A high-tech pit crew

By Rob Miech

Thursday, Dec. 28, 2006 | 7:05 a.m.

Ronn Bailey describes what he sees, feels and digests during the Dakar Rally, considered the world's most grueling racing test:

I become very concentrated, very focused, very relaxed. A sensory machine. I feel the car talks to me through its sounds, it talks to me through the feeling in the tips of my fingers on the steering wheel and through the bottoms of my feet on the pedals. The seat forms in my body, through my shoulders and back and (rear). I feel the back of my upper legs on the edge of the seat.

And there's what I see all around me.

There are seven to nine things speaking to me all the time, they're all communicating with me. I'm in a state of mind where I'm feeling and sensing those things, and reacting to them, without thought. I'm looking through the windshield but not turning my head. I'm looking as far down the horizon as I possibly can. I'm processing that and making decisions: what speed I'm going, what gear I'm in, how to set myself up.

At the same time, if you were to see an inboard camera, you'd see me looking through the windshield without expression. If you were listening, you might hear me talking to the navigator and what we might do at the bivouac tonight. Or, 'Look at that beautiful mountain.' I'm very relaxed. The whole idea is to be relaxed. If you tense up, you can't read those senses anymore. If you're holding the steering wheel with a strong grip, you can't read what the wheels are doing. You have to be very, very relaxed.

I practice breathing to keep myself in a relaxed state. I used to play a lot of chess, and it's that level of concentration. That's what I'm doing when I'm driving. I'm very, very, very focused and locked in, without starting to daydream. You daydream for one second, you're off the road and crashing.

The difference between a champion off-road driver and someone who isn't is the ability to be relaxed and maintain concentration for a long, continuous amount of time. If you don't have that ability, back off. You won't be in the game.

My navigator uses the road book to tell me where to go or what happens next. In 100 meters, he'll say, take a hard right at the cliff. I'm going as fast as I can go, and he's got the book. There are exclamation points - single, double and triple - for the danger level of what's coming up. One, we ignore. Two could break the car. Three could kill us. Three means completely stop.

So I'm going as fast as I can go, and he'll say, Danger Two in 300 meters ... 200 meters ... then at 100 meters, I slow down. There could be a very, very bad obstacle that could completely tear the car apart. Going 100 mph with 100 meters to go, you have to slow down until the very last second. The navigator better not be 20 meters off. That's going on. That's what's happening.

If my navigator tells me the end of the plateau is in 300 meters, and we have to make a 90-degree right at the edge of the cliff and we're going like a bat outta hell, if he's wrong (and the distance is less) we're going over. Last year, that almost happened. The navigator made a mistake. I saw the cliff coming too fast, and I locked it up. The front wheel stopped right on the edge of the cliff. Two inches more forward, the front wheels would have been off the cliff. We'd have been stuck.

The most important thing for me, as the pilot, is to not break the car, try to preserve the car. Between the two of us, the pilot and the navigator, the most important job is the navigator's.

Three weeks ago, Ronn Bailey's consecutive Dakar Rally excursions almost ended at two when his supertechnological buggy, with the carbon-fiber and Kevlar body, crashed and burned during a run on the Dumont Dunes in California.

Bailey had been ecstatic because a tweaking of the suspension by his mechanics had increased the vehicle's top speed on the dunes from 51 mph to 74.

"It was a fantastic day of testing," Bailey said. "The car was tuned perfectly. It was amazing."

So was the drop, which he estimated at seven stories. The rig was on fire before it hit the sand. Bailey and his navigator escaped unharmed. The fire suppression system failed, which led Bailey and his team back to the drawing board in his shop in Boulder City.

The 57-year-old , who owns Vanguard software security systems company in Las Vegas, was asked whether he liked pushing the envelope.

"Yes, sir," said Bailey, who will spend nearly $1.5 million to participate in the next Dakar, which starts Jan. 6. He set the value of his race vehicle at $250,000.

Motorcycles, cars and trucks are Dakar's three classes. Entrants are amateurs - called privateers - or professionals, such as NASCAR driver Robby Gordon, who have auto manufacturers and teams of mechanics behind them. Another local team is trying Dakar for the first time: Las Vegas businessman Michael Petersen and Englishman Matthew Stevenson will drive for Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing.

Bailey unveiled the ultralight and ultradurable body to rave reviews 11 months ago in Portugal. It now has an internal computer system that tells him and his mechanics when the engine is three days from blowing.

"We can replace a part," he said, "before it even starts to make a noise."

Bailey said the dashboard - more of an instrument panel, with 44 switches and buttons, not including the gadgets on seven electrical components - is as impressive as that of a helicopter or private airplane.

Its two mufflers and exhaust pipes are coated in ceramic to keep the temperature around the LS7 Corvette engine as cool as possible. Some of those engine parts were taken from jet airplanes.

"This stuff is rugged," said Bailey, who won the Sonora 500 in October after entering on a last-second whim.

Goodyear made three dozen 35-inch, 14-inch-wide dune tires for Bailey, and his team will cut custom grooves into them. Two burned at Dumont.

With two spare engines, three spare transmissions and the ability to make any custom part by hand, Bailey's crew of a dozen fabricators and mechanics quickly put the vehicle back together.

"We had to ensure that the frame was straight," he said. "Looking at it now, you wouldn't believe it was in a crash so recently. It looks brand-new."

His teeth are another matter. The constant shock of piloting his rig has forced Bailey's teeth implants into his jaw. We'll dodge the details, but an oral surgeon will fix him up over the next few weeks.

On Tuesday he left for Lisbon, Portugal, the starting line for the 15-stage, 5,400-mile off-road race, which finishes in Dakar, Senegal. Soon afterward, veteran navigator Kevin Heath, who is building production plants in China, will join him. Checkpoint errors caused Bailey to be disqualified from the last two Dakars.

Wired and Forbes magazines are producing profiles of Bailey, and he'll write a diary of his next Dakar for Business Week. Bailey aims to take part in the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup - to be run over seven courses in Africa, Europe and South America - in 2008.

"What can I say? Others are impressed with the vehicle," he said. "It's really advanced stuff. We need the strength and durability to go 8,000 miles. Races here last 200, 300 miles, and we make everything last 10,000 miles. That's 2 1/2 years compared to the usual race here.

"That's real technology."