Dakar Canceled!?!?!?!?!

dunedain · 01-04-2008, 3:35 PM

What the hooey?!?!?! Freakin Al-quida faggots! We're talking about the badest dudes in the racing world and they think some punk ass terrorists can stop them. There have been many attacks on riders/racers in the past as it's a tough area but I just dont buy.

Euromilhões Lisboa - Dakar: homepage

Any thoughts on this?

Hyperboreean · 01-04-2008, 4:27 PM

Don't be so eager to jump to conclusions.
From what I read the tourists stopped at a bank (prior to the shooting) and "withdrew a large sum of money" - source unverifiable.
They were waylaid while picknicking somewhere along the road.
Of the 5 tourists (father, brother, 2 sons & a friend), 4 were killed and 1 (the father) severely injured - fact.
Also from unverifiable sources the attackers demanded them money (this is from different sources than those 2 mentioniong tourists visited a bank).
Couldn't find if they got anything or not.
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility - fact.
French Foreign Ministry put a lot of pressure on the organizers to cancel the rally - fact.

Btw, just to be sure did a new search and found this:News | Africa - Reuters.com

Don't know about you, but I found the last paragraph exceedingly ironic, n'est pas?
"Mauritania is generally peaceful, but this was its second fatal incident involving French tourists this month. Two died when their hot air balloons burst while crossing a mountain range on a trip organised by a French adventure tourism company."

dunedain · 01-04-2008, 7:56 PM

OK. I'm not sure what conclusions I was jumping to (probably my "Okie from Muskcogee" semantics) other than it looks like the Dakar is not going to happen and the Al-queda are fags. I hope we can agree on those.

As to the other things you've mentioned I wondered what "the rest of the story" was. You can balloon in the place but not haul it across the countryside in a racer?!?!?! Oh well. Good info.

My main point is that I cant believe they would not enlist some "troops" (the French have done this all over Africa for a hundred+ years) to run up ahead of these guys and sweep it. The racers will be movin for sure faster than most of the targets they are used to going after and my money would go to these racers being badder than any of those that mean to rule by terror anyway.

Oh well I think Supercross starts this weekend so I'll get my moto fix there.

Helvet · 01-05-2008, 4:52 AM

The info from the French secret services contains possible attacks on the organisation, reporters and visitors of the ralley. Not the riders themselves, these will be going to fast, and are to hard to catch (except when they are in the bivak).

Birdman · 01-05-2008, 7:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dunedain

OK. I'm not sure what conclusions I was jumping to (probably my "Okie from Muskcogee" semantics) other than it looks like the Dakar is not going to happen and the Al-queda are fags. I hope we can agree on those.

As to the other things you've mentioned I wondered what "the rest of the story" was. You can balloon in the place but not haul it across the countryside in a racer?!?!?! Oh well. Good info.

My main point is that I cant believe they would not enlist some "troops" (the French have done this all over Africa for a hundred+ years) to run up ahead of these guys and sweep it. The racers will be movin for sure faster than most of the targets they are used to going after and my money would go to these racers being badder than any of those that mean to rule by terror anyway.

Oh well I think Supercross starts this weekend so I'll get my moto fix there.

ahhh Okie from Muskcogee, thats one of the best songs by Hank Williams Jr :-)

CanadianBird · 01-05-2008, 5:25 PM

Damn, I love that race. Especially the Brit take on it.