Tardiness gets Vegas millionaire disqualified

Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2005 | 8:52 a.m.

Ronn Bailey's run at the Dakar road rally ended halfway through the legendary race in the camel grass, plains and dunes of Mauritania, where he was delayed Thursday in locating the start of Stage 9 in Tidjikja.

A rally participant officially finishes one stage by arriving at the beginning of the next within 30 minutes, and Bailey didn't pull into Tidjikja until 2 1/2 hours had passed since ending Stage 7, which disqualified him.

Stage 8 had been canceled, due to weather, requiring the end of the seventh stage to jump to the start of the ninth.

Bailey, who moved his Vanguard Integrity Professionals company to Las Vegas from Southern California five years ago, said he spent more than $1 million to compete in the Dakar, which kicked off Jan. 1 in Barcelona.

That included approximately $300,000 on a super production car, or "buggy," that was entirely custom built. Motorcycles and super trucks also compete in the Dakar.

Ralph Izzy, Vanguard's communications director, said he spoke with Bailey in Africa on Friday.

"He was a little disappointed," Izzy said. "Stage 7 was the hardest stage of the entire race. Professional teams and previous champions had to drop out, too, and the racing organization drew all kinds of criticism. But it was an experience of a lifetime for him.

"He hung in there. Unfortunately, he didn't make it to Stage 9. Nonetheless, he's disappointed. He had some harrowing nights. They ran into a refueling issue outside of an African military camp, waiting for a military convoy to pass them."

By the end of Stage 6 on Wednesday, Bailey and co-pilot Steve Myers had guided Vanguard Racing's rig 3,485 kilometers, to 84th overall among the cars.

Bailey's best stage was the fifth, when he covered the 622 kilometers from Agadir to Smara in 4 hours, 57 minutes, 54 seconds, finishing 60th in the stage to end the day 63rd overall.

A day later, he experienced those rally-ending navigational problems.

"He said it was amazing how different the coverage of the rally has been," Izzy said. "Ronn would walk around with European television crews following him, and he was all over the French newspapers as the American millionaire over there to run the race.

"It was the only all-American team, so that's a tremendous international marketing opportunity. He also got lost in the desert two nights. It wasn't just that he showed up a few hours late. We'll spin this into a millionaire survival story."

Izzy said he expects Bailey, with the rest of his chase and support team, to watch the end of the rally Sunday in Dakar before departing from that port with all of his vehicles and equipment.