Dakar: Rodrigues, Goncalves come up big for Honda in Stage 9 (VIDEO)

By Jan 13, 2015, 6:29 PM EST
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Monday’s Stage 8 of the 2015 Dakar Rally was an ugly day for Honda, even with Laia Sanz’s superb fifth-place effort.

Joan Barreda saw his hopes of an overall victory end thanks to an electrical problem that caused him to be towed by teammate Jeremias Israel to the finish of the run from Uyuni, Bolivia to Iquique, Chile.

Another of the factory Honda riders, Helder Rodrigues, also suffered from electrical woes and lost more than three hours.

The setbacks left Paulo Goncalves as Honda’s last threat to dethrone Dakar Rally champion and current overall leader Marc Coma of KTM.

But Tuesday saw Honda respond brilliantly in Stage 9, as Rodrigues bagged his second win of the 2015 Dakar and Goncalves took almost four minutes off Coma’s edge with a runner-up finish.

“I’ve worked very hard for this Dakar and to be up front,” Rodrigues said in a Honda release. “Yesterday, I lost it all and now I don’t want to take any chances, but I will give everything to win.

“Today, I started out from behind, I caught up with Paulo and Joan, but I got lost in the dunes. Later, at the refueling [point], I saw that I was going well and I kept pushing.

“It was a hard day with a lot of navigation and loads of stones on the track, but I’m very happy with the way things went.”

As for Goncalves, who now sits just five minutes, 28 seconds behind Coma with four stages remaining, he indicated that he would been closer to Rodrigues on Tuesday if not for having to circle back to reach a missed way point.

Despite getting closer to KTM’s top man in the overall standings, however, Goncalves said he’s only focusing on the stage at hand.

“In the end, I finished well and I recovered some time from yesterday,” he said. “So now I’m second overall, but this is not really important because we have four days more in front of us to race. Many things can happen. I will try and I will keep fighting, me and Team HRC, to get the best overall position possible.

“…For me, it’s not additional pressure. I will ride day-by-day like I have done from the beginning, so we’ll always keep fighting. The strategy is to try and keep the bike safe – only that.”

Coma finished third in Tuesday’s stage, a 450km southerly run from Iquique to Calama, Chile.

He had to overcome a navigational error early on in by foggy conditions, but still came away with a respectable result that put more than 15 minutes on third-place overall rider Pablo Quintanilla (+ 26:52).

“It was a good day after a tough day like yesterday, so today was a better day,” Coma said. “At the moment, everything is still far off, so we’re looking at the next day only and we will see.

“There’s a long way still in front of us, so we’ll take it step by step.”

As you can see, Goncalves and Coma aren’t getting ahead of themselves. They have a reason. Wednesday’s Stage 10 from Calama to Salta, Argentina marks the start of a second marathon stage for the bikes as well as the quads.

And it’s set to take the riders even higher up in altitude than the first marathon stage (Iquique/Uyuni) did.

Stage 10 will begin at almost 12,000 feet above sea level on the Salinas Grande before ascending even further to more than 14,000 feet up early on in the special.

The ending link stage will then have competitors following the Abra del Acay. At more than 16,000+ feet up, the Abra is considered one of the highest road passes on Earth.

NBCSN’s coverage of the Dakar Rally continues with Stage 9 highlights tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. ET.

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2015 Dakar Rally – Overall Standings, Motorcycles
(After Stage 9 – Iquique to Calama)

1. 1-Marc Coma (KTM), 34hrs, 5mins, 0secs
2. 7-Paulo Goncalves (Honda), + 5 mins, 28secs
3. 31-Pablo Quintanilla (KTM), + 26mins, 52 secs
4. 26-Toby Price (KTM), +31mins, 31secs
5. 18-Stefan Svitko (KTM), + 40mins, 36secs
6. 9-David Casteu (KTM), + 1hr, 31mins, 26secs
7. 11-Ruben Faria (KTM), + 1hr, 41mins, 22secs
8. 29-Laia Sanz (Honda), + 1hr, 54mins, 37secs
9. 21-Ivan Jakes (KTM), + 2hrs, 18mins, 31secs
10. 3-Olivier Pain (Yamaha), + 2hrs, 36mins, 13secs

After New York whirlwind, Josef Newgarden makes special trip to simulator before Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 10:00 AM EDT
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DETROIT – There’s no rest for the weary as an Indy 500 winner, but Josef Newgarden discovered there are plenty of extra laps.

The reigning Indy 500 champion added an extra trip Wednesday night back to Concord, N.C., for one last session on the GM Racing simulator before Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.

After a 30-year run on the Belle Isle course, the race has been moved to a nine-turn, 1.7-mile layout downtown, so two extra hours on the simulator were worth it for Newgarden.

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“I really wanted to do it,” he told NBC Sports at a Thursday media luncheon. “If there’s any time that the sim is most useful, it’s in this situation when no one has ever been on a track, and we’re able to simulate it as best as we can. We want to get some seat time.

“It’s extra important coming off the Indy 500 because you’ve been out of rhythm for a road or street course-type environment, so I really wanted some laps. I was really appreciative to Chevy. There was a few guys that just came in and stayed late for me so I could get those laps before coming up here. I don’t know if it’s going to make a difference, but I feel like it’s going to help for me.”

After a whirlwind tour of New York for two days, Newgarden arrived at the simulator (which is at the GM Racing Technical Center adjacent to Hendrick Motorsports) in time for a two hour session that started at 6 p.m. Wednesday. He stayed overnight in Charlotte and then was up for an early commercial flight to Detroit, where he had more media obligations.

Newgarden joked that if he had a jet, he would have made a quick stop in Nashville, Tennessee, but a few more days away from home (where he has yet to return in weeks) is a worthy tradeoff for winning the Greatest Spectacle in Racing – though the nonstop interviews can take a toll.

“It’s the hardest part of the gig for me is all this fanfare and celebration,” Newgarden said. “I love doing it because I’m so passionate about the Indy 500 and that racetrack and what that race represents. I feel honored to be able to speak about it. It’s been really natural and easy for me to enjoy it because I’ve been there for so many years.

“Speaking about this win has been almost the easiest job I’ve ever had for postrace celebrations. But it’s still for me a lot of work. I get worn out pretty easily. I’m very introverted. So to do this for three days straight, it’s been a lot.”

Though he is terrified of heights, touring the top of the Empire State Building for the first time was a major highlight (and produced the tour’s most viral moment).

“I was scared to get to the very top level,” Newgarden said. “That thing was swaying. No one else thought it was swaying. I’m pretty sure it was. I really impressed by the facility. I’d never seen it before. It’s one of those bucket list things. If you go to New York, it’s really special to do that. So to be there with the wreath and the whole setup, it just felt like an honor to be in that moment.”

Now the attention shifts to Detroit and an inaugural circuit that’s expected to be challenging. Along with a Jefferson Avenue straightaway that’s 0.9 miles long, the track has several low-speed corners and a “split” pit lane (teams will stop on both sides of a rectangular area) with a narrow exit that blends just before a 90-degree lefthand turn into Turn 1.

Newgarden thinks the track is most similar to the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville.

“It’s really hard to predict with this stuff until we actually run,” he said. “Maybe we go super smooth and have no issues. Typically when you have a new event, you’re going to have some teething issues. That’s understandable. We’ve always got to massage the event to get it where we want it, but this team has worked pretty hard. They’ve tried to get feedback constantly on what are we doing right, what do we need to look out for. They’ve done a ton of grinding to make sure this surface is in as good of shape as possible.

“There’s been no expense spared, but you can’t foresee everything. I have no idea how it’s going to race. I think typically when you look at a circuit that seems simple on paper, people tend to think it’s not going to be an exciting race, or challenging. I find the opposite always happens when we think that way. Watch it be the most exciting, chaotic, entertaining race.

Newgarden won the last two pole positions at Belle Isle’s 2.35-mile layout and hopes to continue the momentum while avoiding any post-Brickyard letdown.

“I love this is an opportunity for us to get something right quicker than anyone else,” he said. “A new track is always exciting from that standpoint. I feel I’m in a different spot. I’m pretty run down. I’m really trying to refocus and gain some energy back for tomorrow. Which I’ll have time to today, which is great.

“I don’t want that Indy 500 hangover. People always talk about it. They’ve always observed it. That doesn’t mean we have to win this weekend, but I’d like to leave here feeling like we had a really complete event, did a good job and had a solid finish leading into the summer. I want to win everywhere I go, but if we come out of here with a solid result and no mistakes, then probably everyone will be happy with it.”