As you may know, last year's Dakar rally was cancelled at the last minute due to terrorist activity in the African desert country of Mauritania. Assuming the situation would not be any better this year, the event is being held in Argentina and Chile. The route starts and ends in Buenos Aires and covers 6,000 miles including 3,500 miles of "special stages" - the timed sections on which the event is scored. The 543 listed starters includes 195 "cars" (mostly SUV-sized or dune buggys), 235 "motos" (motorcycles), 20 "quads" (ATVs), and 84 trucks (huge transporters that also act as service vehicles for the other entrants. The cars include factory entries from Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, and Nissan. About ten BMWs (mostly X3s with diesel power) are entered and several are among the favorites to win. American Indy Car and NASCAR driver Robby Gordon is entered with a Hummer. Note that these cars have about as much to do with their production counterparts as Jimmy Johnson's NASCAR Monte Carlo has to do with what you can buy at your local Chevy dealer.
Gordon's Hummer has a Corvette Z06-based, mid-mounted engine. Most of the motorcycles are Austrian-made KTMs. A couple of BMWs are competing.

The Versus television network is showing half-hour daily recaps of the previous day's stage. They are on at 3:30 pm and repeated at 6:30 pm.

SPOILER ALERT: Noteworthy news after the first 3 days: Guerlain Chicherit of France was leading through several checkpoints with his BMW the first day, but suffered mechanical problems that brought him into the finish 7-hours behind the winning X3 of Nasser Al Attiyah of Qatar. Robby Gordon chose to drive convervatively and finished in 17th place, 14-minutes behind. Factory VW Touaregs held positions 2 (WRC driver Carlos Sainz of Spain), 3 and 4 (American Mark Miller). Day Two had a short 147-mile stage that was won by Sainz. Al Attiyah was 9th (6 1/2 minutes behind), Gordon 10th (9 1/2 behind), and Chicherit had his BMW running again to finish 15th. That moved him up to 140th place among the cars. The leading BMW this day was Argentine Orlando Terranova in 8th place.
If you saw the coverage you know how tough the deep sand was on part of the route.
Day Three (today) was another victory for Al Attiyah's BMW, but his margin over Sainz was only 35 seconds so he still trails the Spaniard by 3 minutes 40 seconds. Terranova (BMW) was 7th and lies 7th overall. Gordon was 10th again and is 9th overall, and Chicherit (BMW) was 9th and has moved up to 92nd overall, but still over 7 hours behind the leader.