From the official live feed: "202 kilometres into today's special, Robby Gordon was probably trying to claw back the time lost in the dune area 20 kilometres earlier when his car did a somersault. The crew emerged unscathed and are reported to be on their way to the finish."
I've had a love/hate opinion of Robby Gordon since his career began so it's back to the latter again, Robby you bombastic bung hole! :cornut:
He clearly blew his top. Some will say he was just angry and lashing out and I agree but I say he was just angry enough so his social filter turned off and he said what was really thinking. He was also clearly pushing too hard while trying to make his point today on Stage 13. By the second waypoint he was already 8:45 up on Peterhansel who had the second fastest time. He did amazingly well too even after that IMO. Look at it this way, he got stuck in the sand for a while, then he did a somersault and after recovering from that and then reportedly driving more conservatively he had to stop to replace a flat tire, and he still only lost 36 min. A few of the MINIs got stuck in the dunes today as well. Leal dos Santos didn't but he lost time helping Roma get going again. Stage 13 results: 1 - MINI (Peterhansel) 2 - Toyota +8:29 3 - MINI (Novitskiy) +12:55 4 - Great Wall +13:39 5 - Toyota ++14:57 6 - MINI (Leal dos Santos) +15:04 7 - MINI (Roma) +22:57 8 - Nissan +24:32 9 - BMW +32:10 10 - Hummer +36:01 11 - BMW +40:24 12 - MINI (Holowczyc) +41:32
Classic Robbie Gordon.ut: A highly skilled racer who cannot control his emotions & more often than not snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. MINI's are for girls.... :lol: Thanks for the laugh Robby. :smilewinkgrin:
Yep, Robbie had/has as much raw talent as anybody I've ever seen but alas, he has made a career of beating himself at least as much as his competition has.... :screwy:
We sat in my Tahoe and had a beer a few years back down in Darlington and he seemed like a pretty good Guy in person...of course he was pissed at his team then and didn't think they could find their rear ends with both hands in their back pockets...lol
I'd like to hear the rest of the Al-Attiyah story. Gordon stopped to help him a couple times in early stages which surprised me because those were very team-oriented actions. According to Gordon after one of the worst of those early delays Al-Attiyah was ready to quit and go home. No word on whether that was because Al-Attiyah blamed the quality of the Hummer for his performance and thought it wasn't worthy of his effort or he just wasn't having fun because he wasn't winning so he didn't want to play anymore. I thought Gordon made an excellent point after Al-Attiyah eventually called it quits and went home. He said, and rightly so IMO, the guy could have hung in there as a supporting team player like Gordon did for him early on and probably finish around 5th place anyway but he decided to quit instead. It's only a two car team so I can understand how having his only other supporting player quit on him would add to his frustration. Top that with the official disqualification and competitors calling him a cheat plus a lot of late hours trying to keep things together and it's no surprise he's right up there at the boiling point. To be honest, I'm surprised to be defending him as I'm far from a fan. He's running the rest of the rally under appeal and won't know the result of the appeal for weeks. If it turns out he really is running an illegal system I'll gladly call that the main reason for his tension and that ridiculous outburst. Does everyone following along understand the reason he was disqualified?
Correct me if I am wrong. Last year didn't Robbie have a problem with his Hummer, wheel bearing I think? Anyhow his team mate did not see him & drove on by. I seem to remember Gordon saying he was going to leave & go home. That left the other Hummer with no support. Deja Vu all over again? :wink:
I'll take your word for it, I wasn't paying attention to him at all last year. Sounds like prima donna syndrome is alive and well on the Dakar. At least he wasn't griping after all the trouble he had on the stage today. "I was driving at a high pace when I crossed a dune and suddenly the front of my car crashed into the sand. We were stuck and lost 40 to 45 minutes there. In the meanwhile, Stéphane overtook us and we set off behind him very quickly. Then my car did a somersault, but we put it back on its wheels and continued the special! Incredible! I wanted to beat the Minis with a big margin today. Actually, there was a moment when we were leading them by 30 minutes. At least we had fun."
"MINIs are for Girls?" So a handful of "girl" cars are going to end up kicking your arrogant arse! Hummers are for men . . .with small [expletive deleted].:devil:
Can't resist reframing this joke for the Dakar Ok, Ok, Gordon's comments about the MINI put me on full monkey tilt! "What is the difference between a Porcupine and a Hummer in the Dakar? With the Porcupine, the prick is on the outside!" That joke never gets old!!!!
I can imagine that employing Robbie Gordon would be a continuous pain in the neck but as racer/team manager I admire him. He rarely seems to say anything other than what he thinks and that is rare enough in professional racers. On the Yurpeen Dakar coverage Gordon clearly explained that the big loss of time the day before yesterday was own fault - he decided to replace the hubs as a preventative measure, the clip on a CV boot failed, leading to the failure of the CV joint. Not many drivers have the guts to use the words "my fault". And I liked the bit where he tried to force the Eurosport cameraman inside the engine compartment so that they could see that he had blocked off the air inflation system that is in dispute - and still beat the Minis.
Yep I like his straight shooter talk, tells it exactly as he sees it.... But he beats himself overdriving the car, pushing it to do way more than it's capable of, eventually running it into the ground or into someone or something else.... Get's out front and he wants to lap the field instead of pacing himself to victory...drive ya freaking nuts watching him sometimes....:banghead:
It's all but wrapped up now. It was a short stage today -- 254km but only 29km timed -- and the leaders in the car division are through the timed section. Gordon won the stage, Peterhansel came 10th but wins the overall. Stage 14 results: 1 - Hummer 2 - MINI (Leal dos Santos) +00:00:21 3 - MINI (Holowczyc) +00:00:38 4 - Toyota +00:01:28 5 - Great Wall +00:01:36 6 - Toyota +00:02:01 7 - MINI (Novitskiy) +00:02:10 8 - MINI (Roma) +00:02:11 9 - Mitsubishi +00:02:49 10 - MINI (Peterhansel) +00:03:12 I'll post the final standings and times once they're up.
MINI Wins its Class at the Dakar Rally Stephane Peterhansel clinched his 10th Dakar Rally win today and the first for Mini as a brand in the car category. Peterhansel lead much the event in the category. The Frenchman battled American Robby Gordon’s Hummer team for most of the way. However a combination of car issues and possible sanctions over a tire inflation system dropped the American back to 5th. The X-raid team had entered five MINI ALL4 Racings at the Dakar. The fact that all five cars reached the finish shows the great reliability of the MINI ALL4 Racing as well as the quality of the X-raid team. Quandt: “I would like to say thank you very much to all the driver crews and the whole X-raid team for their superb efforts. They have made the first Dakar victory in the histrory of the X-raid team come true.” The overall result is indeed an impressive one. All MINI ALL4 Racing drivers finished in the overall top ten. Nani Roma was second and Leonid Novitskiy fourth, while Ricardo Leal dos Santos and Krzystof Holowczyc claimed eighth and tenth places overall. Throughout the whole event, one of the X-raid team’s MINIs has always been sitting pretty on top of the overall standings. MotoringFile