No direct word from Gary yesterday but it was surely light relief to just have a liaison to get through. 830 km are on the menu for today’s stage, including 545 against the clock. For the penultimate stage, the participants are back in the Pampa on a route that will appeal to their pure driving skills and includes some of the trails that welcome – every year – the WRC Rally of Argentina but also has a lot of vegetation, prickly bushes and cacti. This special stage is made for conventional rally drivers. A pitty for two-time WR champ Carlos Sainz, who was forced to withdraw yesterday. Faced with a decimated group, the remaining contenders of the Dakar in all categories, called to order by the misfortune of the Spaniard, will certainly make sure not to loose everthing just a couple of days shy of the podium in Buenos Aires. All the more so because the big time gaps in the standings now prevent the hierarchy from changing if nothing goes wrong. We’ll keep you posted on Gary’s progress.

While Philip is making his way back to the Emerald Isle Gary is still doing really well and currently holds 92nd place in the overall standings. Inside the top 100 with several days to go is fantastic and his bike and body are holding up well!! The big news about today is that the special stage has been cancelled. As the weather forcast announces heavy fog on the whole route of the stage and as the timing of the stage cannot be altered due to the crossing of the Andes and the crossing of the border between Chile and Argentina, the organizers have decided to cancel the portion of stage 11 between Copiapo and Fiambala that should have been against the clock. The participants will be getting to the Fiambala bivouac in liaison instead starting at 8:00 AM. So it should be a relatively easy day for Gary, much appreciated no doubt, and we’re quietly confident that he’ll make it this time and cross that elusive finish line! We’ll keep you posted on Gary’s progress.

In the meantime you might like to read some coverage about Philip’s adventure in Red Bulletin called ‘The Agony and the Ecstacy’ http://uk.redbulletin.com/articles/agony_and_ecstasy/

Unfortunately Philip was disqualified from the race this morning because he missed some CP points yesterday and competitors are not allowed to change their engines twice in the field. His engine failed again yesterday and despite the fact that he got a new one and could have easily continued today the organizers told him that it was against the rules and wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the competitors. So when we asked him what his plans were now he simply said “You know yourself, I’m a celebrity get me out of here!!” – ever the positive optimist. So Philip’s Dakar 2009 adventure concludes but Gary is still in, having finished 90th yesterday with all eyes on him to finish the race completely. We’ll keep you posted on his progress throughout the week. Thanks again to all for the kind wishes and support for Philip throughout the last week.

Apologies for the delay in updating you but we only heard at 3.20am this morning that Philip had made his way to a local farm and got a truck to give him and his bike a lift back to Copiapo – would you believe it but Philip’s second engine burned out so he got stuck in the Atacama desert 110km into yesterday’s stage!! Gary, meanwhile, is storming along and completed yesterday’s stage without a hitch, thankfully he’s had no mechanical errors at all so far. Unfortunately for Philip he’s now had a clutch go and two engines so Philip hasn’t been given a start time for today’s race, Stage 10 in Copiaco, and we can only deduce that this may in fact be the end of his Dakar 2009 experience…..we’ll keep you posted when we hear from him later today

Philip and Gary set off this morning to face into the dunes of the Atacama desert. Gary was scheduled to take off first and so far appears to be motoring along fine and Philip is following behind him. We were just on the official Dakar site www.dakar.com and loved the piece in the ‘Gossip’ section of the site so much that we thought we should share it with you !! The guys are definitely full of it !! What with Philip claiming to be a doctor in his real life and Gary claiming we now have a population of 6 million in Ireland there’s no doubt that if the Dakar was about spoofing these two would win hands down!! Read on and we’ll update you later on their progress today!

“Two Irishmen on the Dakar”

With his round face and blue eyes, Philip looks fine. In La Serena he casts a calm glance over his first Dakar: “It’s very hard, but I like that”. When you are Irish, you do not bother with suffering. As such, it is with a small smile of satisfaction and a single sentence that he sums up the terrible night he had during the fifth stage: “I had to return to the starting bivouac to find a spare part with an Argentinean who offered to drive me there and then I spent the rest of the night repairing, there you have it”. And that’s all he has to say about such a nightmare. Philip Noone, 40 years of age and a doctor when not on the Dakar, set off on this adventure with his biker friend Gary Ennis, 43 years old. They are representing Ireland in the utmost discretion. “Motor-sport isn’t very popular where we come from, and we’re only a little country with a population of 6 million,” explains Gary. Nonetheless, our two friends from Dublin were graced with a visit from the Irish Times during the rest day, but that was all. In a land devoted to football, Gaelic sports and rugby, fans of the Dakar are few and far between. However, they have been preceded by four of their countrymen: Craigie in 1998, Fitzsimon in 1998 and 2000 and McGuire also in 2000. Gary tempted fate in 2005 coming up short only 90 kilometers from Dakar with a broken leg. As regards Philip, he is categorical: “The Argentines are crazy about motor-sports, we should stay here”. Gary and Philip arrived in La Serena 106th and 128th respectively.

After a well deserved rest yesterday the guys were ready to take on today’s stage although Philip complained of not getting much sleep because of generators making lots of noise all night.  However they both finished well today – Gary now holds 108th position and Philip holds 132nd to date. They are both well, albeit very bruised, and looking forward to tackling the Atacama desert tomorrow which promises to be challenging, tough but good fun. Both of them just love the sand so hopefully the bikes will stand up to the task ahead as well as them.

We just heard that Jonah Street of the US has to bow out because of injury which is a surprise but the Spanish driver Carlos Sainz (VW) won his 4th stage today and his 13th stage in the Dakar, 4’02 ahead of his German team-mate Dieter Depping (VW) and 4’12 ahead of another team-mate, the American driver Mark Miller (VW). In the general standings, the 1990 and 1992 WRC Champion leads the race with a 10’57 lead over his team-mate, the South-African driver Giniel Devilliers (VW) and 18’05 over Mark Miller (VW). The only survivor of the Mitsubishi team is Spain’s Nani Roma who is fourth in the general standings, 33’31 behind the leader. In the Open category, Robby Gordon (Hummer) has won this stage again and is 5th of the general standings, more than 1h30 behind Sainz. Finally, in the Production category, the Japanese driver Jun Mitsuhashi (Toyota) has won stage 8 but the Frenchman Nicolas Gibon (Toyota) remains the clear leader in the general standings.

Well, it’s been an eventful 24 hours. Gary is storming ahead completing every day so far successfully even after a horrendous Stage 5 and he currently stands 113th in the race – amazing since he started at 206th out of a total of 230th riders. Philip meanwhile had mechanical problems with his clutch breaking and his engine failing and he slept in the desert alone on January 7th. Eventhough Philip didn’t make it back to the Bivouac in time to start Stage 6 he was one of many motoriders, car drivers and truck drivers so given the circumstances the organizers met and arranged for those who were able to make to the start of the Special test to be allowed to race today. Both Gary and Philip have now finished Stage 7 successfully and they have a well deserved rest day tomorrow in Valparaiso. Philip now stands at 95th in the overall rankings – probably slightly biased given that he couldn’t ride yesterday. – but nonetheless they are both still in the race and we are gunning for them to finish the race next Sunday. This will allow them to recover a little bit, with half the race under their belts, and will allow their mechanics to get working on their bikes for the day to get them ready for Part 2. Back on Sunday with more news when Stage 8 begins. In the meantime listen to Philip’s radio interview about his adventures on horseback in the back end of Argentina!! http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=417706&page=108 or http://rallyraidio.net.

Apologies for the delay in the update folks but communication proved difficult last night and there were so many trucks, cars and bikes still out on the field at Stage 5 that we couldn’t find out where Gary and Philip were. So, the latest is that Gary has started Stage 6 and is on his way to Mendoza as we speak. Philip’s clutch broke in the final stage of yesterday’s race, he got a lift on the back of a truck with a local Argentinian to the Bivouac at midnight, picked up a new clutch and headed straight back out to do the repairs on the  bike. He didn’t come back in all night so hopefully he got some sleep until daylight broke. At the moment he’s making his way back to start of the Special test for Stage 6 today and we await further news. The organizers have reduced the special by 100km today because of its severity and they cancelled the final part of Stage 5 last night for safety reasons. They have also pushed out the start times by an hour so if Philip makes it back on time to the Liaison for Stage 6 he’s still in the race, if not he’s out. Gary meanwhile is motoring away so hopefully he will do well in the sand again today. We’ll keep you posted later today as we get any more news. For now, the data on the official Dakar website, is unreliable so we’ll try to keep you informed as much as possible.

Today’s stage was 694km long andGary and Philip ended up assisting their Canadian buddy Don who crashed on the course. They waited to re-route trucks and cars away from Don while alerting the rescue helicopter. As soon as Don was airlifted out of there Gary and Philip carried on however at that stage the trucks and cars had carved up the trail so there were huge diverts which the lads had to navigate their way through which cost them lots of time. Thankfully they’ll get some of the time spent on the rescue mission back in the morning and although they’re tired and hungry they’re both in good spirits and looking forward to getting out way ahead of the trucks and cars tomorrow.  There also appears to be some casualties with a decreasing number of bikers left in the race too. Having said all of that Philip holds a position of 153rd and Gary a very close 152nd place after today’s stage. Pending validation of the results, Spaniard Marc Coma (KTM) picked up his 3rd stage victory and 7th on the Dakar by finishing this 4th day 1.17 ahead of Frenchman Cyril Despres (KTM), who rode an excellent race having started in 48th place this morning. 3rd place went to American Jonah Street (KTM). As a result, in the general standings, Coma now has a lead of 42.57 over Street, the new 2nd placed rider and leader of the marathon category, and 43.42 over Frenchman David Frétigné (Yamaha), 3rd placed and leader of the 450cc category. As regards Cyril Despres (KTM), he is now 11th in the general standings.
Marc Coma  said today “It was a nice stage with some good riding at the beginning then a bit more navigation. The landscape changed, making it a bit more technical, and more physical because you start to feel all the efforts put in so far. Today, it was shorter but harder than the other days. It was a bit like Morocco, where the tricks are nice and quick. I didn’t have any problems with my tires. Since it was a shorter stage, we chose to use foam bibs, and I haven’t had any problems with them. What was strange was having to open 4 or 5 gates. They are cattle gates for keeping the cattle from leaving the farms. In the Patagonia – Atacama the tradition is to close them behind you so everyone is on an equal footing, but this time I left them open, especially as it was my team-mate Viladoms behind me!”

More from us tomorrow after we hopefully speak to the guys later. Many thanks to all of you for emailing your support, much appreciated and being passed on to the lads as we speak to them.

Again both Gary and Philip finished today’s gruelling 694.56 km successfully. Conditions were fast and extremely dusty which meant visibility was very poor with the trucks and the cars tearing up the route. Philip prefers a much more technical course and since the special today was the second longest of the rally it’s not surprising that they are tired this evening. Philip ran out of petrol 50km before the end and was helped by a local Argentinian farmer who syphened some petrol from his tractor to get Philip to the finish. Lots of autograph signing ensued and Philip was delighted to reach the end!! Both men are loving the hospitality of the locals and the support along the route. Both are off for showers, some food and back to the tent for some well deserved sleep to do it all again at 5am tomorrow morning. Despite the length of today’s ride both Philip and Gary are holding their positions in 139th and 119th position respectively – that means Philip has moved up 89 positions since Day 1 and Gary has moved up 87 positions.  4 more days of new and interesting terrain before they have a full rest day on Friday – they reckon they’ll deserve a beer(just one of course!) each on that day so onwards and upwards for Team Dakar Ireland.

News from the official Dakar site was that ‘Pending validation, Spanish rider Marc Coma (KTM) easily won this 3rd stage, 17’49″ ahead of his team mate and countryman Jordi Viladoms (KTM) and Norway’s Pal-Anders Ullevalseter (KTM), both tieing in 2nd place. The third fastest time of the stage goes to France’s David Casteu (KTM) checking 18’16″ behind the winner. By a way of consequence, in the overall rankings, Coma now has a 39’11″ lead over Frenchman David Frétigné (Yamaha), also leader in the 450cc category and a 41’14″ lead over Dutchman Frans Verhoeven (KTM), who is the leader in the marathon category’