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DAKAR 2006

:(. I was hoping this wouldn't happen this year.

Death of Andy Caldecott
The organisers of the 28th edition of the Dakar have learnt today, Monday the 9th of January 2006, the death of KTM rider n?10 Andy Caldecott.

At km 250 of stage 9 between Nouakchott and Kiffa, on a fast portion, the Australian biker suffered a bad crash. and died.

Aware of the accident at 11:31AM, the rally headquarters immediately sent a medical helicopter that landed at 11:55 AM on the scene of the accident. The doctors unfortunately could only note the death of the biker that according to them struck immediately.

Andy Caldecott, 41 years of age, was competing in his third Dakar. He had finished 6th of the 2005 edition and was currently 10th overall of this edition after having won stage 5 between Nador and Er-Rachidia in Morocco.

To his family that was immediately contacted, the Dakar wishes to express its sincere condolences.

http://www.dakar.com/2006/DAK/LIVE/us/900/index.html
 
Dakar on bikes really. Its a brutal event. Claims even the best.

A total shame but if you have to go... Would have liked to see a year without any KIAs though.
 
In an event where it's a proud day for any team that can even finish the whole thing, or even one big stage, death has always been one of the risks they know about coming in. It is always sad to hear about anyone who dies during the Dakar (especially a man like Andy, who's name I've known for a few years now), but it's not totally unexpected.

In other news, I've now seen some Eurosport coverage and enjoyed it (I downloaded stage 7 and got to see that hilarious argument again :D). Seeing this other coverage, with their good (and funny!) commentator doesn't make me want to give up watching OLN's coverage, though. I noticed that they each showed quite different things, and interestingly, Eurosport aired an interview with an American rider that OLN didn't! Kinda weird.
 
R.I.P Andy. Condolences to his family. He was not even supposed to be there this year. He was a late inclusion :(

I hope there are no more KIAs this year...
 
One of the guys I always pulled for, Isidre Esteve Pujol, had to withdraw from the race in stage 10. Don't know all the details, but he had a couple of accidents, it seems, and though he tried to press on, he ultimately decided to get out before he hurt himself more. It didn't help that he kept getting stuck after he was hurt.
 
I just back from vacation and watched stages 1-7 of the Eurosport coverage on my laptop. I think I almost prefer the Aussie announcer. The Eurosport guy seems to miss a bit of stuff. Like there was a clip of Robbie Gordon changing a tire or something, and the commentator was talking about the Brit placements. I guess he had to fit it in there somewhere, but he seems a bit off to me. Still pretty good though, don't get me wrong :)
 
I have been away for the last three days, hanging out at the NPD :coplight: , so I have not had a chance to get an update on this. Only last night I got a glimpse of this race; they were talking about Carlos Sousa having the 6th best place at some checkpoint on that stage (stage was not finished though). I do not even know what stage it was... :?

Let me go and check for what happened in the last three days.
 
One of the biggest stories is that Jutta Kleinschmidt has withdrawn from the race. First time in a decade, they said! She hit a tree and severely damaged the front right corner (not just the wheel).

Carlos Sainz is having a bit of an up and down rally, but it seems whenever they're out of the dunes, he's very hard to beat. Makes sense, as a lot of it would be similar to rallies like Mexico, where he won the first time they ever did it, or the safari rally (which I really miss!). I don't know if he could get back in the top 5 by the end, but he has had an impressive first outing nonetheless.
 
how quickly things change in the Dakar rally... Stefan must be feeling a bit down. So must De Azevedo....

On another sad note, condolences to the little boy's family. They do so much to prevent things like this from happening and yet, it still happens.
 
Yeah, I need to watch some other coverage of the last stage. OLN didn't have any coverage on Saturday, then aired the last two stages on Sunday, which meant the last stretch on the beach got about 4 minutes of coverage. Still, it sure was cool seeing all the teams driving side-by-side to the finish!

And now, sadly, we have to wait over 11 months for the next one. And I hope Speed gets the rights again. Maybe I'll ask about it.
 
I have not watched any coverage since stage 10. My computers power supply burned out while I was away, so I am waiting for a new one.
 
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