It’s been a while since sunny south America however the training for the first ever Irish Team entry into the Baja 1000 begins. This is North America’s answer to the Dakar Rally and the excitement is already building. The machine to be used in the Baja is the Beta 350 4T which has been put through its paces in two recent gruelling test enduro races held in round one and two of the Irish Enduro Championships in Glendalough and Mount Leinster. Thanks to Team Hayes for setting up the Marrazochi front suspension the bike is much more forgiving over logs and tree roots and ran like a dream on testing conditions last weekend in Mount Leinster.

Team Baja 1000 Ireland will again be teaming up with our core sponsors from the Dakar, Vee Rubber Tyres, Hi-flow oil and air filters and RT sprockets to aid us in this the first ever Irish Team attempt at the Baja 1000 solo non-stop on a four stroke racing enduro machine.

We will be planning to run 1-2 Team Baja 1000 Ireland short circuit off road events in Cork and Dublin during August and September to aid our funding for this very challenging event which will require through the night racing to complete the course. We will also be travelling to San Diego this month to get our race machine set up for the terrain and will let you know next month how that has progressed.

Until next time, yours in extreme off-road racing

Well we are well into the 2010 enduro season at this stage with the summer Enduro break now in full swing and the Killavullen Enduro only two weeks away.

The season so far has been just fine with 1-2 challanging enduros to start with. The new Whitemountain enduro was a beautiful course but unfortunately the deluge of rain the night before the race meant the tracks cut up fairly badly and after two laps of the course it was going to be survival of the fittest. Actually on our 3rd lap there were only 20 riders left in the race so survival was the name of the game. Came 3rd on day and home with a bike in one piece which was a fair result .

Glendalough was a tremendous event with one shale based uphill which caught out a few riders judging by the queue to climb each lap. There was also a tricky uphill for seniors and experts which had a BMW 450 parked on it upside down on the 1-2 lap but it was gone for the 3rd lap. Mount Leinster round two of the Irish championship was held in an unusually sunny Mount Leinster in 2010. This was in fact one of the most enjoyable events year to date and even though the gasser was running like a bag of nails a top ten finish was on the cards.     

It is now onto Killavullen for the famous 2-day round of the Irish championship on Sept. 4-5th and we are all looking forward to it with re-built bikes engines and for those who have won the lotto in the meantime there will be some new 2011 models on the line. Watch out for the next update with a full overview on the Baja 1000 out next challenge.  
    
Yours in extreme offroading.

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!