2010 Dakar
A big day today. Started at 5.00am and still going, now quarter to one on New Year’s day.
Christophe had to put his bike through all the stringent technical checks as well as go through more of the administrative fun I mentioned yesterday. I shot some beautiful images - this whole setup lends itself to it - beautiful location, beautiful machines, beautiful weather, beautiful people. Really started to get a sense of the magnitude of the event - literally hundreds of cars, bikes, quads, buggies and trucks lining up in the “Parc Ferme’” ready to start. I’m by no means a rev head, but there is some inherent beauty in some of these machines.
The people here are obsessed by “el Dakar”. Christophe is being treated like a celebrity - everywhere he goes, people ask to have their photo taken with him, sign autographs etc etc. Everyone wishes us “mucho suerte” (good luck). It’s good energy to be carrying with us.
Spent New Year’s eve evening preparing the helmet cameras kindly provided to us by www.sportscamera.com.au
It took a while, but it’s all looking good. Am expecting some great results and will try and upload some bits and pieces here in the next few days.
And now to bed… after I transfer the 20 odd gigs of footage I shot to flash drives.
In about 14 hours, the racing begins.
The only rentacar in the Rally
It’s official. We’re the only Rentacar to be taking part in the 2010 Dakar. Jacob Black of SBS spent the day organising accreditation and a selection of great stickers for our little beauty. I reckon there’s a movie in this alone - Motorcycle Diaries meets Fear and Loathing as a film maker and a journalist chase the world’s most dangerous race in a Fiat Sienna.
Para comunicarse con Christophe durante el Rally Dakar pueden enviar mensajes de texto con un limite de 200 caracteres la informacion es esta:
http://messages.dakar.com/
Login: dakarmess
Password: BA2010dakar
Today was the last day to get the motorcycle ready, and it was a very long and hot day too. 13 hours later the 2010 Dakar Boxing Kangaroo made it onto the motorcycle :)
This is it! I am finally here. After a fretful 13 hour flight worrying about whether we’d be able to find a car we could take to Chile as well as Argentina (the internet showed everything booked out), we landed and immediately picked up a Fiat something or another from Hertz. It seems like a trivial concern, but not scoring a car could have seriously jeopardised the whole project and i’ve put too much into this to watch it crumble before the main event even starts.
I was oddly scared, sitting at Sydney airport waiting for the plane. I guess this is what happens when you go away leaving two young children at home. I cannot start to imagine what it would be like if I was actually racing. No surprise that Christophe has no one but himself and a labrador to worry about.
I think using myself as a somewhat less gun-ho foil to Christophe’s madness may work nicely in the movie. A big part of its purpose is to show what it really takes to undertake an adventure like this.
Bored yet? From tomorrow I’ll start uploading clips of film. much more interesting!
Spent the afternoon reliving the administrative entertainment I so enjoyed in my 10 years living in France. Amazing how the Dakar race organisers (French) have managed to turn the administration of one of the world’s greatest adventures into the sort of photocopying, sucking through teeth and paper waving fest usually reserved for hallways of French town halls. As a student I became a master of circumnavigating the attempts of French bureaucratic spinsters to scupper my claims to a resident’s card or to housing benefit. A smile or a compliment in the face of their immaculate grayness was usually enough and I seem to have not lost my touch. I sit here in Buenos Aires, a fully accredited Producer Director Writer; ready to roll.
Page 6 of 10
|
