Dakar Rally Archives - Page 12 of 15

Bikes

Moar Photos of the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally

By Jensen Beeler 10/13/2013 5 Comments

HRC is getting serious about this whole rally thing. After testing the waters last season, Big Red is ramping up a serious bid for the 2014 Dakar Rally. Already announcing its 2014 team of Helder Rodrigues, Sam Sunderland, Javier Pizzolito, Paulo Goncalves, and Joan Barreda, HRC debuted its new machine, the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally, to the press.

Judging from the response the bike got in our comments section, we are betting a few marriages might be on the rocks because of this beauty, but that isn’t stopping us from posting some more photos of the Honda CRF450 Rally, and this time the come courtesy of Metzler tires.

Debuting the German tire company’s new unobtainium KAROO Extreme prototype tires, Honda and its riders are hoping Metzler will help make the difference in the Dakar, and will help HRC give KTM and Yamaha a race for their money, come January 5th in Argentina.

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Bikes

Video: 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally

By Jensen Beeler 10/11/2013 6 Comments

We’re having dirty thoughts here at Asphalt & Rubber, mostly as we drool over HRC’s new Dakar challenger, the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally. Based off the Honda CRF450X enduro, HRC says that its new Honda CRF450 Rally race bike has an improved engine output, aerodynamic performance, durability, and maintenance requirements. We just think it looks like awesome in two-wheel form.

The Honda CRF450 Rally factory race bike will be the work horse for the Team HRC rally team, as it aims to unseat KTM from its Dakar Rally thrown in a few months. With zie Austrians debuting an all-new KTM 450 Rally race bike of their own, and Yamaha Racing now benefitting from the talents of Cyril Despres, HRC might have its work cutout for it. Until then, we’ll just spend some alone time with this video.

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Bikes

First Photos of the 2014 KTM 450 Rally Race Bike

By Jensen Beeler 10/10/2013 No Comments

These are the first photos of the 2014 KTM 450 Rally factory race bike that Marc Coma, Kurt Caselli, and Ruben Faria will ride in the upcoming Dakar Rally in three-months time (factory rider Francisco Lopez will be on the 2013 machine). The 2014 race bike is a completely new machine from the ground up, and will make its racing debut at the OilLibya Rally of Morocco.

With the goal of winning its 13th Dakar in a row, KTM has some stiff competition for this upcoming Dakar, as former-rider Cyril Despres has defected to the Yamaha Racing team, and HRC has recently debuted its brand new 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally race bike as well.

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Bikes

HRC Shows Off the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally Race Bike

By Jensen Beeler 10/08/2013 17 Comments

HRC already showed us its 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally race bike earlier this year at Mugello, during the Italian GP. Announcing a five rider team, Helder Rodrigues (Portugal, age 34), Sam Sunderland (U.K., 24), Javier Pizzolito (Argentina, 33), Paulo Goncalves (Portugal, 34) and Joan Barreda (Spain, 29) will race for Big Red in the 2014 Dakar Rally and other rally events.

Improving on its 2013 design, which in-turn was based off the Honda CRF450X enduro, HRC says that the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally has improved engine output, aerodynamic performance, durability, and maintenance requirements. It will be campaign by the Team HRC factory team, and also be made available to other rally teams as a production racer.

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Racing

KTM Readying All-New 2014 Dakar Rally Race Bike

By Jensen Beeler 08/05/2013 3 Comments

The 2014 Dakar Rally is still five months away, but KTM CEO Stefan Pierer has tipped the Austrian company’s hand in an interview with KTM’s official company blog. With the goal of making a lighter, slimmer, and better handling machine, KTM has been working on a ground-up redesign of its venerable adventure-racer.

Of course, KTM will still have to use a 450cc single-cylinder engine, per the Dakar Rally’s rules, but Pierer says the chassis will be significantly improved upon over the current iteration.

That goal seems easy enough, as the company CEO disclosed that the current 2013 race bike is essentially using the same chassis when The Dakar had a 600cc engine regulation for factory teams.

Modifying the old chassis to design simply to accommodate the new 450cc lump, KTM’s short-cut to building a new rally racing machine was crude, yet obviously effective.

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News

HRC Sets Out To Win Dakar – Announces Team & New Bike

By Scott Jones 05/30/2013 2 Comments

HRC has set its sights on winning the Dakar Rally in 2014 and today unveiled a new motorcycle and 5-man dream team here at Mugello.

The 2014 team comprises five riders: Helder Rodrigues (Portugal, age 34), Sam Sunderland (U.K., 24), Javier Pizzolito (Argentina, 33), Paulo Goncalves (Portugal, 34) and Joan Barreda (Spain, 29), shown above left to right while being interviewed by Team Director Martino Bianchi.

The 2014 Dakar begins on January 5th, 2014. In addition to familiar territory in Argentina and Chile, the 6th South American Dakar will add stages in Bolivia and finish on January 18th in Valparaiso, Chile, after 8,000 kilometers of racing.

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Racing

Cyril Despres Will Ride with Yamaha in the 2014 Dakar Rally

By Jensen Beeler 05/30/2013 1 Comment

When it happened, we were shocked to learn that Cyril Despres was left out of Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s 2013 team announcement, though we American have a silver lining in the news as the five-time Dakar Rally winner was replaced by our own Kurt Caselli. However, with that upheaval, we were left to speculate as to the fate of the Dakar master.

Would Despres retire from rally racing, finishing his career at its peak? Or, would the Frenchman defect from KTM to another team, like say Honda’s upstart rally effort? Well, now we have the answer, as Cyril Despres has been outed as having joined the Yamaha Motor France rally team for the 2014 & 2015 Dakar Rallies.

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Racing

2014 Dakar Rally Route Replaces Peru with Bolivia

By Jensen Beeler 03/21/2013 1 Comment

For the sixth year in a row, the Dakar Rally will race in South America, though the iconic rally race is mixing things up, and is dropping its route through Peru for one that includes Bolivia instead. The Dakar will keep Argentina and Chile on its 2014 course schedule, and the two countries will comprise the majority of the race’s torturous test of its competitors.

The 2014 Dakar Rally will have longer special stages, as well as several marathon stages (stages where only the competitor can do mechanical work on his/her machine, not the mechanics). Taking riders and drivers though Argentina’s northwest canyons and sandy valleys, it should be an especially grueling edition of the historic race.

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Racing

Husqvarna Rally Team by Speedbrain – 2013 Dakar Rally

By Jensen Beeler 03/13/2013 4 Comments

With the sale of Husqvarna to Pierer Industrie AG, the 2013 Dakar Rally marks the last time that the BMW Group will collaborate with Speedbrain GmbH for its rally and off-road racing duties — a partnership that has lasted since 2006.

Helping commemorate their last outing together, the Speedbrain’s factory-backed Husqvarna team has put together a little tribute video of its final Dakar campaign. Will the team live on with another brand? Only time will tell, but it would seem BMW’s off-road racing days are over.

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Racing

KTM’s 2013 Factory Rally Team: Despres Out, Caselli In

By Jensen Beeler 03/12/2013 5 Comments

After a last-minute appointment to replace the injured Marc Coma in KTM’s factory rally team for the 2013 Dakar Rally, American Kurt Caselli impressed many with his stellar rookie performance on the South American course. Taking two stage wins, Caselli will join Marc Coma and Ruben Faria on KTM’s factory-backed rally team, which will go by the “Red Bull KTM Factory Racing” name.

With Chilean rider Francesco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez also getting full-factory equipment, noticeably absent from KTM’s announcement is five-time Dakar Rally winner Cyril Despres, who is leaving the KTM squad “to move on and face new challenges.”

Winning the most recent edition of The Dakar in a comfortable fashion with his support rider, Faria, finishing second, Despres’s probable move to another team is a huge shock to the sport, and could make KTM’s dominance in motorcycle rally racing questionable for the future.

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Racing

What is Fesh Fesh?

By Jensen Beeler 01/29/2013 12 Comments

A hallmark of both the African and South American varieties of the Dakar Rally, ask any of the competitors in the 2013 Dakar Rally about what the Arabians call fesh fesh, and you may see their faces turn as ashen as the material in your inquiry.

A very fine and light powdery substance, fesh fesh in large enough quantities can spell instant disaster for an adventure rider or rally racer, as it plumes can quickly obscure the vision, and its quicksand-like properties can instantly envelope tires that tread too deeply or too slowly.

The byproduct of countless years of the erosion process, fesh fesh is sand that has been worn down from its typical granular size, into a dust-like particle that closely resembles talcum powder. When layered thinly on hard rock, fesh fesh can be as slippery as ice, and when accumulated in deep pits, fesh fesh is essentially quicksand, minus the water.

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