On December 29th the Spirit came back to South America. The Rally Dakar 2010 opened its doors to welcome the teams with their motorbikes, quads, cars and trucks and the spectators. The big event started and the Spirit took some time to arrive, but then he came and entered into the Exposition Center “La Rural” in Buenos Aires, Palermo. And the most important of all he came and fascinates us once more. So enjoy the first images of this great event that is one more time shaking today the famous, beautiful Capital of Argentina Buenos Aires.
On January 2, 2009 the beautiful megacity Buenos Aires experienced one of two peaks of the Spirit of Rally Dakar 2009. At 16:00 o’clock the podium at Buenos Aires Obelisk was opened and all participants of the Rally drove the few kilometers from the Exposition Center “Rural” to the Obelisk at Av. 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires Downtown to be presented officially as participant. We felt that something special would happen, but we had no idea about what would happen.
First you must know that Argentine people are crazy for motorsport. This has its roots in Manuel Fangio, five times World Champion of Formula 1 and Carlos Reuteman, two times World Champion of Formula 1. The TV, the newspapers, all talk about Rally Dakar. But the vacations just started and many people were on vacations and so officials estimated that there will not come too much people.
To have a good place near the Podium I started just after lunch and arrived at 13:30 (1:30 pm) at Obelisk. There were a lot of people. But finally I had a optimal place to observe and film all what will be happen.
We had to wait two hours. Then it started. After presenting some official personalities from the Argentine and Chilean Government some greetings were made to all over the world. The Argentine Air force was greeting with a flyover of Mirage aircrafts and then the waiting was over.
The participants were presented in four groups.
Quads
First the quad driver with their different models were presented and interviewed. In total 27 participants from 11 nations. A young boy on the shoulders of his father behind me was asking with audible voice what many of us were thinking: “They will arrive with that?” Some were laughing but we wished them the best.
Motorbikes
Then the first motorbikes were presented. 225 participants with their motorbikes. Start number 1 to 235. The line was enormous and it seemed that it never would end.
Cars
But finally we saw the first cars. This was another big group of 185 cars.
Every car with pilot and co pilot. My favorites were:
On this top favorites we had to wait once more some time. But it was amazing to hear and see them. As Robby Gordon was sent out, he first drove some meters back and we were asking: “What is that? Robby please go ahead and not back!” And then he came. He was accelerating very strong and his Hummer jumped down the Podium. Thanks God it was strong enough to support a heavy Hummer jumping on it.
Trucks
As the trucks arrived at 22:30 hours the people were beside themselves with joy. The line was immense. Every truck was honking. The people were applauding and the battery of my digital camera was death. So I enjoyed the atmosphere. More than 400000 people came on the streets and to the Obelisk to celebrate the Podium of Rally Dakar 2009. And now the Spirit of Rally Dakar was not only upon this marvelous megacity, no with the quads, motorcycles, cars and trucks it was reaching the whole Nation.
Video
Finally we documented this marvelous afternoon and evening in a 10 minutes video.
December 31, 2009
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Posted by Senior
Categories: Off Road, Vehicle
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Tags: amarok, pickup, volkswagen, vw
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6 Comments
