Stage 6: Tan Tan to Zouerat

Daily Updates from David on Patricia's progress in the Dakar Rally

Photo: Whoops - I don't think the BMW Marketing team had this picture in mind, when they entered the Dakar.. the people were all fine, the car was a bit sick...

FROM DAVID - Thursday Jan 11 2007
(connection 414km, special 394km, connection 9km, total 817km)

The updates are getting briefer I'm afraid, as I have not heard anything directly from Patricia today - although I do know from my offical text updates that she has completed the whole stage and is now in camp. Apparently there were sand storms as they left early this morning, but they must have abated, as all competitors are now in camp. Albeit without any mobile phone connections.

Patricia appeared to have a good day, making 123rd position for todays stage - yet another improvement. She is steadily working her way up the field - experience and steadiness seem to be paying off.

As I am short of news, I will now give you a brief lesson in Dakar technicalities... the Dakar veterans can stop reading at this point....

When Patricia was allocated her start number, 145, weeks before the Rally she was a bit upset - I did not really understand why at the time...but here is the reason. The further back in the field you start each morning, the quicker the following cars and trucks catch you. When they catch you, you have 3 choices: (1) Stay on the road and get run over (not a good idea) ... (2) Pull over, let them pass and then proceed, but in a cloud of dust caused by the car/truck (not a good idea) ... or (3) pull over , let them pass, wait for the dust to settle then start again...by which time the next one is here and you have to wait again (not a good idea). Have you spotted the important point - once they catch you, everything starts looking bad for the bikers. So the critical thing is to start as soon as possible within the bike line-up each morning, so you can ride as long as possible before getting caught by the cars and bikes.

Last year, Patricia started higher up the field, which was odd as she had not done the Dakar for a while. This year, after winning the Ladies last year, she started further down the field - I'm sure there is a logical french reason for this, but it was not apparent to Patricia (I think that is a polite way to describe her reaction) - and the effect being that she probably has about 50 more cars and dust clouds to deal with each day, than she did last year.

Apologies if you just fell asleep reading this - I will try to find rather more interesting snippets for future editions, if the news content remains scant !

Looking ahead to Friday (stage 7) : Zouerat to Atar connection 4km, special 542km, connection 34km, total 580km. "Crossing the Erg" - a bit of all terrains. This is the day that tiredness really sets in - after 6 previous days racing. Get through this day, and then Saturday is a welcome rest-day. We need to keep fingers crossed for tomorrow for Patricia, as this was the day she crashed last year.... so an important psychological barrier to break through.