Remember Tattooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet in Star Wars? Oceans of sand with mile-high dunes, broken up by jumbles of rugged, rocky terrain? Well imagine racing across that in a car, motorcycle or souped-up truck. That's the 2009 Dakar Rally.
Originally billed as the Paris-to-Dakar Rally, the annual off-road race through the deserts of western Africa has been plagued in recent years by attacks and threats of attacks by Islamic militants and run-of-the-mill bandits (much like how the Sandpeople terrorized Tattooine). So this year the race got moved to South America, to the pampas and deserts of Chile and Argentina.
Versus has been showing half-hour Dakar highlights (3 p.m and again at 6:30 or 7:30 p.m. --it changes day to day -- through Jan. 18), and it's pretty incredible to watch, especially in HD. The spectacular barren landscape of the Atacama Desert, mountainous dunes, jagged rock flats and one of the most intense, extreme race in the world -- it's pretty impressive.
I have no idea who any of the racers are (except for IndyCar and NASCAR veteran Robby Gordon), how they follow the course or what the strategy is -- I just like watching the off-road vehicles spray huge geysers of sand as they fly over sand dunes.
Check it out ASAP -- the race ends in a few days, and they'll be out of the desert and hitting the mountains tomorrow, I think.
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