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Local racers to take on Dakar Rally
Lawrence Hacking has a few special memories of his new off-road truck.
One was the afternoon this fall when he took his wife out for a spin in it, in a large field somewhere north of Orangeville. Coming around a corner in a full-out power slide, the wheels hit a ridge and flipped the truck right over. Apparently, his wife thought it was great.
Another was when he was moving it briefly this summer between off-road sites near his home in Halton Hills. He was driving along the road when he passed a police car, parked on patrol. He waited to be chased down and ticketed for driving with illegal modifications on the highway, but the police officer ignored him.
Maybe it was the legal Ontario licence plate and sticker that went in his favour. Maybe it was the headlamps – all seven of them – or the indicators, or the brake lights that no doubt flashed on and demonstrated responsibility. Whatever, the police officer left him alone, unfazed by the roaring muffler, 33-inch wheels and lack of a windshield, and the truck hasn't been driven on the road again since.
But the best memories are of the thousands of hours of labour that he and a small group of volunteer friends have put into creating the rally truck over the last year, to make it one of the toughest vehicles in the world.
It needs to be: He'll be driving it next month in the world's toughest motorsport rally, the Dakar in South America. If he completes the 9,000-kilometre, two-week race, he'll be the first Canadian ever to do so on four wheels.
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It'll be a familiar feeling. In 2001, he became the first Canadian ever to complete the rally on any wheels, riding his specially-modified Honda XR650 motorcycle from the start point in Paris through the rocks and sand of the Sahara desert to the finish line in Dakar, Senegal, on the west coast of Africa.
The rally was first raced in 1979 and followed different routes each year through the Sahara desert and African wilderness. But in 2008, with hundreds of race cars, trucks and motorcycles weighing in at Lisbon, ready to start the next day, the rally was cancelled at the very last minute – terrorist threats were too real to ignore.
For 2009, it moved to the relative security of South America, and followed a loop from Buenos Aires, Argentina, across the Andes mountains and into the Atacama desert of Chile, before returning over the mountains and back to Buenos Aires. It'll be a similar route for 2010, when 382 vehicles are due to leave the start line on Jan. 1.
A combination of long days and arduous terrain gives the rally its reputation for difficulty. Most competitors don't complete the course.
"We'll be happy just to finish," says Hacking. "If we finish, that'll be a win for me."
The Dakar is big business. Factory teams from wealthy companies like Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, BMW and KTM invest millions of dollars in their machines, and the people who race them are revered wherever the race is followed. Three million Argentinians have pre-registered as spectators along the route (yes, that's million), as have 600,000 Chileans.
For many years, the rally was primarily a European event, albeit raced in Africa, but when Robby Gordon first entered a few years ago with a factory-sponsored Hummer, American interest soared. At last count, it was broadcast in 189 countries, including Canada.
But perhaps the real heroes are the privateers, like Hacking and his navigator, Christian Girouard of Ottawa. Much of the truck was designed, fabricated and assembled by Mississauga's Jay Thornton of Johnston Research and Performance (JRP), who will be in South America as the team mechanic, travelling with a local volunteer in a donated Range Rover.
The rear-wheel-drive truck is built on a Mason Motorsports prorunner chassis, powered by a 1.9-litre Volkswagen turbodiesel with a five-speed Toyota transmission. Everything is custom designed down to the last nut and bolt. To follow the intricate details of the build, see Thornton's excellent thread at VWvortex.com.
The truck is no ordinary desert racer. For Baja events in North America, vehicles are built for speed on relatively short distance courses. At the Dakar, vehicles are out all day, sometimes covering 800 km after getting lost and before stopping for fuel. Smaller engines and lighter vehicles win the day, not the punch-it-through attitude of the Americans.
Gordon was severely criticized when he shunted a blocking vehicle out of his way in the last Dakar race, as is common in American events.
"I was thinking of putting a sign on the back of the truck: `Back off, Robby!' " says Hacking.
While legally registered for the road, the truck is designed with a single purpose: to complete the Dakar, preferably not in last place. Much of the metal bracketry is lightweight aluminum, created in Milton by Paul Rigo of Rigo-tec. Little things count: the holder for the spare fuel cans and oil containers at the back, for example, is drilled out but structured and reinforced in all the right places for the stresses of bouncing up and down all day long.
In the back, there are sand ladders that will be needed for getting the truck unstuck in the deep dunes of the Atacama. They're held in place by runner mounts with a Canadian twist: hockey pucks, both soft and hard in the right order.
"Almost everything is either at cost or donated" by mostly-local suppliers, says Hacking of his $80,000-plus investment. "Those pucks make perfect rubber dampeners, so why not?"
It's daunting to sit in the truck. There are no doors and a passenger is aware of the three automatic fire extinguishers pointed into the cabin. It's difficult to see where you're going, too – the hood is very high and the windshield shallow, so that objects up close are easily hidden (as Hacking discovered when he crunched over a $1,200 Toronto Star video camera). But up close isn't important at speed, where Hacking and Girouard will be looking far into the distance.
They'll be focusing on the finish line, now less than 9,000 km away, and creating some new special memories.
"It's a dream come true just to get to the start line," says Hacking, who leaves for South America today.
"If we can make it all the way to the end – now, that will really be something."
Mark Richardson is the editor of Wheels. mrichardson@thestar.ca
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