Living the Dos Sertoes Dream - Racing 4,500 km across Brazil

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BlueBull2007

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The Dos Sertoes rally is a motorbike, car & truck rally event that Starts on Tuesday the 10th August in a place called Goiania in southern Brazil and finishes in Fortaleza in the north about 4,480 km later. It is the second longest rally in the world after the famous Dakar rally.

I have been preparing myself and my race bike for this over the last 7 months, and we are fast approaching the big day. I have started this thread for the benefit not only of all the wilddog adventure riders but also for family and friends to follow along. Some kind Wilddogs have offered to report in on my behalf during the race. There will be hopefully photos coming through every day or two along with short phoned-in reports when I can.

You can read all about it if you click on this link -> https://wilddog.net.za/forum/index.php?topic=45404.0

Check out the official Rally website here for videos and reports: https://www.sertoes.com/Ing_index.html

Preparation has been exhausting. And expensive. But we are here. I am about 600m away from the start sitting in a hotel room typing this, and I must say the feeling is indescribably electric. There are thousands of people milling about preparing their teams. Our bikes are not yet ready!  :eek7: But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me recap the last three days:

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Here we are at the airport leavign Peru four nights ago, Diederik (DD), a great friend Didi is the bodyguard on the right.  >:D He is here with me after volunteering to be part of the support crew.

We metup with two team mates from America, forming the core of a three rider team called Team Wild West Rally. Here are the riders. We are a team because we need each other for moral support through the rally and more importantly to spread the not-insubstantial costs of the adventure.

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Here we are in Brasilia airport, Dave Peckham (ADVRider inmate GSNorCal) on the left and Phil Bowman (ADVRider inmate BicyclePhil), both from California. Good, salt of the earth guys too. Dave and Phil had to fly for over 24 hours to get here.


We picked up two hite cars a VW Kombi (1973 model!) and a Fiat "Doblo" and drove 190km through to Goiania.

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Then we looked at the early preparations of the "Super prime" track which we will race on Tuesday night to get our start times for the main event the next day.

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Good to see the SA flag here. Im  the only South African entering this event.  :-\


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The entrance gate two days ago. You should see what all this looks like now.


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Our bikes arrived only 4 hours late on Thursday morning Pretty good considering the drama we had to go through to ensure customs clearance in the previous weeks.

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We unpacked them on the road next to the hotel. Pretty nervy stuff with lots of people walking about.

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Phils KTM 525 being unloaded. Check out the Baja light.  :mwink:


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Actually this is how we all felt.


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Next was Daves bike, also a KTM 525. They will both be racing in the Brazilian championship category.


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Finally, my Yamaha WR 450 came out of its shell.

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Apart from generators, tents, drills, tools etc, we also had tyres to unpack. These are the tyres needed for three bikes on a 10 day rally.


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We moved the bikes into the the basement of the hotel and began working on them, getting everything right checking and prepping. I have not seen my bike since April as it was built for me in the states, so I had a lot to learn, hardly knowing the bike at all. Basically I spent four days on it in the Nevada desert and thats it. Plus we had to check and change the jetting to deal with the high ethanol fuel they have here in Brazil. This took us all of Friday and today as well for me. Its still not right, and getting to the carb on the Yamaha is really very very difficult as you will see in the next pictures.  ::)

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Tense does not describe it.


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Phil working late into the night a day ago. Notice the green back-lit roadbooks.


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Last night Dave reviewing the budget, his expression says it all  ;D



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Mr hopeful in test riding gear this morning.  ;D

Phil and Dave both managed to re-jet their bikes fine, having easy access to the carburettor. Today they spent time with DD & Randal sprting out all the spares and support vehicles - another major logistical nightmare. You cannot believe how much you have to do to get ready for a rally like this. Where to store all the tyres, tents and gear on two inadequate vehicles is challenging. Des and Randall, our two amercian support guys arrived and got stuck in helping me with my bike and the others with the loading of the cars.


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At last we get the bike together again and I confer with Randal.


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She runs very sweetly, but the top end is bogging and has little power. The fuel mixture is too rich at mid and high throttle.  We are going to have to open her up again. :sad5: Anyway we at least know what to do so in theory it should be fine.

Later this afternoon we went over to the local shopping centre where registration has been setup in a special area. The local interest in this rally is HUGE. Thousands of people everywhere. We get really excited.

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At documentation review. I dont have time to talk about it now, but its a fairly involved process. We also get our photos taken.

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I meet the famous FIM inspector, the guy who does the Dakar scrutineering as well, he tells me my FIM licence is not the right one for World Championship class, so I make calls to make a plan to to have the licence changed on Monday. This is typical, in rally things never seem to run smoothly. Lots of nervous tension. Anyway I think it will be sorted out in time, thankfully I have been given two days to get it it right. If I cannot, my race number will be changed and I will also be forced to change race category to Brazilian champsionship, which is less strict on the rules.

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Still, I get my race number though in anticipation of me fixing things. We also get ID tags, our race bibs, stickers for the bikes, some shampoo ( do I smell bad already??), a Sertoes magazine, two complementary VIP tickets to the Super Prime race launch, invitations to another launch party tomorrow night,  and most importantly little sealed plastic bracelets that allow us into the racing box areas. Its these bracelets that really excite us, they are our passports for the next 13 days and it sinks in we are seriously in a big race. Im totally stoked; we all are. The team goes out for a celebratory meal, and we all are more relaxed having basically passed the documentation review barring one or two little things. The bikes are all working barring one or two little things, and we are ready for scrutineering tomorrow. Our team spirit is high and we cannot wait.

Catch up with you all hopefully soon!

Neil :paw:



 
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