One week to go to the start of another Irish Enduro championship. The championship kicks off this year in Ballinderry close to Ashford village of the N11. It’s almost 8 weeks since we competed in the Dakar 2010 so we are very much looking forward to getting back on the Gasser 300 and getting wet and dirty in an Irish event once again

You will see 1-2 official shots from the Dakar which we have just posted. The first is an action shot coming off one of the largest dunes during stage 12 in Atacama Desert in 45 degrees of heat- man that was a hot day! The second shot is the awards ceremony alongside Philomena Murnaghan, the Irish Ambassador to Argentina, receiving my much coveted medal. Philomena was a tremendous support to the team and really flew the flag for Ireland and looked after us just like our mammies would over there! We will be eternally grateful to her for taking care of us so well.

The first action shot in the Atacama also appears in next months April edition of Dirt Bike Rider ( DBR)  Magazine on Page 22 in conjunction with our sponsor bike Alert the manufacturer of Vee Rubber Tyres. This is the 1st time Vee rubber tyres were used in the Dakar and completed the event faultlessly.

Lastly, we will be competing in an extreme offroad endurance event in north America shortly but details of that will be made available  later once we have the 1st part of the Irish enduro season under our belt. In the meantime thanks again to all our sponsors Bike Alert, O’Neals, Done Deal.ie, Buchans 4 x 4, Kriega, Castrol, BMW Ireland, Fluid Rock and Motorcycle paintshop. 
       
Until next time, yours in offroad extreme rallying. Team Ireland Dakar 2010.

We are having celebratory pints in The Ivory pub in Dalkey village from 9pm onwards this Saturday night, January 23rd for those of you who would like to catch up with Philip and get a look at his much prized medal from Dakar 2010. Hope to see you there! In the meantime thanks to everyone for their continued messages of support, the boys are on their way home today and pretty wrecked by the sounds of it so they will enjoy sleeping in their own beds tonight I’m sure! See you Saturday we hope!

It’s official, Philip has achieved his lifelong ambition and dream and finished the Dakar 2010!! He is the 4th man in Ireland to finish the race and we are ecstatic for him! He is absolutely thrilled and currently finishing the liaison back to Buenos Aires with his support trucks following behind him. There will be a heros welcome for him in Buenos Aires. He has got fantastic support both at home and abroad, his mechanics team with Patsy Quick have been fantastic and Brian and Barry provided untold moral support throughout the gruelling two weeks. In fact his mechanic has been sobbing for the past hour with joy, it’s the first machine he’s worked on that has finished the Dakar so firsts all round!! Podium pictures will be taken with the Irish Ambassador to Argentina tomorrow for the celebration ceremony so we’ll have all eyes on Eurosport to see if we can spot our own Irish hero. Philip, Brian and Barry arrive back in to Dublin airport at 10pm on Tuesday night via Madrid from Buenos Aires so if anyone fancies giving them a welcome cheer on their arrival come along. Celebrations all round next week as Philip said it was one man, one mission, one machine and the nation is proud! Thanks again for all the well wishes and support over the past few weeks, the search is now on for next year’s Irish man to do it !

It was another huge day for Philip again today. There was a “funny noise” in his engine when he got in last night so the mechanics installed a new engine for today’s stage and thankfully there were no problems with the bike. Philip was bewildered to discover that the first 51kms of today’s stage were difficult sand dunes again which took some time to navigate through. Then when he finished the special test half of the liaison back to the bivouac was off-road too so he couldn’t believe it. He said there are people dropping out of the race even at this late stage due to engine trouble, navigational issues and other problems so he is even more appreciative of still being in the running. He thought that they might take it easy on them today but no such luck. He is excited about tomorrow but knows that he has another gruelling 700kms to get over the finish line. Although we will(hopefully) see him finish the stage on line through the live tracking he doesn’t actually finish the race until he completes the liaison of 335kms after the special test and we can’t see this on-line…….aarrgghh……so, we will just have to wait with baited breath until we get his phone call tomorrow night that he is in fact over the finish line!!! Keep the Irish fingers and toes crossed(and all of our Irish-American friends fingers and toes crossed too please!) for tomorrow and as soon as we have news we’ll let you know.

Never let it be said that the last few days of the Dakar rally are a doddle. Far from it today with the longest day since the rally began to contend with. The crowds are building as the bikes, trucks, cars and quads get closer to Buenos Aires. Last night Philip arrived back into a huge crowd of fans who surrounded him looking for autographs and photos and unfortunately his wallet was swiped again, the exact same thing happened to him last year, tea leaves or what?! But no harm done, just cards swiped and they can’t do much with cards in the middle of nowhere! Philip finished today’s stage in good time at any rate - 58th position – which was a significant jump from yesterday but he still has 297kms of a liaison to go to get back to the bivouac. No doubt the road section helped with speed but he tells us that his arms and hands are “stiff as pokers”!. Hopefully the man and the machine can endure that final bit of torture at the end of the special test today. It may be quite late by the time he gets in tonight so we may not hear from him but if we do we’ll keep you posted.  An unbelievable 48 hours to go to completion but still another 725kms and 707kms to go in those stage so it’s all to play for. Keep the support coming and fingers crossed.

It was an early start for Philip this morning, he was up at 5am to get through 211kms of a liaison to get as far as the start of the special test which was 220kms long. It was so cold over the Andes that he got a black sack, cut a hole at the top for his head and pulled it over his suit to keep the wind chill at bay. They simply had to have got a shot of him in Eurosport in that get up! Classy or what?!! He said he had never experienced cold in his hands like it before but once he got onto the special stage the sack was off and he got on with the job at hand. He said it was a relatively short stage today and he was happy with his performance and making up for some lost time from Stage 9. Luckily he didn’t suffer any altitude sickness this time around and he loved the descent over windy routes back into Argentina. He was back in the bivouac early and getting some rest in before a heavy 476kms of a special test tomorrow plus 297kms of a liaison to get home after that. Another real test of endurance even at this late stage in the game. There is no time or place for complacency and he had an unbelievable laser sharp focus on tomorrow’s race. Keep the support coming, he loves it…….3 more days and counting………the pressure and excitement mounts.

161 bikes started in this rally and there are just 93 left including Philip who finished the stage today in good time. Because of his navigation difficulties yesterday however he ended up not getting into the bivouac until midnight so he was very much sleep deprived and still trying to warm himself up this morning. He had used a sleeveless jacket in the stage yesterday due to the heat however he ended up climbing the Andes very late that night in the liaison to get back and was freezing. Ah but sure, he’s a hardy man from Dublin with Mayo blood in him so he’s well able for it!! Today was the end of the journey through the Atacama desert and into Santiago on the road back to where it all began in Buenos Aires. The vegetation was dense and varied with lots of hilly and more sinuous tracks but Philip navigated his way well and made up some precious time from yesterday. Unfortunately all but one of Patsy Quick’s riders remain in the race from a starting pack of 8 UK riders – shows you how tough this race can be. Patsy is providing mechanical support to Philip throughout the rally so he is getting extra special attention now that so many of the UK riders haven’t made it. Our hearts go out to them – we know exactly what it is like to not make it after such intense effort and preparation - there’s always next year lads! So a very fatigued Philip is hoping to get a bit more sleep tonight and hit the road again tomorrow way up into the Andes to heights of over 3,500metres. He suffered on the way over with altitude sickness so hopefully he’ll take the right medication to get him through tomorrow and fingers crossed the bike’s power will not suffer too much also in the process. It’s all to play for and we are all gunning for him! Keep watching…

After changing today’s route due to fog, the stage ended up being a figure of 8 in the sand. Unfortunately Philip got his navigation mixed up TWICE and ended up riding the biggest dune in the figure TWICE!! On his second trip into the mammoth dune he was followed by a chopper which hovered over him until he dug himself out of the pit and got on with the job at hand. He’s just finished and had some fuelling issues along the way too which need to be rectified. Brian and Barry are now taking him back to the bivouac on a long 400km liaison which isn’t pretty at the end of that day but he’s delighted the guys are there to support him. At any rate it’s another good day under his belt and just 5 days to go to the finish line, the excitement and support is mounting!

The organisers have announced that they will be postponing the start times for today’s special stage (11.00am, instead of 7.15am) and will shorten the route in order to avoid stragglers arriving too late at the bivouac in La Serena. However, this is nothing for the competitors to rejoice about, because as a result the 9th special will be a 100% sandy route, since it will wind its way through the ranges of dunes above Copiapo. Another original aspect of this 9th special stage, the last to be contested in the Atacama Desert, is a side-by-side start for the bikers, in groups of 20…we’ll keep you posted

Stage 8 complete! Philip had two full nights sleep on Friday and Saturday night in the local Holiday Inn in Antofagasta. He’s averaging 4 hours sleep a night in a bivouac so the rest day was never more welcome. In his own words “the body is in bits but the spirit is still fighting”. He managed to make it to Stage 10 last year so in some ways it’s a psychological barrier for him to get to Stage 10 and beyond to the finish line. His speed was quick today and he was happy to leave the fog and get into glorious visibility across some of the most breathtaking dunes in the world. The day wasn’t without its challenges as usual with lots of tricky rocky terrain and then back into sand as he closed back in on Copiapo……a road travelled by Philip twice before!  Tomorrow brings another long special test and the last day in the Atacama desert so no doubt Philip will make the most of the dunes before he hits the mountains, river beds and rock again. The machine is holding up well. Brian and Barry have been looking after him “just like his mammy” and the mechanical team are providing sterling support. Fingers crossed for some long days ahead with eyes focused on Sunday, the final day of this gruelling rally race.