To be frank, I think everyone knows that the Hummers are simply faster than the other cars. We know it, the competition knows it and ASO knows it. Take away our mechanical breakdowns and we would have easily won the majority of the stages; not just by a little, but a lot. Robby and Nasser are great drivers it's true, but to give them their due, some of the other drivers are no slouches either. We've all seen the videos of the Hummers and Mini's going head-to-head, and the Hummers just blow right on by. Whiners they may be, but other drivers have essentially said the same thing : while various terrain differences may favor different configurations, given the overall conditions this year, the Hummers are quite simply the faster cars.

So is it fair for ASO to continue to allow us to have a speed advantage, simply because, as a smaller team that advantage is assumed to be offset by reliability issues, or is there a legitimate case to be made for slowing the Hummers next year ?

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bitchin. I want one!

They are pretty bad-ass, I was checking one out at the USA 500 last year. Especially with the new triangulated 4-link in the back. The only issue is you need at least 2000 of them produced to get into the stock class. :)

Lets just pray this type of RGM vehicles will be allowed to run in 2013. It HAS te be a big V8 for Robby Gordon, He needs it just for the car configuration alone, lots of low end torque to make sure those 37s keep on turning in soft uphill dune sand. If RG by rules has to switch to a small displacement engine, he pretty much is obligated to switch to a 4WD like everyone else is running. In other words, NO excitement at all. Iam not sure if I'd be still watching the dakar. Its that RGM 2WD "Class 1" All American package deal that makes it ring.

Any number of other commentaries I've read have mentioned that Robby is far in a way the most popular driver and car among the locals down there. I suspect that ASO feels that it's main obligation is to the manufacturers, even if there are not a lot of factory teams anymore, but I think they probably pay attention to fan reactions in the host countries as well. And boy do they love that big loud orange truck.

Trimming Robby's wings too much is not going to help their image with the locals, so hopefully they will tread lightly when it comes to messing up Robby's racing presentation.

So if you want to keep Chevy power, just pop into a Camaro!!!

or a hemi charger , bo and luke did prety good in the dirt

Nice! Where did you find that? Did you model it yourself?

The Minis, the VW Tauregs of last year, and Robby's Hummer all have on thing in common. They are skinned over race cars. The same goes for NASCAR and Trophy Trucks.

RGM has a lot going for it right now. I'd love it if Robby and Johnny returned next year, with a three car team. They could skin them with whatever skin-deal they can swing. The Chrysler Maserati deal seems pretty cool. But what about VW? I wonder if RGM could swing a deal there? I even think the Hummer could be powered by something other than the Chevy LS. The LS is a great engine, but it's not the key to what RGM is doing here.

Robby is an amazing driver, but then so is Nasser, and so is Andy McMillin. The long-travel rear-engine car that RGM has developed is the stand-out factor here. I'd love to see it skinned again with a traditional US brand, but skinning it with a European brand might be easier for the ASO to swallow, when RGM finishes one, two, and three.

Oh ya, what about Speed Energy? RGM might not need or want any of the above. But for reasons of tradition and fan connection and appeal, the RGM cars need to look like something. They need to look like a mass produced vehicle, even if it is just skin.

No, I didn't create that. Just was searching through crazy GM concept vehicles and someone had put that up, so I swiped it.

VW? You just dont understand...

Haha. You are probably right, I don't understand. There's history between Robby, VW, and Dakar, isn't there? I caught that much in the comments over the past three weeks.

And perhaps the corporate teams such as VW want to run their own program. I don't really know how all this works. But if Chrysler/Maserati will pay to skin the RGM car as a Maserati, why wouldn't a German car company? That's where I was coming from.

Take my comments with a grain of salt. However, I do think that Robby is a proven winner at Dakar, although not yet an overall winner. He builds a winning car, and runs a winning enterprise. Case in point is Nasser and Qatar. When did they ink that deal, mid November? Sheesh! Hardly enough time for Nasser to get his helmet painted. Although the effort feel short and Nasser grumbled as he said good-bye, the strengths of the car and the RGM enterprise still showed through.

I don't know if the title of this concept car from chevy will show on here or not, but if you search this concept car the file name on it is "Chevrolet-Rally-Dakar Concept". Now I am REALLY interested on where this may be going!!!

Here is a link to some foreign stuff... This truck was supposed to be a foreign market vehicle to start with before getting released in the US. Since this is for the foreign market, what better place to debut but Dakar?

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=chevrolet+concept+cars+2012&...

That's the World Chevy Colorado (rebadged Isuzu D-Max) Rally Concept. It shares the same Hummer H3 based platform as the US Colorado but other then that they're completely different trucks. Isuzu designed it but here is a video from Holden acting like they designed it which shows some pretty good views of it (the street version).

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