After scanning the maps and confirming with The Weatherman the Race Mile position last reported for Darkcyd Racing’s Desert Warrior, Raff led our convoy west toward Heroes de la Indenpendencia, a tiny village about halfway between Ensenada and San Felipe on Baja California’s Route 3. Without an accurate GPS position and useless GPS maps, Raff […]
The Darkcyd Racing Team’s Rally Raid UK built Desert Warrior blasted through the Ensenada Aqueducts and onto the track heading to Ojos Negros, about 35 miles into the race where the track crosses Baja California’s Route 3. Tara, Gary and I throttled our rented Buick SUV down the pavement while Raff, Bill, Tommy and the […]
The Darkcyd Racing Team’s Desert Warrior, a custom-built off-road racing vehicle designed to endure perhaps the toughest race on the planet—The Dakar—sat at the team camp at Estero Beach just south of Ensenada. Unsure if the Desert Warrior, made by well-known British builder Rally Raid UK, would be able to run in the 2011 Tecate […]
The day before a big race always creates a halo of excitement, tension and tentativeness among race teams and crews and even blogger photographers. Darkcyd Racing and driver Robb Rill had little experience with the lastest steed in its stable: The Rally Raid UK built Desert Warrior — a complex and sturdy machine engineered, initially, […]
To Finish Is To Win – WRC Rally Mexico As a reader of this blog, you’ll remember the trials and tribulations of the Darkcyd Racing Team and its bid to finish at the World Rally Championship (WRC) in León Mexico. During the race several photographers and videographers contributed pictures and footage that has now been […]
With the team feeling better about Saturday’s successes, rolling into Sunday with less apprehension and the level excitement seen on everyone’s faces. Though the crew knew that lurking above was the harbinger of doom: will the brakes last another day of racing? Trailing just a few minutes behind Fricke and his Rally Team of Dreams […]
By the time the second day of WRC Rally Mexico started, only 5 Rally America group cars were still in the race. The rough roads, intense heat and constant beating of cars had whittled the pack in half. The Darkcyd Racing Team strategy was simple: finish the race. Around the pit there was apprehension about […]
With the first day of real rally racing ahead, the team was up early and ready to send Rob and Ben off to the first Alfaro stage, a 26km (15.6 miles) of wide and sweeping turns on a fairly good gravelly surface which gets tighter and more twisty in the last 5km. . In rally […]
Word on the street from WRC/FIA scrutineering inspectors that if all safety equipment was in order, the Rally America teams competing in WRC Rally Mexico would pass inspection quickly and without hassle. But for the more than six teams that were sent back due to bad welds, the story was much different. Ken Block and […]
The preparation, logistics and communication required to participate in a professional world class rally competition is enormous. The task is compounded when importing a vehicle, spare parts, tools and additional equipment into a foreign country, in this case Mexico. DarkCyd Racing has compiled a competent technical team, most arriving late yesterday, including lead technician, Ken […]
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