Both Gary and Philip finished Day 2 successfully again – out of 230 riders, Gary started at 206th position and Philip at 229th position in the sequencing of riders. Gary now lies at 118th position while Philip took 140th position today – they’ll be pleased with that result. Today was the longest stage of the rally with lots of speed particularly on the off-road parts. Speaking to Philip last night both Irish team riders are in great spirits and enjoying it so far.

News from Day 2 of the official Dakar website – What is true one day is not always thus the day after. The same could be said for Marc Coma, whose display between Santa Rosa and Puerto Madryn could give hope to the other leading bikers in the rally. Having set off first, with the responsibility of leading the way, the Spaniard continued in much the same vein to start with as his brilliant showing yesterday, landing the best time at CP2, 2.20 ahead of Jonah Street. But he was only half way there! The situation took a turn for the worse on one of the quick sections of which he is so fond, when he was slowed down by a radiator problem. Frans Verhoven, renowned for his consistency, took advantage of this mishap to grab his first ever special stage victory on the Dakar, after having been water carrier for Cyril Despres in 2007. Indeed, his former team leader took second place on the day’s stage, 30 seconds behind and as a result climbs up to 12th place in the general standings.

Many riders would still like to be in Marc Coma’s shoes however, since he has a lead of 13.47 over his new pursuer, Frans Verhoven. Provisional third place on the podium went to Jonah Street, who was 5th to cross the finishing line today. This 2nd stage also gave David Fretigné the opportunity to climb up to 4th position in the general standings. Only 24 seconds behind Cyril Despres on today’s special stage, the Yamaha rider confirmed that his 450cc has nothing to envy against the KTMs.

Both Philip and Gary took off on the 31st Edition of the Dakar Rally 2009 from Buenos Aires this morning. Philip’s race number is 229 and Gary’s is 206. If you’re interested in tracking their progress every day visit http://tracking.dakar.com/ASO/index_us.htm, go to the Bike section and then enter their race numbers on the right hand side and you will be able to see their times and stages. Both of them have now finished Stage 1 of the race without a hitch, a stage which ran from Buenos Aires to Santa Rose and was a distance of 733km. Marc Coma from Spain gave a masterful showing for this first special stage, he is already the main favourite for overall victory. Commenting on today’s stage he said “The problem with this special was the distance. I paced myself cautiously, waiting for the moment, on an unusual stage. On this route, there was little work to do with the bike, so I tried to ride my race to avoid problems. What has happened to the others could also happen to me. I saw Despres had problems with his back wheel after filling up at CP2. After that, I tried to open the gap…”. Frenchman Cyril Despres, also riding a KTM finished 22nd in this first special, more than 40 minutes behind the winner and did not make a navigational error as previously reported but rather suffered a flat tyre and finished the special on his wheel rims!! So, hopefully the lads will get some rest tonight, some badly needed grub and be fighting fit for tomorrow’s second stage from Santa Rosa to Puerto Madryn…….we’ll keep you posted. For all media enquiries please call Fiona on 087.2808828 or email us at info@teamdakarireland.com

With only 10 days remaining to the start of our journey to Buenos Aires the anticipation is mounting for Team Dakar Ireland riders Philip Noone No.229 and Gary Ennis No.206. Final preparations in terms of special tools and racing kit is now organized for this 14 day, 9,500km  race loop which will take in some of the most barren places known to man including The Atacama desert, Patagonia and last but not least the Andes mountain range.

Both Gary and Philip will depart on the 28th to Buenos Aires, fingers crossed that the ferry carrying our bikes and all of our spare engines,wheels and riding kit makes it to Buenos Aires on time and does not encounter any sea bandits! The same specially chartered ferry is indeed carrying all of the 530 Racing vehicles entered in this, the 30^th edition of the Dakar in 2009 so we’d be rightly stuffed if we drifted off course!   

In terms of media activity for Team Ireland the Gerry Ryan show on 2FM were kind enough to invite us back for an interview on Monday December 8^th (Thanks Gerry!) and we will be trying to make contact with Gerry’s show on the rest day on January 10^th during the Dakar. In addition TV3 interviewed Philip on Sandymount beach recently and the piece was broadcast on Friday the 12^th of December on the TV3 sports program. You can view the video on http://www.tv3.ie/sport.php?request=&tv3_preview=&video=3707

Lastly, as the final countdown begins to our departure for Argentina a word of thanks to some people who helped us to get last minute details in place this month. Firstly, a big thank you to Ivan at AB who organized CE cert and replacement visors for our O’Neals Team Ireland racing helmets. Secondly, Damien Tolan and Jim Gary at MCUI for organizing our racing licenses in double quick time. If there is anybody else we have forgotten thank you all for your help, have a great Christmas and don’t forget to track us on www.dakar.com when the race starts using our Competitor Numbers 206 and 229. 

We’ll have our PR Manager tracking our progress on this Blog as much as is possible so looking forward to sending you all some good news throughout the two weeks! She can also be contacted on (087) 2808828 for all media who are interested in getting regular updates.

The 2009 Dakar Ireland Team was in final racing action in advance of the 2009 Dakar at the last round of the Irish enduro championship held in Tinahealy Co.Wicklow recently. Philip ran in expert times in order to up the ante on the training and finished a credible 6th for the first time out in the premier class. Gary meanwhile continued his training program on local terrain on the same weekend.

The month of November has been spent finalizing the details to ship the Dakar rally bikes, tyres, wheels, parts and support equipment to Le Harve for the week of the 24th of November for Technical Scrutiny on the 26th.  The bikes will then head off on their long journey to Buenos Aires to arrive there the week of December 28th. The machines will be shipped overland from Ireland to the U.K. and then onto France and beyond. November has also be the month for some media work in Ireland with interviews on 2FM Sportbags, TV3 and the Irish independent. Watch out for the TV3 interview with Nathaniel Cope on the week of  November 24th and the Irish Independent Interview with Cliona Foley the first week of December.

Until next time, yours in offroad extreme rallying Philip & Gary – Team Dakar Ireland 2009.
        

The 2009 Dakar Ireland team were in full action and pre-training with their entry in the Rally du Maroc from the 22th-27th of September which was held in Layonne in Southern Morrocco. Gary and Philip used two KTM 525exc’s which were specially prepared for the event. Philip experienced a slight issue of a loose front sprocket on his machine which dislodged mid race and took out the chain and oil seal sprocket leading to some time penalties for him during the rally. But some emergency mechanical work overnight did the trick and Philip was back out on course as planned the following day.

The rally was run over 6 stages /days with an average of 500-600 km per stage involving a liason each day to get from the bivouac to the start of the special stage and then returning to the bivouac each evening via a road liason return section. Each special stage of 150-200 km normaly involved two loops of the special stage. The most interesting and challenging desert /dune stages were left until days 5-6 of the Rally and with overnight rain on the eve of day 5 and 6 this made riding the large dunes even more interesting as the bikes were liable to sink up to the bars if you lost any momentum.   

Philip and Gary entered the Enduro Cup class of the Rally which allowed entering a standard Enduro machine with 8.5 litre petrol tank but on the desert /dune stages where one uses more fuel this ran very tight where the machines ran onto reserve and almost did not make the checks to refuel. However this was a good learning curve as it teaches you to navigate very carefully so as not to burn up your fuel and try and conserve your fuel in order to make all of your way points and checks.

This Rally also gave us the chance to work with our mechanic for the Dakar, Martin of Desert Rose Racing under race conditions and as we were doing our own bike maintenance for this rally under guidance from Martin and Patsy we were able to see first hand the dedication and excellent teamwork of Desert Rose racing under full race conditions. A big thanks to Martin for his help in sorting out Phili’s bike on day 3 of the Rally and working late into the evening.

All in all this was a great Rally and excellent pre-training for the Dakar Rally 2009.
Gary finished 2^nd in the Enduro Cup class and Philip finished 5^th which was reasonable for their first attempt at the Rally Du Maroc. The training now continues as normal on terra firma with the next race planned for October 26^th which is the final round of the I.E.C in Tinahealy Co.Wicklow.             

Until next time, yours in offroad extreme rallying Philip & Gary Team Ireland Dakar 2009.

The 2009 Dakar Ireland Team are in fit physical condition now and are focused on a gruelling weekly training schedule. In the Irish Enduro Championship held in Clonmel recently Philip came in second place using his 2008 KTM 525 exc practice bike which he will also use to compete in the Marroc rally at the end of September. The Clomel event gave an ideal opportunity to test out the recently fitted automatic clutch on the 525 at race speed  in advance of using it for the AMV / Shamrock Rally. The Rekluse automatic clutch was excellent and indeed seemed to get traction where a normal hydraulic clutch needs to be slipped.

Also tested at the event was the Pirelli Lagunas/cross rear tyre which gave some superb grip especially on the slippery and grassy uphills that had been thrown in for a little challenge on each lap of the course. The automatic clutch and Pirelli rear Laguna tyres will be used at the Rally in Morocco in four weeks time Sept. 21-27^th 2008.

Finally, Gary and Philip begin preparing their 525 exc practice bikes this week for the Morocco as the organizers have requested that a Sentinel system and GPS/Beacon are fitted to each machine. Together with an ICo tripmeter and Roadbook the machines will resemble mini-Dakar bikes by the time they are ready for scrutineering so if there are any good electrical engineers out there looking for something to do over the next two weeks please give us a call or drop us a mail at : info@teamdakarireland.com as your help would be appreciated!

Until next time yours in offroad extreme rallying Philip & Gary Team Ireland Dakar 2009.

The 2009 Team Dakar Ireland preparations are now in full swing for the Argentinian and Chilean event being held on January 3rd-16^th, 2009. The Irish team is one of the first confirmed entries for the 2009 Dakar Motorcycle category as the organizers rolled over our entries from earlier this year.

Philip is back to full training both aerobically and on the bike with a top six finish at round 2 of the Irish Enduro Championship in Mount Leinster Enduro 2008 held the weekend before last in the famous mountain of Mount Leinster next to Bunclody in Co.Wexford. The training is paying off. Gary meanwhile has just taken delivery of his KTM525 exc practice machine for getting used to a similar weight of bike to his full KTM rally machine on home ground. Both Philip and Gary will be running their practice KTM 525 exc machines in the FIM Marroc Rally in Marroco from the 21-28^th of September in order to test suspensions and other equipment at full race speed in the desert in advance of the Dakar. The Marroc rally is allowing an Enduro class for the first time in 2008 which will allow refueling every 90 km as long as the competitor has a standard enduro tank on their machine.The rally will involve daily stages of not less than 500 km cross country and not more than 900 km. The stages each day will involve steep mountain tracks with loose shale, fast open plains, dunes,chots and generally most of what would be thrown at a competitor in the Dakar rally.  We’re looking forward to the adventure!

Until next time – yours in offroad extreme rallying Philip & Gary,Team Ireland Dakar 2009.

Well it’s official the 2008 Euromiholes Dakar rally was cancelled for the first time in its 30 year history at the Belum center in Lisbon last Friday as a direct result of an official terrorist threat sent by Al-Queda to the Rally organizers A.S.O. The threat stated they would directly attack the rally and and its participants if it passed into Mauritania.

After the initial shock set in with Team Ireland on this news then the operation of packing up both of our Rally bikes, all of our Rally tyres and mooses and all of the parts as they had to be loaded onto race trucks heading back to our race base in Surrey.        

This was the bad news, the good news is we now have an extra 12 months to prepare for the 2009 edition of the Dakar Rally. The Rally organizers A.S.O will be announcing the plans for the 31^st  2009 rally next month and once we have the announcement in hand we will be using our automatic re-entry option to make sure we are one of the first teams on the 2009 competitors entry list.      

We can promise all of our supporters that we will be using two of the most sophisticated race machines for 2009 and we are also talking to some of the largest industries in the country regarding support for the event. For now we would like to thank all of the people who helped us for the 2008 Dakar particularly Karl of Parklane who as part of the Team Ireland Dakar support team on the ground in Europe and was lined up to transport us from Portimao to Malaga. Also Gary of Bluestone and all of the lads from Abbeyleix who were there in Lisbon in force to support us on the Portugese stages. Also the lads from
Cork who were on the ground to support us on the African stages Morocco-Senegal .  Also the Irish Media in particular Gerry Ryan of the Gerry Ryan show on 2FM, Robbie Irwan from The Sportsbag 2FM, Vincent Hogan and Donnacha Boyd of the Irish Independent and Jeff Hill of the Irish Times. We value your support and look forward to working with all of you for the 2009 Dakar Rally. 

Our message is very clear, we remain very positive and upbeat and are now even more determined to compete in Dakar 2009. We will keep you updated on developments and look forward to seeing some of you for a ride-out in the coming months.  

Yours in offroad extreme rallying Philip & Gary at Team Ireland Dakar 2009!

The Dakar is almost upon us and as we predicted, since we signed up to participate in June, the six months in between has flown by. The good news is the Rally bikes are almost completed at our race base in Surrey just our ERTF repeaters and IRI track systems and sentinels to be fitted and then they are ready to be shipped down to Lisbon for the race. We are getting the bikes painted in the Irish tri-colour as we want to identify ourselves amongst the large field of International riders/countries. The helmets are also being sprayed in the tri-colour (thanks to Ken at the Motorcycle paint shop in Ballymount…for the record Ken is Ireland’s only specialist motorcycle spray painter and doesn’t spray helmets but Philip managed to convince him to do it as a one off !). There has been a surge of offers from private Irish and International companies through our website to help us in the last few weeks and this has been most encouraging. We will be adding these sponsors to our web site, bikes, gear and PR listings as the promotions move up a gear in the coming weeks. We also have a lot of media interest nationally and will be planning daily or nightly updates en-route as we race through  Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. The bike training is winding down now for both Philip and Gary with only 3 weeks to run however the physical training is still at full speed. Keep an eye out on national TV, the papers and the airwaves over the coming weeks as the Team Dakar Ireland 2008 PR machine gathers pace in advance of the race.  Until next time….         

Philip and Gary have just returned from 7 extensive days of bike and gear testing in the desert of Morocco. 

Firstly, the new ONeals full fiberglass helmets were faultless during the testing and both riders literally felt like they were part of their skin after 1-2 days riding with them. This is testament to the new technology ONeals have used in manufacturing these super light helmets and a big thank you to them and to AB cyclefactors (this is the first time ONeals helmets will be officially used by a team in the Dakar).

Secondly,  the BMW Rallye Pro 2 suits were worn for 5 days in the desert at maximum temperatures of 38 degrees by both riders while testing their machines and they proved to be one of the best pro suits on the market for Rally Raids in desert conditions. The fact that the Rallye Pro 2 has inner liners enabled the team to drive through the very cold early mornings and then remove the liners for the extreme afternoon heat in the desert.  A big thank you to BMW Motorrad Ireland for their help in supplying these suits to team Ireland for the Dakar 2008.

Thirdly, both Philip and Gary used the new Kriega Hydra 3 water packs and toolkits for the tests and the quality and performance of these essential Rally raid aids was tremendous. The Kriega water backpacks were the most comfortable back packs when fully loaded compared to any other back packs used by either rider prior to this. Fourthly, both riders employed the use of the latest RTT steering dampers for their machines on this desert test, the new RTT steering damper is the most secure front end stabilizer to come on the market. The riders tested the RTT damper at speeds of 164.2 kph without any front end wobble and we look forward to giving them the full test during Dakar 2008.

Lastly, both machines were powered by Castrol oil for this extensive pre-Dakar shakedown of the machines and a big thank you to Dave and Peter at Castrol Ireland for all their support to the team  in helping keep the machines lubricated and rolling at full speed in Morocco.  We are getting excited now, Day One Dakar 2008 is fast approaching…..