and no way to get at them.
Two minutes after getting the new chain on our start time was up, and we headed up the road in the port city of Nador on the Liaison. The whole time I’m thinking “how are we going to fix this”. It’s 6:00am in this town I know nothing about, the businesses are not opened yet, and we are riding on borrowed time. All the while I’m visualizing building up teeth with a welder one tooth at a time. I look for power poles to see if they have electricity here, because I think an arc welder is going to get the job done faster and better than gas. But does this backwards place even have a welder? If it takes long, we’ll never make it to the next bivouac in Er Rachidia in time for tomorrows start. Are welded on teeth going to fail someplace out in the desert where there is no help? We still have that used chain, so if the kludged teeth trash the new chain, we can put the other one back on. Maybe we can limp it the whole way . . . 672km, no way! Maybe if we bypass the Special and stay on the highway we can make it, but does that put us out of the race or just give us a hefty time penalty? I can’t remember that detail from the lengthy rules. We snaked our way through the streets and eventually slipped out of town.
I’m real easy on the throttle but once in a while we hear a snap sound which must be the chain jumping a tooth. It happens more in left turns when the rear suspension is offloaded and the chain slack is at its maximum. So I tell Duane to keep more weight on the rear end to help with this.
Our sprocket BEFORE the problem 
A while later we pass a Dakar sweep truck that’s stopped beside a bike. I’m thinking maybe those race organization guys can tell us if it’s ok to bypass the Special. Or maybe they know of some other trick that will get us out of this situation. We turn around and go back for a quick consultation. The biker has burned up his rear mousse, and the tire is coming off the rim. He’s in trouble too. In French he asks if we have some big zip-ties to strap his tire on. We don’t understand the words, but hand signals and a look at his tire says it all. Sorry, I indicate we only have small ones. The sweep truck guys don’t speak much English, but they indicate that there is an “auto garage” 13km ahead, where we might find help. Another view 
One guy looks at our sprocket and looks genuinely concerned. He knows we’re screwed! I’m struggling to block out the growing image of our sidecar loaded on the back of that truck. As we walk back to the sidecar the sweep guys wave down a passing pickup truck and ask the driver if they can load the French guys bike in the back for a ride to the next town. I’m thinking, hey, you can’t do that in the Africa stages without being disqualified. And the sweep truck guys are the ones suggesting it. Another race vehicle is allowed to tow you, but not an outside vehicle. Great, they seem a bit flexible with the rules, so maybe we’ll be ok if we can somehow just get to the bivouac before our start time the next day. We leave them behind and head on up the road looking for the auto garage at 13km.
At 13km we are in a small village. About the only thing that looks remotely like an auto garage is a gas station. One look there tells us they don’t even have a screw driver let alone a welder. We stop anyway to see if they can tell us where to find a welder. A few shady guys gather around as we try to explain what we need to people who don’t speak English. I point to a nice feathered weld on our frame, and make a hand gesture like I’m holding a welding torch. They shake their heads and point down the road. There’s nothing more down the road but more empty kilometers.
I feel like we are a ball of string, unwinding, just waiting for the end to come up. Where are we going to be when that time comes? This Liaison is 237km, and we pass through one more reasonable sized town, Oujda, before the start of the Special. I calculate that by the time we get there, the businesses should be open and we might find a welder. As we approach Oujda I start looking for power lines again. They are there! The first business we see is a tractor store. Wow, that’s just the kind of place that might have a welder. But they are closed. We press on. In town, people line the streets watching the race vehicles pass by. Lots of local cars too, swerving all around, apparently in a rush to get to work. We pass all the way through the town without seeing another good welder prospect.
At the edge of town we turn around and go back to look more for a place with a welder. We stop at a roundabout where there’s a traffic cop doing his thing. He doesn’t speak any English, but another cop walks up and he slips out a few words in English. Fantastic, now we have a guy that might have the answer to our question, and he speaks a bit of English. We ask about a welder and explain our problem. He doesn’t seem to understand it all, but he starts talking to some other guy there. That guy runs off looking like he’s on a mission from god. The cop pulls out a cell phone and makes a call. He also starts talking a lot on his radio. Wow, this is looking good. Crowds of people start gathering around looking at our strange machine and our strange attire. If it were not for the cop, I would have started feeling a bit nervous with all these people swarming us. We had heard plenty of stories about bad things happening in situation like this. Duane and I still keep a close eye on everything, especially our strapped-on-the-sidecar backpack with all our maps, satellite phone, emergency beacon, and other goodies.
Suddenly a tow truck pulls up behind us. The guy jumps out and talks to the cop. The cop jumps in the tow truck and tells us to follow him. As we snake back through town we see race cars and the big T4 trucks going the opposite direction. And here comes Robby Gordon in the Hummer. I know his navigator is Darren Skilton, who I had spent some time with just two weeks earlier. Darren is the Dakar Rally rep for the USA, and provides a helping hand occasionally when dealing with the race organizers. I waved thumbs up to them, and with a quick hand gesture I indicated our bike was dead. At least they would know one place where we were if we disappeared that day. Robby waved back.
Moments later the tow truck pulled up to a small shop with us just behind. Half that blood that ran out of my face back at the start of the Liaison came back in an instant. There was a red Suzuki “S” logo on the door of the shop. Wholly crap, there is a motorcycle shop in this little town! Flashes of candy lollipops danced in my head. Maybe they have a sprocket we can weld on in place of our almost smooth circle of a sprocket. The idea of building up teeth with a welder was completely crazy, but it kept me motivated enough to get us to this point. I was really hoping I could let that stupid idea slide away.
A mechanic comes out and talks with the cop and tow truck driver. The tow truck guy starts speaking to us in fairly good English. Damn, everything is going our way now. The mechanic brings out some wrenches, and we start to remove the sprocket. Looking at it, it was amazing it still turned the rear wheel! Then another guy, apparently the shop owner runs out and looks the sprocket over. He drags us into the shop and pulls out a wooden box full of assorted old sprockets. Wow, the candy lollipops come with ice cream too! Some of the sprockets belong on a tractor or something, but some are clearly off bikes. We dig until two or three are set aside as possible candidates. One in particular isn’t even rusty and worn out. It’s got 16 teeth, and looks to be the 520 size as we need. Our front sprocket is 19 teeth, but a 16 will do just fine in this predicament.
Now the next problem. Our current sprocket is welded onto a flange that presses onto the transmission output shaft. We have to cut or grind that sprocket off, cut a large hole in the new sprocket, slip it onto the flange, and weld it. The sprocket is hardened steel, and we have dulled and broken a number of lathe bits doing this ourselves back at home. It had taken us several hours just cutting the round hole in the original sprocket. Plus, what’s the chance there’s even a lathe within a hundred kilometers of this place?
The shop owner grabs our sprocket/flange and the replacement sprocket, and jumps in his car. I try to get in with him to oversee whatever he was going to have done. He throws me out of the car and tries to drive off. I stopped him and tried to explain mechanically what we needed done to the sprocket. I had taken hours to design this custom part, and he had all of about 30 seconds looking at it before he was out of there. Somehow with the tow truck driver’s translations, and lots of hand gesturing with the parts, I got the impression he knew what he was doing. What was my choice? Our whole Dakar race was in the hands of some guy I had just met a few minutes earlier, and he was driving off to who knows where with our lifeline in his hand. It was a strange moment.
While waiting, the cop and tow truck guy started to leave. I offered to pay the cop to stay for our protection, and the tow truck guy to stay for English translation. They agreed, and stuck with us. We BS’d with them for a while, waiting for our part to come back. Both guys were pretty cool and seemed to enjoy talking with a pair of crazy Dakar competitors. Then the cop pulled out his cell phone and pushed a few buttons. James Brown’s voice singing “I FEAL GOOD” blasted from the phone. Duane and I almost fell over laughing. What a perfect gesture to relieve some of our tensions. He explained that he loves James Brown music, and that the stuff these days is all crap. We laugh a bit more and carried on with the BS’ing. A few moments later the cop starts with the phone again and this time one of those classic tunes from a Clint Eastwood movie plays. Duane and I look at each other and start laughing again. This is one of those moments you never forget. Crazy fun!
An hour later the shop owner returned without the parts. The tow truck guy said it would be another hour before it was ready. Meanwhile two other Dakar bikes came to the shop. One was the guy with the burned up rear mousse, and the other needed a battery. Both were out of there in about an hour.
Soon the shop owner drove off again, and returned with our new sprocket. Amazingly, they (I have no idea who) had perfectly removed the old sprocket machined the new one and welded it on exactly as was needed. We quickly installed it, and paid him 150 euros (he asked for 132). It was probably worth 100 times that for us. The cop and tow truck guy refused payment, explaining it was an honor to be helpful to Dakar competitors. Earlier the cop had explained that he worked “hand-in-hand” with the tow truck driver. You see, this cop was a parking ticket cop! We were really happy about the whole deal there and would have liked to stay and chat some more, but we hit the road immediately, bound for bigger adventures.
The sprocket worked perfectly, though the lower gearing limited our speed to about 120kph. We pressed on for the start of the Special, about 100km further on. We were getting low on gas, and stopped at a place just short of the Special. We had planned this stop the night before while going over the roadbook. They had diesel, but were all out of gasoline. Damn, this could be bad. The first gas stop in the Special is a long ways from here. A quick look at the roadbook shows another gas station just down the road. We blast on down there and filled up.
Another 10km, off on a dirt road, and we see lots of big T4 trucks parked ahead. It’s the start of the Special! As we pull up to the starting point, there are trucks already starting the Special. The official sees us, and waves us up and to the side. He clearly wants to have a talk with us. He waves on another truck through the start and comes over to talk.
“You are REALLY late. I can not let you start”. Shit, this isn’t good. We hadn’t really though about not being allowed to continue. One moment we are on cloud nine having pulled off a miracle MacGyver repair, and the next moment we are apparently out of the race. Even Disneyland doesn’t have a rollercoaster ride like this one! The blood starts leaving my face again. Per the rules, we had a one hour window in which we are allowed to start the Special. We missed that window, and could be thrown out of the race right there. No matter that our problems were fixed and we were 100% ready to race.
But the official tells us today is our lucky day; he’s giving us a joker. I guess that means he’s cutting us some slack, and all will be ok. He says we can not ride the Special, but he will give us the timecard stamp for the start of the Special and we must go via the highway to the bivouac and sort things out there. We figure we’ll get a huge time penalty, and be allowed to continue in the race the next morning. No problem, we’re just happy we are still in it! He says he will tell them (Race Control) what we are doing, so they know what’s going on.
We check the map for our new route via the highway, and head back down the road. Just then a guy waves us over. It’s one of the guys from the sweep truck we talked to early in the morning. He takes a look at our sprocket and with a big smile seems amazed at what he sees. We head off again for 400km of road to the bivouac.
Along the road we can see dust not to far away, near the mountain base parallel to us. It crosses my mind that we could simply exit the road and jump back on the race course. But I remember that the official told us specifically that we were not allowed on the Special, and Race Control would be aware of our instructed route. With IriTrack GPS system, they can see exactly where we are all the time, so it would be clear to them if we didn’t do as we were told. I didn’t want to piss them off by disobeying their direct instructions. I figured that would surely get us thrown out of the race. So we continued as we were told.
The highway goes on for ever in a straight line. Sleep creeps up on us both as we make good time towards our goal. It’s mid-day and we are freezing more than ever. We stop and put on our rain suits for more cold protection. A break for a few M&M’s and a piss help us stay awake. A few hours later we pass some camels along the road. I guess we have time for a photo here, and a short break for our asses. We race on as the setting sun blinds our view.
Along this area there is a dirt road cutoff that leads directly to the end of the special and the start of the second Liaison. It sort of parallels our highway path, and it crosses my mind again, that we could head off that way and catch a checkpoint there. I mention it to Duane and we decide we better stay on the route we were told to follow.
Suddenly in the dark we see lots of bright lights moving down a mountain heading for the highway. It’s the other racers on the second Liaison heading for the bivouac. Some race cars and T4 trucks pass us on the highway, and we pass a few of them. It’s a good feeling being among the other racers again!
Eventually we reach the bivouac at the Er Rachidia airport. As we enter, we are stopped at the check point. We hand over our timecard, and receive our roadbook for the next day’s stage. Wow, that’s a great feeling. We made it to our goal despite our serious problem from the morning. We are back in it!
We find Rally Raid UK, our assistance crew. My dad Ralph has setup our tents, and everything looks good.
We describe our ordeal to some of the experienced crew and they are all optimistic we will be allowed to stay in the race. That’s good to hear!
We take a break for dinner, and meet Kristen Gum from OLN while eating. She’s amazed by our ordeal and says that what we just went through in overcoming our problems is the essence of what Dakar is all about. Unfortunately, she says she is not allowed to interview us per higher ups direction. She also says she is lobbying for an interview of us, and can probably get it if we make it to day 5 or 6. That’s cool, or that sucks, I’m not sure which.
Duane and Ralph jump on replacing both sprockets with a pair of our many spares, plus a new chain. Other than the sprocket issue, the bike seems just about perfect. Besides one missing screw on the roadbook holder, we can’t find any other problems. Meanwhile, from the central competitor’s board, I write down the long list of changes that need to be made to the roadbook. Then I sit in the tent for an hour marking up the roadbook, figuring out our gas stop strategy, and dealing with other logistical details for the following day.
Now, how did this disaster with the sprocket happen? It seems several things came together to put us in this situation.
1) The chain has excessive slack because the geometry of the location of the sprocket relative to the swigarm pivot, combined with the long travel suspension requires lots of slack. At the half way point of rear suspension travel, the slack is completely gone, and the chain is tight. There is no easy way around this. Because of the slack, the chain is allowed to flop around a lot. When the chain stretches a bit, and the sprocket gets a bit worn, the chain can end up jump a tooth. We could hear this happen a few times towards the end of the second Liaison on day two, but at that time we didn’t know what the sound was. Once it starts happening, the teeth wear down REALLY quickly. We believe one good solution is to add a spring-loaded chain tensioner. The evening following our problem, Duane and Ralph fabricated a tensioner from a steel plate and a chain roller wheel scavenged from our supply boxes, plus a KTM kickstand spring from Team Rally PanAm. That was completed by 2:00am, making the bike better at that moment that it was at the start of the race.
2) At the end of the Stage 2 Special, the aluminum rear sprocket showed some wear, so we replaced it. We wanted to replace the chain at the same time, but didn’t have enough time. We had to hit the road quickly to make it to the ferry before our cutoff time. We exceeded the posted speed limit most of the way, and arrived with a small time margin. Had anything gone wrong, we would have surely missed the boat. Back at the end of the Special we knew we had a spare chain on the bike, so we figured we would change it at the ferry. We did that the next morning as described earlier. When we replaced the rear sprocket, the front sprocket showed no serious wear, so we left it alone. It’s steel, and should last way longer than the aluminum rear sprocket. We had no reason to believe the front would go bad so quickly, and planned to inspect it again at the end of the next stage in Er Rachidia.
3) The Liaison after the Stage 2 Special was pretty long, at 387km. This Liaison and the following stage were different logistically than other parts of the race. Competitors were allowed to load their race vehicles onto trucks and trailers to transport them the 387km to the ferry in Malaga. Most competitors seemed to have that luxury all arranged, so they got to sleep along the way, and not put more wear and tare on their vehicles. We did not have such support. We tried to arrange it, but nothing worked out. So, we had to ride our sidecar the whole way. It was near the end of this Liaison that we heard the snapping sound that was caused by the chain skipping a tooth. Those extra 387km are just a bit shorter than the Stage 3 Special plus final Liaison. Had we trucked our sidecar that 387km, the front sprocket may well have lasted all the way to the end of Stage 3.
4) Normally our assistance vehicle with our spare parts is waiting for us each night at the bivouac. There was no bivouac between Stages 2 and 3 because we were on the ferry that night. Plus, the race organizers forbid the assistance vehicles from providing support at either end of the ferry, or any place except at the end of Stage 3 in Er Rachidia. That left us without spare parts for an extra long period. In hindsight, we should have carried a spare front sprocket with us through that section. But that’s a tough one because there are a hundred other spares we might also like to have, but we can’t carry them all.
5) A poorly welded sprocket could soften the heat treating, softening the teeth. The front sprocket that went bad was one of the earlier ones we fabricated, and was not as well done as the later batch. We believe part of the reason the sprocket wore so quickly was because the weld may not have been done well. If that was the case, it was my fault.
So, given all that, we made our way to the bivouac in Er Rachidia, fixed the problems, and were ready to go in the morning of Stage 4. We expected some conversation from the officials at the start about receiving a big time penalty for our forced detour the day before. As we rolled up, the official shook his head and said “you can not start; you are out of the race”. He said we had missed three checkpoints in Stage 3, and that results in exclusion from the race. And “there is nothing that can change that decision”.
Here we are 100% ready to go, the bike is better than ever, we followed their instructions the day before, and yet our race is over. Wow, that’s a tough one to take. But how could we argue. It was true that according to the rules we should be out of the race.
The guy giving us the bad news is the same guy who gave us “grief” in scrutineering several days earlier. In conversations with Dakar veterans during our scrutineering troubles, we learned that this guy isn’t a good one to mess with. They said there is absolutely no way our situation will improve by arguing with him.
Apparently the officials had discussed our situation the night before, and made a decision then. I later learned that an official had talked to my dad earlier that evening, and told my dad he had talked to me about our problem. In fact, no official ever talked to me about it until we were at the starting line and received the bad news.
While sitting there in shock, another official said we better get our sidecar over to the airplane right away or it would miss the flight out. I had already had nightmares of being forced to leave the sidecar out in the desert to rot if it broke down. No they won’t necessarily pick it up. The rules actually state that sidecars and quads will NOT be picked up if broken down in the desert. It’s our own responsibility to deal with that if it happens. Hello … this is the real Dakar, the one nobody tells you about!
At that moment, getting the sidecar back home and looking towards Dakar 2007 were my only slivers of positive and constructive thoughts. I was surprised that they were offering to take the sidecar out of there, to France, rather than forcing us to deal with it ourselves. So, I turned the handlebars hard left, and eased on the throttle. That was the hardest turn I have ever made! Our Dakar was over.
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More of the story: Dakar Rally Stage 1
After removing the front sprocket cover to help guide the new chain in, my heart sunk to the ground and I think my face went pale. The teeth were almost completely gone from the front sprocket. Before I said anything Duane asked how it looked. I said “you don’t want to know”. I think he knew exactly what I meant, as he must have seen it in my face. He didn’t even look at it, as he knew what the consequences were. For a split second I thought “our Dakar is over right here”, but no, there had to be a solution. I would make new teeth one at a time with a welder if I had to, but we were not giving up here.
I’m real easy on the throttle but once in a while we hear a snap sound which must be the chain jumping a tooth. It happens more in left turns when the rear suspension is offloaded and the chain slack is at its maximum. So I tell Duane to keep more weight on the rear end to help with this.
At 13km we are in a small village. About the only thing that looks remotely like an auto garage is a gas station. One look there tells us they don’t even have a screw driver let alone a welder. We stop anyway to see if they can tell us where to find a welder. A few shady guys gather around as we try to explain what we need to people who don’t speak English. I point to a nice feathered weld on our frame, and make a hand gesture like I’m holding a welding torch. They shake their heads and point down the road. There’s nothing more down the road but more empty kilometers.
I feel like we are a ball of string, unwinding, just waiting for the end to come up. Where are we going to be when that time comes? This Liaison is 237km, and we pass through one more reasonable sized town, Oujda, before the start of the Special. I calculate that by the time we get there, the businesses should be open and we might find a welder. As we approach Oujda I start looking for power lines again. They are there! The first business we see is a tractor store. Wow, that’s just the kind of place that might have a welder. But they are closed. We press on. In town, people line the streets watching the race vehicles pass by. Lots of local cars too, swerving all around, apparently in a rush to get to work. We pass all the way through the town without seeing another good welder prospect.
At the edge of town we turn around and go back to look more for a place with a welder. We stop at a roundabout where there’s a traffic cop doing his thing. He doesn’t speak any English, but another cop walks up and he slips out a few words in English. Fantastic, now we have a guy that might have the answer to our question, and he speaks a bit of English. We ask about a welder and explain our problem. He doesn’t seem to understand it all, but he starts talking to some other guy there. That guy runs off looking like he’s on a mission from god. The cop pulls out a cell phone and makes a call. He also starts talking a lot on his radio. Wow, this is looking good. Crowds of people start gathering around looking at our strange machine and our strange attire. If it were not for the cop, I would have started feeling a bit nervous with all these people swarming us. We had heard plenty of stories about bad things happening in situation like this. Duane and I still keep a close eye on everything, especially our strapped-on-the-sidecar backpack with all our maps, satellite phone, emergency beacon, and other goodies.
Suddenly a tow truck pulls up behind us. The guy jumps out and talks to the cop. The cop jumps in the tow truck and tells us to follow him. As we snake back through town we see race cars and the big T4 trucks going the opposite direction. And here comes Robby Gordon in the Hummer. I know his navigator is Darren Skilton, who I had spent some time with just two weeks earlier. Darren is the Dakar Rally rep for the USA, and provides a helping hand occasionally when dealing with the race organizers. I waved thumbs up to them, and with a quick hand gesture I indicated our bike was dead. At least they would know one place where we were if we disappeared that day. Robby waved back.
Moments later the tow truck pulled up to a small shop with us just behind. Half that blood that ran out of my face back at the start of the Liaison came back in an instant. There was a red Suzuki “S” logo on the door of the shop. Wholly crap, there is a motorcycle shop in this little town! Flashes of candy lollipops danced in my head. Maybe they have a sprocket we can weld on in place of our almost smooth circle of a sprocket. The idea of building up teeth with a welder was completely crazy, but it kept me motivated enough to get us to this point. I was really hoping I could let that stupid idea slide away.
Now the next problem. Our current sprocket is welded onto a flange that presses onto the transmission output shaft. We have to cut or grind that sprocket off, cut a large hole in the new sprocket, slip it onto the flange, and weld it. The sprocket is hardened steel, and we have dulled and broken a number of lathe bits doing this ourselves back at home. It had taken us several hours just cutting the round hole in the original sprocket. Plus, what’s the chance there’s even a lathe within a hundred kilometers of this place?
The shop owner grabs our sprocket/flange and the replacement sprocket, and jumps in his car. I try to get in with him to oversee whatever he was going to have done. He throws me out of the car and tries to drive off. I stopped him and tried to explain mechanically what we needed done to the sprocket. I had taken hours to design this custom part, and he had all of about 30 seconds looking at it before he was out of there. Somehow with the tow truck driver’s translations, and lots of hand gesturing with the parts, I got the impression he knew what he was doing. What was my choice? Our whole Dakar race was in the hands of some guy I had just met a few minutes earlier, and he was driving off to who knows where with our lifeline in his hand. It was a strange moment.
An hour later the shop owner returned without the parts. The tow truck guy said it would be another hour before it was ready. Meanwhile two other Dakar bikes came to the shop. One was the guy with the burned up rear mousse, and the other needed a battery. Both were out of there in about an hour.
The sprocket worked perfectly, though the lower gearing limited our speed to about 120kph. We pressed on for the start of the Special, about 100km further on. We were getting low on gas, and stopped at a place just short of the Special. We had planned this stop the night before while going over the roadbook. They had diesel, but were all out of gasoline. Damn, this could be bad. The first gas stop in the Special is a long ways from here. A quick look at the roadbook shows another gas station just down the road. We blast on down there and filled up.
Another 10km, off on a dirt road, and we see lots of big T4 trucks parked ahead. It’s the start of the Special! As we pull up to the starting point, there are trucks already starting the Special. The official sees us, and waves us up and to the side. He clearly wants to have a talk with us. He waves on another truck through the start and comes over to talk.
“You are REALLY late. I can not let you start”. Shit, this isn’t good. We hadn’t really though about not being allowed to continue. One moment we are on cloud nine having pulled off a miracle MacGyver repair, and the next moment we are apparently out of the race. Even Disneyland doesn’t have a rollercoaster ride like this one! The blood starts leaving my face again. Per the rules, we had a one hour window in which we are allowed to start the Special. We missed that window, and could be thrown out of the race right there. No matter that our problems were fixed and we were 100% ready to race.
But the official tells us today is our lucky day; he’s giving us a joker. I guess that means he’s cutting us some slack, and all will be ok. He says we can not ride the Special, but he will give us the timecard stamp for the start of the Special and we must go via the highway to the bivouac and sort things out there. We figure we’ll get a huge time penalty, and be allowed to continue in the race the next morning. No problem, we’re just happy we are still in it! He says he will tell them (Race Control) what we are doing, so they know what’s going on.
We check the map for our new route via the highway, and head back down the road. Just then a guy waves us over. It’s one of the guys from the sweep truck we talked to early in the morning. He takes a look at our sprocket and with a big smile seems amazed at what he sees. We head off again for 400km of road to the bivouac.
Along the road we can see dust not to far away, near the mountain base parallel to us. It crosses my mind that we could simply exit the road and jump back on the race course. But I remember that the official told us specifically that we were not allowed on the Special, and Race Control would be aware of our instructed route. With IriTrack GPS system, they can see exactly where we are all the time, so it would be clear to them if we didn’t do as we were told. I didn’t want to piss them off by disobeying their direct instructions. I figured that would surely get us thrown out of the race. So we continued as we were told.
Along this area there is a dirt road cutoff that leads directly to the end of the special and the start of the second Liaison. It sort of parallels our highway path, and it crosses my mind again, that we could head off that way and catch a checkpoint there. I mention it to Duane and we decide we better stay on the route we were told to follow.
Suddenly in the dark we see lots of bright lights moving down a mountain heading for the highway. It’s the other racers on the second Liaison heading for the bivouac. Some race cars and T4 trucks pass us on the highway, and we pass a few of them. It’s a good feeling being among the other racers again!
Eventually we reach the bivouac at the Er Rachidia airport. As we enter, we are stopped at the check point. We hand over our timecard, and receive our roadbook for the next day’s stage. Wow, that’s a great feeling. We made it to our goal despite our serious problem from the morning. We are back in it!
We find Rally Raid UK, our assistance crew. My dad Ralph has setup our tents, and everything looks good.
We take a break for dinner, and meet Kristen Gum from OLN while eating. She’s amazed by our ordeal and says that what we just went through in overcoming our problems is the essence of what Dakar is all about. Unfortunately, she says she is not allowed to interview us per higher ups direction. She also says she is lobbying for an interview of us, and can probably get it if we make it to day 5 or 6. That’s cool, or that sucks, I’m not sure which.
Now, how did this disaster with the sprocket happen? It seems several things came together to put us in this situation.
1) The chain has excessive slack because the geometry of the location of the sprocket relative to the swigarm pivot, combined with the long travel suspension requires lots of slack. At the half way point of rear suspension travel, the slack is completely gone, and the chain is tight. There is no easy way around this. Because of the slack, the chain is allowed to flop around a lot. When the chain stretches a bit, and the sprocket gets a bit worn, the chain can end up jump a tooth. We could hear this happen a few times towards the end of the second Liaison on day two, but at that time we didn’t know what the sound was. Once it starts happening, the teeth wear down REALLY quickly. We believe one good solution is to add a spring-loaded chain tensioner. The evening following our problem, Duane and Ralph fabricated a tensioner from a steel plate and a chain roller wheel scavenged from our supply boxes, plus a KTM kickstand spring from Team Rally PanAm. That was completed by 2:00am, making the bike better at that moment that it was at the start of the race.
2) At the end of the Stage 2 Special, the aluminum rear sprocket showed some wear, so we replaced it. We wanted to replace the chain at the same time, but didn’t have enough time. We had to hit the road quickly to make it to the ferry before our cutoff time. We exceeded the posted speed limit most of the way, and arrived with a small time margin. Had anything gone wrong, we would have surely missed the boat. Back at the end of the Special we knew we had a spare chain on the bike, so we figured we would change it at the ferry. We did that the next morning as described earlier. When we replaced the rear sprocket, the front sprocket showed no serious wear, so we left it alone. It’s steel, and should last way longer than the aluminum rear sprocket. We had no reason to believe the front would go bad so quickly, and planned to inspect it again at the end of the next stage in Er Rachidia.
3) The Liaison after the Stage 2 Special was pretty long, at 387km. This Liaison and the following stage were different logistically than other parts of the race. Competitors were allowed to load their race vehicles onto trucks and trailers to transport them the 387km to the ferry in Malaga. Most competitors seemed to have that luxury all arranged, so they got to sleep along the way, and not put more wear and tare on their vehicles. We did not have such support. We tried to arrange it, but nothing worked out. So, we had to ride our sidecar the whole way. It was near the end of this Liaison that we heard the snapping sound that was caused by the chain skipping a tooth. Those extra 387km are just a bit shorter than the Stage 3 Special plus final Liaison. Had we trucked our sidecar that 387km, the front sprocket may well have lasted all the way to the end of Stage 3.
4) Normally our assistance vehicle with our spare parts is waiting for us each night at the bivouac. There was no bivouac between Stages 2 and 3 because we were on the ferry that night. Plus, the race organizers forbid the assistance vehicles from providing support at either end of the ferry, or any place except at the end of Stage 3 in Er Rachidia. That left us without spare parts for an extra long period. In hindsight, we should have carried a spare front sprocket with us through that section. But that’s a tough one because there are a hundred other spares we might also like to have, but we can’t carry them all.
5) A poorly welded sprocket could soften the heat treating, softening the teeth. The front sprocket that went bad was one of the earlier ones we fabricated, and was not as well done as the later batch. We believe part of the reason the sprocket wore so quickly was because the weld may not have been done well. If that was the case, it was my fault.
So, given all that, we made our way to the bivouac in Er Rachidia, fixed the problems, and were ready to go in the morning of Stage 4. We expected some conversation from the officials at the start about receiving a big time penalty for our forced detour the day before. As we rolled up, the official shook his head and said “you can not start; you are out of the race”. He said we had missed three checkpoints in Stage 3, and that results in exclusion from the race. And “there is nothing that can change that decision”.
Here we are 100% ready to go, the bike is better than ever, we followed their instructions the day before, and yet our race is over. Wow, that’s a tough one to take. But how could we argue. It was true that according to the rules we should be out of the race.
The guy giving us the bad news is the same guy who gave us “grief” in scrutineering several days earlier. In conversations with Dakar veterans during our scrutineering troubles, we learned that this guy isn’t a good one to mess with. They said there is absolutely no way our situation will improve by arguing with him.
Apparently the officials had discussed our situation the night before, and made a decision then. I later learned that an official had talked to my dad earlier that evening, and told my dad he had talked to me about our problem. In fact, no official ever talked to me about it until we were at the starting line and received the bad news.
While sitting there in shock, another official said we better get our sidecar over to the airplane right away or it would miss the flight out. I had already had nightmares of being forced to leave the sidecar out in the desert to rot if it broke down. No they won’t necessarily pick it up. The rules actually state that sidecars and quads will NOT be picked up if broken down in the desert. It’s our own responsibility to deal with that if it happens. Hello … this is the real Dakar, the one nobody tells you about!
At that moment, getting the sidecar back home and looking towards Dakar 2007 were my only slivers of positive and constructive thoughts. I was surprised that they were offering to take the sidecar out of there, to France, rather than forcing us to deal with it ourselves. So, I turned the handlebars hard left, and eased on the throttle. That was the hardest turn I have ever made! Our Dakar was over.
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More of the story: Dakar Rally Stage 1
