A little background

I thought I would start my own blog after seeing all the crap that others (especially Flyhiflylo, aka Fly) are putting out on The Dakar Rally.

I've been very interested in the Dakar ever since a one time acquaintance Danny LaPort rode it as part of team Cagivia back in the early 1990's. In 1992 Danny became the first American to win a stage in the Dakar and finished 2nd over all, still the highest finish of any American to date. One of my other favorite riders, Malcolm Smith had also participated in the Dakar several years earlier. Both Danny and Malcolm reported that the Dakar was THE toughest event they had ever done. Danny spoke of what it was like to ride at high speed day after day trying to navigate and maintain speed without crashing or getting lost. The words he used included: "You can't ride at almost 100mph for that long day after day and not crash! It's just a matter of when and where."

For some reason most of my fellow Baja racing enthusiasts were just not interested in racing the Dakar. That is until Mark Miller caught the Dakar bug. Mark had done the Atlas Rally on a bike with team KTM so his interest in Dakar is not hard to understand.

I first met Mark Miller when I was asked to join the Herzog Vortec Trailblazer Trophy Truck team in 1999. The Vortec Trailblazer team was a dream team of all star drivers and mechanics. We raced the 1999 Baja 1000, and then in 2000 we competed in the Nevada 2000 and the Baja 2000. During that time I got to know Mark a little bit and was introduced to Ryan Arciero, and became a true follower of Don Tibbe who was the team manager.

In 2001 Mark re-built his pro-truck to race in the Trophy Truck class in SCORE. That year I passed on being part of the Baja 500 and flew as air support for Robby Gordon & Greg Till in the Baja 1000. Both Miller & Gordon failed to finish the race due to mechanical problems. After the event I decided not to work with Team Gordon anymore and was asked by Don Tibbe (who had joined with Mark as Team Manager) to join Mark Miller Racing as chase crew.

In 2002 Mark raced the Dakar in a "spec" Toyota Trophy Land Cruiser diesel with Dirk Von Zitzewitz as his co-driver & navigator. Although they encountered tons of problems they managed to finish the event in first place for the class. In 2004 Mark managed to obtain a pro-truck to race with from the French Team “Pro-Systems”. Unfortunately when they arrived in Europe the week before the event the truck was still in pieces. Mark later said that he and probably should have never attempted to start the race. The following year Mark skipped the Dakar and Ryan Arciero drove in a similar ride to the Land Cruiser Mark had reced before.

Dirk joined Team VW with the Touarag and ended up co-driving and navigating for Robby Gordon who accepted an offer which apparently came through a common sponsor of his Trophy Truck and VW’s Dakar effort, Red Bull Energy Drink. Robby's ride with VW was ill fated as his rouge style just didn't fit the massive VW team. Robby was never able to communicate his setup skils with the VW engineers on suspension. Failure to trust and listen to his navigator, Dirk, basically cost Robby his oportunity to finish well as team orders caught him back in the pac and odd man out. Robby had to settle for a supporting role for the remainder of the event.