THE TIDE OF BATTLE CHANGES!

Robby and Team Dakar USA in the top ten overall! After two strait days and almost 1000 Kilometers of Special, Robby and Andy Grider finished both days in the top ten. As Fly stated in his last post three days ago, Fly predicted that history would repeat it's self and 2 of the top ten would have major blows to their effort.

Robby's bad luck came early in the rally and it seems to have turned the tide to the other competitors. Two of the top five got kicked in the nuts today.

Robby's two top ten finishes in stage 8 and 9 coupled with his top 15 finish in stage 7 and his stage 6 win, plus other car's troubles thrusted Robby into the 8th position overall. What does this mean? With 5 big stages left in the rally, Robby currently leads what is now being called the "open class".

Although Robby's car is fully designed to met the regulations of T-1 it seems some big dawg somewhere was looking to discredit Robby's type of effort with some "Open Class". The fact is, he came playing by their rules, and sits in the 8th position overall. Sure Hummer and Toyo Tires could do an ad stating a victory. They could and should... However, this by no means satisfies Robby's needs. If it be 20 Baja 1000s, 10 Indy 500s, a half a dozen Daytona 500s and 24 hours races, Robby isn't there for the Championship or second place. He is there to run with the very best and WIN the race. To Robby an "Open Class" win could be likened to taking your sister to the Prom. It just is not going to suffice.

Barring an act of God, Robby will not win The 2007 Dakar Rally. Barring an act of God, Robby will be back in 2008 looking to serve up some more roast rabbit.

Turbo and The Boys?

The #556 hit something big a couple days ago on Stage 7 and they worked on it all night and all day with the porta-power pulling the bent front frame apart. They had to replace leaf springs, coil buckets and a ton of stuff. Of course, Robby has a deal with the MAN Service crew who was there working on all the MAN stuff, John Marking (FOX) flew into the bivouvac for the rest day to drop off some Tommy's Burger but instead of pigging out on the best chile burgers in the world, He and the MAN service crew helped Turbo work on the T-4 beast until 3:30 AM…

Turbo completed Check 2 in 22 hours today(Stage 9) and appears to be at the finish line but without a time for finishing. I can only imagine the weakest link has broke apart on the MAN truck again… Time for Team Dakar USA to get some good Ol'American Oshkosh Iron for next year.

Gas On! Fly