A Disappointing End to Robby Gordon’s Dakar Rally Effort

Charlotte, NC (January 7, 2011) – When Team HUMMER departed on their journey to Argentina on December 27th, returning home early defeated was not part of the plan. On Wednesday during Stage 4 of the event, the No. 303 SPEED Energy/Toyo Tires HUMMER was disqualified from the 2011 Dakar Rally. After breaking a wheel bearing in the liaison stage that leads to the special, the No. 303 team was on the clock to repair the damage. With little time to deploy the support vehicles to his aid, the new wheel bearing could not be replaced on the HUMMER in the time allotted to the team, resulting in automatic disqualification.

“Disappointed doesn’t even begin to describe the way I’m feeling right now, not only for me but for everyone involved,” says Gordon. As a driver, Robby knows that he can’t have a successful team without a first-rate support system, sponsors and fans included. “Knowing all the hard work and dedication that was put into this program is what makes our untimely exit from the Dakar Rally a hard pill to swallow,” he continues to say.

“While it may not appear like it due to our performance thus far, countless hours went into this effort. To have a wheel bearing fail is just sickening…a huge, huge disappointment,” Gordon comments. “We run this same wheel bearing on the trophy truck and have put thousands of kilometers on HUMMERs, and we have never had this part fail.” Once the equipment returns from Argentina every part of the HUMMER will be scrutinized to determine what caused the mechanical failure, and preparation for next year’s Rally will commence.

“Since we had an early exit from the Rally, I intend to compete in the Laughlin race next weekend in the trophy truck and conquer another SCORE championship.”

In the meantime, Gordon would like to thank all his fans for the supportive emails, Facebook and Twitter posts. Gordon says, “I’ve got the best sponsors and fans in the world, and I don’t like disappointing them.” Before returning to the US next week, Gordon has decided to continue along the route to support Eliseo Salazar’s effort. He will host a media tomorrow, giving journalists a ride of their life in the HUMMER.

The No. 327 SPEED Energy/Cristal CERO HUMMER, driven by Eliseo Salazar, continues to compete in the rally and is currently in the 56th overall position. SPEED DEMON, Quinn Cody, finished a respectable 13th during stage six of the 2011 Dakar Rally. He is now 12th in the overall standings.

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Permalink Reply by Bricoop on January 9, 2011 at 11:08pm

I assume you mean lose the alternator? How are you supposed to charge the battery?

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Permalink Reply by Mike Kenyon on January 10, 2011 at 12:07am

I'll repeat,as I gave the answer in my original post ( YES,I'm test'y on this issue )

why not mount a stator to the flywheel and bag the alternator.

(Almost all motorcycles with a charging/battery system use a stator.Polaris use's them on all the Victory's,Ranger's, Razor's ,google it)

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Permalink Reply by bighead on January 10, 2011 at 4:17pm

Whooo testy, and just how big of a stator do ya recomend putting on the Hummer.......or maybe to make up for the size and charging amps you can run them in line....I wonder why some major auto maker hasn't started putting stators on cars....and if you put them on the flywheel *&@#$@%@ my head is spinning watching that stator going round and round..

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Permalink Reply by Mike Kenyon on January 10, 2011 at 9:54pm

They do,there called HYBRID's

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Permalink Reply by FD REBEL on January 11, 2011 at 10:11am

Simple run 2 alternators , One off the serp. belt and one off the drive train (drive shaft). Install a very small generator set that has 12VDC alt driven by a small engine, hard wire it into the main 12 volt buss for emergency use when both primary units fail. I can design and install...

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Permalink Reply by J.R. Sands on January 9, 2011 at 10:23pm

How about take a look at all video shot, sit down and watch film see what was missed, check on stuff that might have possible damage in a off road situation. IMO