It was early afternoon for the locals, but for me it was 4:15am. Sitting in Frankfurt, waiting for a 1:30pm flight that was delayed until 2:00pm was a bit of a culture shock for me. I was in diesel's birthplace, yet I couldn't leave the airport to go explore. I had never been to Germany, so naturally the first thing I did was walk over to one of the newsstands and see if they sold Diesel Power. They didn't-bummer.
As I waited for my connecting flight to Lisbon I noticed there was a guy from Mitsubishi's Dakar crew sitting a few seats away from me. My first thought was he must be a mechanic, or an engineer. It turns out he was one of the team's attorneys. How's that for tough competition? You have to bring your own legal counsel with you to the race! That proves Mitsubishi's level of commitment to the Dakar, and shows why it's been the team to beat since 2001. Unfortunately, Mitsubishi races gasoline-powered vehicles so there wasn't much for us to talk about.
DAY 3, 12:40pm
LISBON, PORTUGAL
The lobby of the Vila Gale hotel in Lisbon, Portugal was Ground Zero for both Volkswagen and Mitsubishi's Dakar teams. I was sitting on a couch in the lobby trying to get on the Internet with my laptop, and listening to a number of conversations in German (Volkswagen) and French (Mitsubishi) all around me. It seemed the two teams are as much colleagues as they are competitors. I was impressed by how calm both teams were. The race drivers and team managers were going over their logistic plans, but there were no frantic phone calls, no last minute disasters, and no talk about working on the cars at all. It was unlike any other pre-race day I have ever seen.