“We are very disappointed that both of our cars failed to finish the 2011 Dakar Rally. Our team was better prepared than ever, so two DNF's makes this hurt a lot. We will start preparing for the 2012 Dakar as soon as we return from the rally and try our best to compete with VW next year. I definitely felt that I could have matched their speed in Chile, but we do have our work cut out for us improving the race cars for the Argentina stages,” commented Robby Gordon.
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Even if ASO removed restrictor from Robbys hummer for the Argentinian stages, he would have a hard time keeping up with the VW's. It is less about the power and more about traction and suspension geomertry/setup.
The problem with going to 4wd is that then Robby has to go toe to toe against the $100 million VW team with only a small fraction of the budget. It isn't realistic to think he would be able to build a 4wd car that is close to as good as all the veedub money has. At least if he sticks with 2wd, he has some rule advantages that he can try to exploit to make up time such as the unlimited wheel travel, auto tire deflators, and larger tires. What he needs is to lobby for a few more rule advantages, but he hasn't made any friends with ASO this year. They will probably shrink his restrictor for next year. And in reality, he was running in the top 5 before he crashed in stage 2 and in a few sections of stage 3, before the transmission issue, he put up the fastest times between some WPMs. I don't think he is too far off if he can keep it out of the ditch and not have mechanical problems. He also has a problem with logistics during the race. If he had 3 or 4 RGM cars running like VW or X-raid, and a bigger support team, he would have been better off as well.
Money is less of a subject then many people think. VW is VW. Its overrated to say the least. If youve evr worked on those you know..I think RG can build a 4WD that easily can compete with any factory team.
I think RG need sto contact Ford to build a killer Raptor. Both Raptors are still in the rally, a few days behind though, but theyre there with nearly stock drivetrains..
2 words.... 30 Milliyon dollars....
on DRIVE TRAIN alone....
thats what VW spots their teams.
ok! i cant count or type :P
A. Need brighter color vehicle to be seen by team mate while roadside . . .Blaze orange aint cuttin` it .
B. Bearing failure on the front wheel of a RWD only vehicle thats outfitted with the best hardware money can buy? RG Take the WD40 off of the support truck . . .
( sorry fellas, i`m just a sore loser Like the boss ) Totally took the fun out of the Dakar when Robby got booted . .
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