Baja Russia Northern Forest 2021

I’ve always liked this rally-raid event. The only one held on snow, its wildly different than the rest of the either Baja or Cross-Country rally events put on by the FIA. No sand here…just brutal temps and deep drifts. It also rarely brings competitors from anywhere other than Russia and similar Eastern Euro countries. I do be Nasser has run the race once…but that’s about it. You aren’t seeing a lot of the top flight Middle Eastern or Western Euro competitors here. 2021 was no different. The event was won by the properly Russian Vladimir Vasilyev who is typically in the top ten or so of competitors in the Dakar or other major rally-raids but doesn’t truly compete for wins outside this event. The race was also subject to true winter conditions with a full on blizzard, zero visibility, and giant snowdrifts impeding the roads all being present on one of racing days.

In the end the top three finishers were all Russians. Not surprising. Vladimir’s BMW X3 is a top flight vehicle, not quite that of the current Mini’s run by XRaid but of the just prior generation of builds so it had plenty to hold off the Russian developed G-Force Protos of the 2nd and 3rd place finishers.

In the FIA top level of entries, there was one vehicle listed as a “Nissan”, that of the #204 of Sergey Uspenskiy listed as a Nissan NP300, while there were a few others in the Russian Championship Series running the same event but not in the FIA classes with the #601 Nissan NP300 and #611 Nissan Patrol. The #611 doesn’t appear to have even started the event while the #601 finished 9th of 35 Russian Championship entries. Uspenskiy shows as finishing 12th or last in the FIA class….but I don’t really count that vehicle anyway…I believe its a Nissan frame but has had a swap of some kind in the powerplant…so….we don’t really like them anyway….Regardless…some photos of the event are here and you can see why Uspenskiy didn’t finish so well.

Classic Nissans at the 2021 Dakar--Results!

So with no “real” Nissans in the 2021 Dakar, all we were left with was those entered in the Classic category which did not face the full brunt of the Dakar and while not easy by any means was a bit disappointing. When Chinese manufacturers field more than a dozen entrants and Nissan not a one? There is trouble abrewing…

Still, seeing these old gals out and playing was good and represents a time when Nissan was putting forth its best efforts. Now? The flag is left to be flown by privateer efforts like Redlined Motorsport out of South Africa who did not enter vehicles this year largely due to Covid…Hopefully they will be back in ‘22.

So what did we end up with in the Classic category?

Well, the first and only Classic category vehicle to drop out was the Mercedes G320 (Gwagon) of Carlos Sanchez on Stage 10…so at least all the Nissans made it to the end, right?

Finishing positions?

Well, there were 24 starters overall, 23 finished the Classic Dakar course.

Francisco Benavente of Spain in his Nissan Terrano (Pathfinder) finished in 18th overall with a high of a third place finish on Stage 5.

Luciano Carcheri of Italy and his Nissan Patrol were extraordinarily consistent in their finishing—never higher than 7th in their stage finishes but also never lower than 16th. They finished an excellent 7th overall.

Annnnd…that’s it. The whole kit and kaboodle of Nissans in this year’s Dakar. A few nice shots came out of it of the Nissans racing but…kinda few and far between. Here’s to a great 2021 in hopes that Redlined continues to build their customer base and we get some more Nissan racing efforts that aren’t watered down, spec, Sentra racing on tarmac…please Nissan…give me a break…

Till then? Some of us will soldier on…

Nissans at Dakar 2019--Final Results

It’s been a week or so since the dust settled (literally) and we can assess the results of the few Nissans who entered this year’s Dakar.

Both Jurgen Schroder and Shameer Variawa withdrew from the Dakar on Stage 5 of 10 due to its difficulty and repairs needed to the vehicles while on the stage causing them to time out of eligibility. Both were able to repair their vehicles and restart the event after “Rest Day”.

Shameer made it to Stage 8 where it hit something in the “fesh-fesh” that prevented him from continuing and ending his Dakar. His biggest hurdle he admits is the dunes and deep sand and has a lot of learning to do. His navigator also feels he has learned a lot after making some mistakes early on. The #429 Nissan however showed some real speed, running in the top 40 when healthy. This bodes well for Shameer’s future given this car has only been run a handful of times to date. Shameer also states that he will be back at the Dakar in this vehicle for 2020.

Jurgen Schroder also restarted after Rest Day and also was taken out before seeing the finish line. I had expected it to be Jurgen to make it to the finish in his Nissan if any did given his lengthy experience and prior Dakar finishes. Unfortunately engine issues ended their rally on Stage 6.

Last but certainly not least is the #419 of Thomas Bell. A Dakar rookie in a new car this South African team pressed on through some really tough circumstances including an accident on one of the transit roads that required Thomas to go to the local hospital, get checked out and medically cleared to reenter the race, get back in the race car and go on and finish the stage. The team finished 57th out of the 66 entrants to finish the event out of the original 99 starters in the care category.

So that’s it for this year. At least there were some Nissan entries and none were using “old” cars…all were in current generation T1 race cars which is good news. Also good news is the high level of business that Red Line Racing out of South Africa has for these cars…they are churning them out constantly and while not many go to Dakar they are spreading across the globe in a number of Rally Raid events due to their cost effectiveness. Red Line has new versions of the race Navarra/Frontier coming out later this year as well—one a solid axle rear end version and another a twin turbo version…should be great stuff!

Congrats to Thomas Bell and Red Line Motoring for the fantastic finish!