Dakar 2017 Nissan Final Results

So this year's Dakar is over.  Despite significant changes to how navigation was done, terrible weather conditions at times, 15,000 feet in elevation, some new terrain and new countries...the end results were as would have been expected before the event with Peugeot dominating the competition with their top flight drivers and equipment.  The Toyota Hilux's of Team Overdrive which had been nip and tuck with the Peugeot's during the rest of the year's events were not a significant factor with Nasser Al-Attiyah crashing out early and Nani Roma and DeVilliers finishing 4th and 5th overall, over an hour back.  Overall, Toyotas were the dominant marque of the event putting 28 finishers at the checkered flag out of 57 finishers overall.

So did any Nissans finish after only four started??  Yes...one...

#334--The VK56 powered Renault Duster of Facundo Ardusso consistently finished in the mid 20th position each day with its peak coming on stages 5 and 12 where it finished 18th each time.  This was good enough for the team to score a 22nd place finish overall.  I have learned that these are actually South African built vehicles and will have to inquire as to whether the Thompson Racing outfit that builds them has connections with the Nissan efforts there.

I know the South African teams mostly took the '17 Dakar off and didn't really have anyone present as they have in years past making this year an almost Nissan absent event.  Hopefully some more are built or budgets are found for Nissans in the '18 Dakar given how well the brand has done there in the past and how much Nissan is expanding and pushing its trucks and SUVs worldwide...

Half Way Through the Silk Way Rally and Jurgen Schroeder and His Nissan are in 16th Overalll

In what is one of the longer, more difficult rally-raids the Silk Way Rally is often viewed as a precursor to the Dakar where the big boys come out to play and test their machines.

With Cyril Depres, Sebastian Loeb, Stephane Peterhansel, and Yazeed al Rajhi all present the leaderboard is stacked with potential Dakar 2017 winners.

Jurgen Schroeder and his son Max are piloting their South African built Nissan Navarra V8 across Russia, its former territories, and all the way to Beijing.  They have run well so far with a few navigation hiccups today that cost them some 10 minutes or more and leaves them in 16th place overall and one hour, nine minutes behind the leader, Cyril Despres.  The Nissan shop in South Africa run by Terence Marsh for Red Lined Motorsport has sent some mechanics to assist but otherwise this is a pure privateer effort.

Silk Way Rally Nissan Results through Stage 6

16th  Jurgen Schroeder, Nissan Navara, 1:08:54 adrift
20th  Sergey Uspenskiy, Nissan GForce Proto, 1:36:48
21st  Miao Ma, Nissan Pathfinder, 1:42:08
37th  Sergey Fomin, Nissan NP300 Pickup, 3:14:48
53rd  Rong Zi, Nissan Patrol, 4:45:21

V8 Navara Takes Third in South Africa...

In the Donaldson Cross Country Motor Racing Championship.  This was in Production Class T and driven by Luke Botha and codriven by Andre Vermeulen.  The event (Toyota Kalahari Botswana 1000 Desert Race) brakes down into two races, each of near 500km and is a brutal test of some of the best Rally-Raid drivers this side of Dakar.

The Red-Lined Motorsport team consistently fields four or more V8 powered Navaras (Frontiers) in the Donaldson series and also sends a handful of cars to the Dakar the past few years.

https://www.facebook.com/sacrosscountryracing/

Finishing Nissans of the 2016 Dakar

Not that there were that many of them...and the best performing Nissan wasn't wrapped in Nissan clothing at all as it wore a Renault badge.  The best Nissan Frontier of the event suffered a bad crash on the second to last stage of the event and DNF'd...As we've seen in recent years...the Nissan marque has dwindled at the Dakar.  Our last best hope is from the Redline Motorsports guys in South Africa who continue to build great Rally Raid vehicles designed around a V8 Nissan engine at a price appropriate for serious privateers while providing event support as well.  So here they are...the Nissan finishers of the 2016 Dakar.

17th Place, #317, Renault Sport Argentina, Renault Duster (Nissan VK50 V8), Emiliano Spataro

18th Place, #308, Renault Sport Argentina, Renault Duster (Nissan VK50 V8), Christian Lavieille

36th Place, #375, Red Line Racing Team, Nissan Navara (Nissan VK50 V8), Sean Reitz

40th Place, #363, Revival Aventures RS 13 Nissan (4L Nissan), Jean Philippe Theuriot

Three other Nissan Navaras, one Nissan powered Renault Duster and one Nissan powered buggie were DNFs in the '16 Dakar.

Book Review: Gunship Ace--The Wars of Neall Ellis, Helicopter Pilot and Mercenary

I've always been interested in the lesser known conflicts of South Africa and Africa in general which receive little media interest compared to say Europe and the Middle East here in the US.  I also have always found those who choose to participate in war for money or ideals as mercenaries.

This then provided a nice joining of the two interests as Neal Ellis fought on the side of South Africa against Angola and its Cuban proxies during the '70s and '80s and also fought in a number of other conflicts--Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Afghanistan, etc. as a helicopter pilot in a number of roles ever since.

Unfortunately the author, Al Ventor, is not exactly a skilled writer.  More of a newspaper reporter trying his hand at a long form story, the book is a regurgitation of interviews he has done with Neall Ellis added to Ventor's own dry observations from his time in the field as a war correspondent.  There is little story flow or connection between the various parts of the work.  We're here one minute and there the next with no threads between the two places.  Neall Ellis also remains a cardboard cutout and not a fully fleshed character as we get little insight into him as a person and only get a paragraph here and there of his own words to describe his thoughts and feelings.

Ellis' resume is impressive, piloting Mi-8s and Mi-24s across the globe in addition to his earlier flights behind the rudder of a number of South African helicopters.  He comes across as an honorable individual who was not solely driven to fight out of a desire for money but more out of need for employment and few options for a man of his very specific skill sets.  His history includes the participation in missions that saved the lives of a number of UK serviceman who had been taken captive in Sierra Leone where he earned the majority of his fame (and a sizable bounty on his head).
Ellis is currently (or at least most recently) operating in Afghanistan with a number of NGOs supporting US and other operations.

Most interesting within this work is the shear number of conflicts that Ellis was involved in and that one generally forgets are actually taking place at any one time.  That Ellis survived the antiaircraft fire present at every turn in this piece is amazing.  You do get to learn a good deal about the modern mercenary here as well as a fair introduction into a number of lesser known conflicts but its style, structure and disjointed nature of its telling leaves Ellis deserving of a better encapsulation.

Nissan GT-R and Audi R8 Hillclimb Crash

This video is from Knysna Hill Climb in South Africa.  You can see what I assume to be the couple cars ahead of the silver GT-R are also GT-Rs so they have what appears to be a great field of streetcars for this hillclimb.  Reports show that they get about 9000 spectators for the event and are looking at about 10-12K spectators in 2014.  The event is surrounded by classic car shows and other events supported by the town and local community.

It was sponsored by Renault from '09 to '12 and when Renault pulled its sponsorship in '13 the event was cancelled.  With the addition of Jaguar as a title sponsor for '14 the event will return this May.  I'm assuming this video is from the '11 edition of the race since '13 was cancelled and '14 hasn't happened yet and with the second video ascribed to 2011 showing a wrecked silver GT-R in addition to the crash of an Audi R8.  It does appear to be a very short hill climb however given that the winning times in '12 (top seven spots all held by GT-Rs) were in the 40+ second range.  You can see a couple photos of the course at below.

You can see more info on the event here: http://www.speedfestival.co.za/

Nissan Navaras Coming to Dakar 2015....

Coming to the 2015 Dakar will be a handful of new South African built Nissan Navaras possessing a V8 engine.  These trucks are still in a bit of a development/testing phase as they have only run a handful of races in SA in '13 but they are now coming of the jigs on a regular basis and being sold across the world.  We'll see how they compare to the Toyota HiLux run by Giniel de Villiers during the South African offroad season as Thomas Rundle (who finished the Dakar this year in his borrowed HiLux) will be running the V8 Navara all season long.  If you would like to purchase one, learn more about them or perhaps race one in South Africa you can contact Terence Marsh at: terence@redlined.co.za

Some info provided by Terence here:
 

We have built 4 of these to date with the 5^th one currently on the jig which is for a German customer and is scheduled for delivery in February 2014 (update--already delivered in late December/early January). The 6^th chassis which is currently at laser cutting is for an Australian customer and is scheduled for delivery in July 2014.

The base model race unit which is built to FIA and Dakar specification sells for $295,000 US dollars.

·       This unit includes the mounting points for the on-board jack system but excludes the system itself – it uses the same system as the Toyotas.

·       The unit comes with 8 Reiger dampers which are then available in 3 different variances/options.

·       The price listed above excludes the air-conditioning system which is an optional extra.  Fiberglass body is produced in house.

These cars have been purposely built with Dakar in mind and we will have at least two at the 2015 Dakar and 3 or 4 race cars at the 2016 Dakar. Three of our race cars have successfully been tested in our local championship this year and have covered in excess of 8,000 km of rugged and tough terrain with ease. We have worked closely with our Partners at Reiger suspension to get the optimal performance and handling out of the race car and can comfortably say we have achieved this. We have introduced several performance upgrades for the engine package through the year and are now comfortable that are perfromance is up there with the best in the world – the Infiniti FX50 engine has proved to be exceptionally strong and more importantly very reliable!

Please feel free to visit our website at www.regentracing.co.za to get some more insights and photos of the race cars as well as have a ‘virtual view’ of the race car within our video section.

Should any of the guys on your side require any further information or assistance regarding the above they can feel free to contact me on my email address or my mobile number which is listed below.

We are also happy to accommodate international drivers who would like to come out to South Africa and compete in one of our National events – we basically provide a ‘arrive and drive’ package for these customers which includes all the necessary testing together with one of our Championship events in a V6 powered Nissan Navara (ex Dakar car).

Technical specs:

Engine: Nissan VK50VE (from the Infiniti FX50)
Engine Capacity: 5.0L V8
Power Output: 390hp @ 6500rpm and 500nm @ 4400rpm
Gearbox: Sadev 6 speed sequential
Suspension: Double wishbone front and live rear axle
Shock Absorbers: Reiger
Engine Management System: Motec M800
Competition weight: 1975kg
Fuel Capacity: 480L
Wheels: 16 x 7 Evo Corse
Tyres: BF Goodrich

 

Nissan Navara/Frontier Build For Dakar 2015

Yup...2015...

No, we're not in '14 yet but builds for Dakar '15 are already underway.  One of these happens to be a Nissan being built in South Africa for Johan van Staden.  This Dakar spec vehicle it is being built by Stuart Thompson Graeme Thornton and Achim Bergman, also of South Africa who built the recent BMW X3 which took the last win of the South Africa Off Road Championship in '13.

I'll let those who are more technically inclined and knowledgeable than I to pick apart just what the particular parts of this vehicle are in terms of shock placement, suspension geometry, etc. What I can tell you is that the little grey box in the rear of the cab is an air conditioning unit sourced from Glyn Hall at Hallspeed of S.A. (the former Nissan Motorsports manager and now overseer of the Toyota team heading to Dakar), the engine in the Frontier/Navara is a V8 (VK56?) and that the fuel cell is 480 liters--almost 127 gallons!!   Are those shocks Reigers??  I believe I spy a sequential gear shifter--a Sadev??  Are the rear links beefy enough?

I am unsure of what the rear diff is though the previous Navaras built for Dakar and RallyRaid events have replaced the standard diff with that from a Nissan Patrol and they may have done the same here.  The have also gone from a rear leaf spring on the stock Navara/Frontier with a coilover setup (4 link?) and widened the front track (though not by a ton and those arms look a little wimpy for my tastes) and they have sourced some fiberglass parts that I haven't seen available anywhere as well.

Please chime in with what you see here in terms of the design and parts used.  I'm interested in what people with more knowledge of these builds than I think about it.  I've reached out to try and get more details of the build and will try to update this if I get more info.