The 32^nd edition of the Dakar rally begins in Buenos Aires on January 1^st. The Dakar rally is my favorite race in all the world and seems to be doing very well despite its location transplant. This will be the second year Dakar has run in South America, a decision made after the terrible tragedy that led to the cancellation of the rally in 2008. South America has embraced the rally and, in fact, this fantastic race will be a grand kick-off to the 2010 Chile & Argentina bicentennial celebrations. The numbers are different for Cars&Trucks and Bikes&Quads (quads were introduced last year):

• Cars&Trucks: 9030 Total km
• Bikes&Quads: 8937 Total km

Timed Stages:

• Cars&Trucks: 4810km
• Bikes&Quads: 4717km

Some stage details for the course are as follows: 

• Stages 1-3 are in Argentina. Elevation range: 400 – 2500m alt. 500+km soil, 120km sand, and 60+km stones.
• Stages 4 to 10 are in Chile. Elevation range: 0 - 3150m. 1804km soil, 447km sand, and 500km stone.
• Stages 11 to 14, are in Argentina. Elevation range: 50 - 3050m. 769km soil, 372km sand, and 128 km stone.

Sources for this information are the www.dakar.com website. That site just keeps getting better and is an excellent source of information. Go there to see the full List of Entrants, but looks like there are: 

• 161 bikes
• 28 quads
• 139 cars
• 51 trucks

Just for comparison, back in 2005 when I did my first Dakar podcast, there were 232 motorcycles, 174 cars, and 69 trucks.   And last year, the '09 edition and the first in South America had 113 bikes, 13 quad, 91 cars, and 54 trucks.  You can catch up on what happened last year by watching this video. Of course I've been a long time Mitsubishi fan but on February 4^th of this year Mitsubishi announced their withdrawl from Dakar. Maybe that decision was helped along by Mitsubishi's disastrous showing at the 2009 rally where they were out of the race very early on. And it's big news that Stephane Peterhansel, Dakar superstar, is driving for BMW this year!!  Like last year, De Villiers is driving for VW and Robby Gordon will be out there for Hummer. I bet the competition between De Villiers and Carlos Sainz will be intense again this year too, so watch for that.  Last year the winners were: Marc Coma in the bike category, Josef Machacek in Quad, Giniel De Villiers in car and Firdaus Kabirov in the truck category.  My money is on Peterhansel - as usual ;-) Watching the Dakar on television is limited to Versus network but, in all fairness to the outdoor network, their coverage has greatly improved over the past few years. I'll be looking for coverage online and will tweet my findings as they are discovered.