My blokey secret...



www.dakar.com



by Nikki Logan



I have a few New Year traditions that are more entrenched than I realised until I was extended the proverbial offer-I-couldn’t-refuse in 2010 and I did refuse it. For me, New Years has become about the Edinburgh Military Tattoo (delightful again this year), the mother of all office clean-ups in the air-con on New Year’s Day (start the year as you mean to continue...) and the big one: The Dakar.

   

Ten years ago I never would have imagined that I’d get excited by synchronised drumming followed by spring-cleaning followed by a fourteen day car race.



What have I become??

Yet I find myself strangely drawn to that nasally, cockney voice on SBS who rattles on about sports-drivers Roma and Peterhansel and Sainz and Coma and Despres. I love the heart-stopping, gasp-worthy exploits of those crazy men in their crazy machines hurtling over the sand-dunes at death-defying speeds.

There’s a few things I love less about the Dakar (deaths, injuries, destruction) but I tend to block my ears and go la la laaa about that for this one race of the year.



For the uninitiated, the Dakar is predominantly a ‘desert’ rally/race held previously in East Africa but now in South America thanks to the big honking target drawn on its back due to international popularity and the tendancy for extremist activity. It is open to anyone with a vehicle, second-mortgage on their home or a entourage of sponsors to pay the entry fee and...well...a death-wish. Bikes, cars, quads and even the big support trucks get in on the action. Some truck driver a few years back said ‘hey, we’re out there anyway, we can go fast… let’s race!’ and so now the giant Kamaz trucks are an iconic and insane part of the Dakar experience. I can only imagine how tightly everything would have to be strapped down inside to stop every single spare part ending up like a jigsaw. 

.

Marc Coma

2011 Winner - Bikes

(& Spanish eyecandy)

www.dakar.com

The Dakar is about dirt and mud and sweat and endurance and speed and agony and triumph and loss. It’s about a whole bunch of men and the occasional intrepid woman—who (on the whole) are old enough to know better—hammering their bodies year after year and trying to get to the end of the run. Hundreds start. Handfuls finish. It’s about corporate funded super-teams with dozens of support crew going up against self-funded first-timers with the guy-from-down-the-street-who’s-great-with-bikes along to help out. It’s about camaraderie and adrenaline.

 

Nasser Al Attiyah
2011 Winner - Car
(& Quatari eyecandy)
http://www.dakar.com/

It’s about me sitting on my air-conditioned sofa imagining I’m doing all of those things for half an hour every night the first fortnight in January. And maybe…just maybe…about smiling quietly to myself at all those dusty, sweaty, fit, riders and drivers with their lovely accents…

  



And to anyone who is wondering where the relevance is to a romance blog... You only have to watch half-a-dozen suited up riders walking in slo-mo to the dawn start line, or stripping off their shirts out in the desert to tighten a scorching hot muffler, or blowing a kiss to their wives from the winner's podium. The Dakar is romance for blokes. I promise...promise... that this is about as blokey as I get all year and we've gotten it out of the way nice and early.

Sadly the Dakar is over until New Year 2012. But boy do I have a corker of an idea for a story ticking over…!

So what's your secret, blokey vice? Football? Motor-racing? Air-racing? Do you like to peruse car auctions? Hang out in hardware stores? Come on...fess up... You're amongst friends :)

Nikki's current release 'The Soldier's Untamed Heart' has a heroine with a blokey job--security coordinator. Check it out onshelf now.