Pavey Dakar Diary: day 9

With not one but two Paveys in Dakar this year, as veteran campaigner Simon is joined by son Llewelyn, the pair still has a hard battle ahead of them to complete the arduous 9295km race across South America.

It was another typical Dakar day Pavey-style with crashes, great team-work and above all steely determination. Consistent pace through the day’s 451kms special stage ticked off riders above them – making time back they’d earlier lost and pushing on further to claim places in the running order.

Simon Pavey

• Start position: 77th
• Finish Position: 61^st

The guys did an unbelievable job last night. It was probably 9pm when we handed the bikes to them covered in salt and mud. They washed them first job and both bikes stopped and wouldn’t run again.

They pretty much had the whole bikes apart. They worked all night and were literally still putting bikes together at the start time.

20kms out the bivouac today Llel’s bike was steaming and it looked really dramatic. We didn’t have any parts to fix it so I went back, got Evan, who was in liaison so he can come to us. We found out the centre of the oil pressure switch had just corroded through. So I went and got a pint of chocolate milk and had a poo, which seemed like the thing to do at that point!

By the time we got fixed and to the start of the special we were at the back of the field. At first they didn’t want us to take the start – they wanted us to wait an hour to let the first 15 cars go. We had a little bit of a heated discussion about that. Common sense prevailed eventually.

Those first fifteen cars aren’t the problem. They’re so fast and such good drivers that you’ve only got to roll off the throttle and they’re gone. It’s after that it gets difficult. Usual story – most people are really good but dickheads who didn’t use their sentinels (warning signal between vehicles) and just storm past. It infuriates me.

But it all gets to be a vicious circle then – the tracks are destroyed so it’s hard going, then the trucks start to arrive and once they come you just have to stop because the dust they create just makes the sky disappear.

Pretty early in the day Llel had a monster crash. He didn’t really do anything wrong, caught a stone in the fesh-fesh and just went boom! A rally bike goes so quickly when it goes. He went down really hard and shook his confidence quite a bit for a long time.

A long day totally tomorrow but a decentish liaison then a not too bad special and a high tricky pass but I think we’ve already done it earlier in the rally coming out. I think I remember it and I enjoyed it. So not difficult day we hope!

Llewelyn Pavey

• Start position: 76th
• Finish Position: 59^th

I wouldn’t say never again but a day like today makes you wonder why! It’s been a really, really tough day for me. Right from the start I think I was annoyed that I was having problems again and it’s no-one’s fault apart from Etienne Lavigne (Dakar race director) and I’m quite happy to tell him that.

It made life really hard starting next to the cars. The track was destroyed and even in the dunes it was really hard to find a clean line.

We got out the dunes and I was starting to ride nice, not pushing at all and then I had a massive crash. I don’t even know how I clipped this rock that the front wheel missed and the back wheel didn’t but I hit the deck really, really hard. It shook me pretty bad and I didn’t get over it for a long time. I was all over the place. I had no energy, I had no will almost. I didn’t want to be there any more.

After that it was just hard work. Like ‘hare and hounds’ racing in the UK but with 500 people taking part, the track is ruined. Rocks, bumps, fesh-fesh, stutter bumps, braking bumps. It beats your hands up more than anything.

But apart from that, we made it! It was a proper team effort, this last two days in fact. If we hadn’t both been there I don’t think we would have made it. Mechanically this morning of course but mentally today it was really hard to push through that. Another day tomorrow, a better day I hope!