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The Pavey's 2015 Dakar


Paveys' Dakar finish; fair or let down?  

2 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you think? Were the Paveys fine to finish together nearly every stage or did they leave too much meat on that bone; one of them should have tried to beat 60th at least once?

    • They did it as a father/son team and I'm good with that
    • I dunno, it would have been nice to see one of them try to beat 60th at least one stage just to keep it competitive, especially for Lel who wants a future in racing, instead of finishing together each stage.
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I was excoriated over at IBAR for posting this but I think it's an interesting question that I'd like to share with the group here.

 

My question was basically how come Simon and Llewellyn (Lel) finished nearly every stage at identical times rather than at least on one stage one of them might go for it if he saw an opportunity?  Lel's best stage finish was 60th and I said it would be great to see if he could beat that in at least one remaining stage.  Yes, I know Lel finished overall about 20 min ahead of his dad.  Yes, I do like and support them both and am not trying to disrespect them in any way.  Yes, I do realize they said their goal was to simply finish the rally.

 

Keep in mind that this was the very first question Adventure Bike TV asked  Simon right before they put the bikes on the container ship:

 

Listen closely at 7:59, Simon's asked if it's an all-for-one, one-for-all thing or are they in their own races and Simon clearly responds the latter (unless he was joking)

 

 

 

I think it's great that they got to ride it together and a HUGE accomplishment to finish, it just wasn't clear to me up front that's the way they were going to do it.  I was going to support them financially but their IndieGoGo campaign was closed after being met at 211%.  Had I given them money, I might have felt a bit disappointed.

 

Why?  I don't know, it just seems less competitive.  They billed themselves as privateer "racers" not "riders."  And I'm sure Lel with this finish under his belt will want to go on to do racing events in the future but I can't help but wonder what potential sponsors might think, like was Lel mostly waiting for his dad the whole time or was it his dad who showed him clean lines and helped him across?  Or that exactly how good a rider is he because he's not going to have a riding partner like that in the future to help him.

 

Ned Suesse also said his goal was to simply finish the rally and he more than anyone was preaching "slow is fast," yet he broke 60th 8 times and 50th twice.  Manuel Lucchese also simply wanted to finish his first Dakar and while he didn't, he did make it 8 stages and managed 51st twice.  Now I'd say Manuel was probably a better rider than Lel at that point but I'm not sure Ned was.  Lel, I think, had quite a bit more competitive experience than Ned.

 

Again, I am very glad for them both to be able to finish the Dakar together and that's a worthy thing; that's just not what I had expected and it seems less sporting and even perhaps a lost opportunity for Lel.

 

I did pose this question to Graham Hoskins, host of Adventure Bike TV and he responded "Great question!  We shall ask."

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