Right now, the Rally Management Services crew and Ford F350 are at the Dakar supporting 3 exciting American riders:

Jonah Street on the factory supported Yamaha YZ450.

Ned Suesse on a home-built KTM 450 EXC.

and,

Bill Conger on a home-built Husquavarna 449.

Unfortunately, both Bill and Jonah are out of the rally.  But Ned is doing well, helped in great part by the hard work of Tim and the rest of the crew.  Our crew is:

Driver Robb McElroy, mechanic Niles Follin (for Jonah) and mechanic Tim Morton (for Ned and Bill).  Along for the ride is Ted Johnson, who will update a blog here and plans to write a book about his experience with the RMS team.  

The race is on!  

Congratulations to Ned on his impressive finish!

fun fun

Charlie

Of course, we encourage you to try our Rally School before entering a big rally.   I've started writing a handbook for rally privateers.  Here's the section that describes rally navigation.  

For those of you near our home in Northern California, please try these short practice routes from San Francisco to Middle Creek/Mendocino NF:  1, 2, 3.  These are not as nice or as long as the ones prepared for the Rally School, but they will give you a taste of the rally navigation experience.  

Try to write your own rally routes!  If you make good ones, please send them to me so that I can post them on this site.

fun fun

Charlie

Another great source of everything for your bike is KTM Twins.  Check out their site for current info and cool new stuff for your bike, even if it is not a KTM twin.  Thank them for sponsoring our Rally PanAm team and say hello to Ron there for us.

You probably know of Renazco's excellent custom motorcycle seats.  We have them on all of our bikes.  But, check out their new website.   After you order your rally kit from us, you can get just about anything else you need for your ride from Renazco.

fun fun

Charlie

Here at RMS, we like Outrider Journal, a new magazine for guys like us.  Check out a blog post on their website with some photos of our shop. 

An older Dakar Rally video to get us ready to watch the race this year.

Our team is at the Dakar again for 2011.  RMS founded the Rally PanAm team in 2006.  This year, rider Jonah Street and mechanic Niles Follin race in South America with the new Yamaha WR450 bike.  Good luck guys!

We now have specially designed and constructed billet aluminum clamps which make it easy to mount rally navigation gear to any dirt bike. Check them out!  And, check out our simple but high-quality Navigation Kit for any dirt bike.