We've built our tent city in the Bivouac for the night. It's still quite hot out, but at least the sand blast has subsided. It sounds like this year's Dakar may be the toughest yet. Half of the motorcycles that began the race have dropped out, one motorcycle rider was killed in an accident, and a second rider has been put into an induced coma so that he may have a chance of healing.

There's no doubt, this is a tough race, it's like a two-week long Baja 1000

There's only three more days of racing left, and right now Volkswagen is in First (driver Carlos Sainz from Spain), Second (Mark Miller from USA), and Third.

Defending Dakar champion, Mitsubishi, is in Fourth place, but they are down to one car after beginning the race with four.

In Fifth place is Robby Gordon from the USA. Robby's Hummer came in Second place during yesterday's stage, finishing just 21 seconds after VW's Carlos Sainz. I won't be surprised if Robby pulls off a win tomorrow.

Wanna know something crazy though? In the Dakar they not only race motorcycles, cars, and custom-buit tube chassis four-wheel drive race vehicles (VW, Mitsubishi, BMW, etc) they also race four, six, and eight-wheel drive support trucks in the T-4 class. These monstrous trucks must weigh a hell of a lot, I'd guess more than 18,000 pounds. They feature 46 to 56 inch tall tires, enormous diesel engines, and look more like military trucks than race trucks.

In Dakar these trucks leave the starting line two hours after the motorcycles, and an hour after the cars, but some of them are so fast, they pass most of the cars, and catch up to many of the motorcycles!

Here's the crazy part- If I'm reading the scoring correctly, and I'd like to think I am, the Russian-built Kamaz T-4 truck ran yesterday's course in 5 hours 14 minutes and 40 seconds.

Volkswagen's World Rally Champion driver Carlos Sainz needed 5 hours 32 minutes and 55 seconds to complete the same course. That means a Russian truck built in the '90s for commercial and military use was 18 minutes faster than the leader of the Dakar Rally.

Overall the Kamaz truck (#501) is in Fourth place. That's sort of like having a Monster Truck beating Porches and Ferraris!

Tomorrow morning we'll break camp and head out of town. I'll do my best to post video after tomorrow's race.

- David