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We made the uneventful drive to Antofagasta. We spent a couple hours trying to find a cheap hotel/ hostel with bike parking. We ended up finding a small family run place for about $50 a night. Its pretty bad but we couldn't find anything else cheaper. Next we headed out to find some internet and get some laundry done. The places we found were around $30 for a load of laundry so one of the ladies at our hotel offered to do it for us (by hand) for about $8.
The next morning we made oatmeal in the hotel room haha.
Then we set out to find a good place to watch the Dakar. By looking at the map we figured they would head south into town by the coast.
We found nothing but desert and a flat tire for Kyle. This time the front. This tire is originally Trevors and the previous slice reopened apart from a new hole. So we removed the tubliss system and put a standard tube in for now. We will have find another tire in coming days as we dont trust this one.
We headed back to town and found people watching the bikes come in. They were forcing people to walk up the hills to watch as it was dangerous to drive vehicles up the racetrack. When the police asked us if we from the Dakar we without skipping a beat said yes and were able to drive up the hill on the edges more or less. The bikes were ripping!
There we met fellow Canadian Vic Lew from BC. He is working in Antofagasta and has a sweet 2013 KTM 500 four stroke. The following photos are from Vic.
The Monster Energy Team had 11 AWD Mini's in the Race. The last two year they won the car category. This one caught a tiny bit of air!
Toyota Hillux race truck drifting a corner.
Red Bull race truck in the fullsize class. Huge trucks!
One of the spectators doing an insane dune hill climb in his jeep.
Throughout the afternoon Vic made a couple of phone calls and managed to get 2 extra bivouac tickets. Bivouac is the french name for the exclusive pit area for the Dakar. Here fans can walk around and meet the racers. Tickets generally cost $500 each+. We were ecstatic! This was one of Kyle's dreams! We spent the next couple hours wandering through checking out the sights.
Repairs and tear down after a long day of riding.
Each team had a supply truck with tons of spare parts. Teams were allowed one spare engine per car and three transmissions.
Tires..... On bikes they put on new tires daily. Due to import laws all old tires must stay with the team and leave the country. We could have used some of those old tires!
Monster Energy Mini Section
Not all teams had huge sponsorships. This team's supply truck looked like it ran in some of the original Dakar Races in Africa. Definitely some history here. It was an air cooled diesel!
A garage on wheels.
Massages for the riders!
Lots of Russian, Cech and French teams.
Then we found a team with a Canadian driver (team is made up of Americans, Canadians and Mexicans). The team is mostly made up of retired car enthusiasts who now live in Cabo, Mexico. More information here: http://www.marathonrally.com/news/dakar_rally_2014_el_martillo_team_of_canadians_mexicans_americans.23805.0.html
Its their first time to the Dakar and first time using this brand new car! They have completed (and won) several races in Baja. They were doing well now but had a rough start in earlier stages. In the first two days they went through four clutches (two of which were changed on the field by the drivers) We wished them all the best!
What an sweet day, one that we will not soon forget!
After leaving the race we headed over to Vic's work (shop) to clean our air filters and have a few beers. Vic has a sweet Jeep Tj with a turbocharger! Kyle and Vic had to talk Jeep for awhile.
What an amazing day!
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