DAKAR 2011

FYI.

I'm Darryl Bruce's brother in law.

I get updates every day if your are interested?

Dazza.



NEW ENGINE IS IN; NOW IT’S TIME TO PACK AND PREPARE


It’s been a successful day of testing the new engine for the 2011 Dakar Isuzu D-MAX, according to a tired but happy driver.

The Isuzu MotorSports team worked till yesterday after collecting the container from customs, putting in the new race engine. A few hours’ sleep and then they were up again at sunrise to drive to a friend’s property, three hours out of Buenos Aires, to test the new power plant and do as many adjustments as possible in preparation for the coming 9500km marathon.

“The engine is sorted and it’s fantastic,” says Bruce Garland.

“There’s good top end speed. It’s about seven kilometres an hour faster than what we were doing at the Australasian Safari and I expect more out of it as the engine settles in, and after we put the good Toyo tyres on.

“Obviously the testing was limited though, because of the container being delayed so many days in customs. We haven’t done all the testing we planned – certainly nothing at altitude – and now we have only 24 hours to get the service vehicles packed, and all the tyres on the wheels and turn up for scrutineering.

“Our scrutineering time is 8am on Thursday morning (10pm Sydney time) and then the D-MAX goes into parc ferme immediately after scrutineering so we have a million and one things to do and a very small window of time to do them in. Everything has to be ready to race in that time – I guess we can have a big sleep after that’s done!”

The 2011 Dakar Rally begins with a ceremonial start in Buenos Aires on January 1 before the field travels out of the city in readiness for the start of the competition on January 2.

There are 430 vehicles (bikes, quads, trucks and ‘cars’) entered in this event, compared to 362 for the January 2010 start, of which 146 are in the ‘car’ class. More than 2500 people will travel with the event, in terms of drivers, navigators and riders, as well as support crews, race officials and media.

Sorry I did not notice your post earlier Dazza, sad news about his retirement

Hi Vince, mate I am hoping for some dry weather early in January, but I do not like my chances.

There has been some sort of mix up Des but there are there and will be racing.

Thanks, Bruce , I will keep on it . Cheers Des.

Hi Dave, have a nice Chrissy mate

Good one Stephen, all the best to mate

Thank you very much Celena,we have been following Bruce and Harry for many years. We are avid Isuzu fans, owning two Isuzu MUs and will be updating to a D-Max in the near future.