Nice write up on the Dakar site about on of the British organising team:
"Every day, the hundreds of vehicles in the Dakar caravan gather in a technical bivouac where the big teams and the amateurs live and work together. This coexistence is being micromanaged for the first time in the 35-year history of the rally. Predetermined sites and free areas provide a place for everyone to work according to their needs. Geoffrey Dixon is the mind behind this revolution.
This good-natured, smiling Welshman from Solva likes to hang out in Cardiff and the Millennium Stadium. Most importantly, the freshly appointed chief of site limits at the assistance bivouac is an old hand when it comes to this type of challenges: "I've been doing this all my life", says the man known as Jeff as he stands in the centre of the eight hectares reserved for the Nazca bivouac.
"I was in charge of the Moto GP paddocks for 20 years and the organisers contacted me last year to discuss and implement a system." Jeff looks around as he clutches his table in the scorching sound. The ground has been flattened and compacted. He strides along the "streets" which were traced even before he arrived. He checks the measurements of the sites before telling his small team (four people) where to set up the markers and the team tapes to mark the limits more clearly. "We started from the premise that different people have different needs and that the distribution of assistance teams couldn't continue to be a free-for-all. And sometimes, a fight-for-all... The backbone's made up of a broad central street and five perpendicular corridors. I've got to find a place for 30 teams which set out their needs before their rally. We also have to adapt constantly, because some things you don't know until the last minute, such as the compactness of the terrain. This can mean a world of difference for the semis, like in Pisco, where some of them got stuck in the sand."
Rally raids are something completely different for Jeff, and the huge Dakar even more so. "It's another world", he says with his deadpan, oh-so-British humour, as he adds: "Everything was very clinical in Moto GP..." But the likes the challenge. In the 2013 edition, he has to work with around fifty "significant" structures, as he likes to say. Almost 800 vehicles in all. It's like an initiation ritual for the Welshman, who's also in charge of solo competitors. "Finding a place for a motorcycle and a van is as easy as 1-2-3", he explains. The aim is to provide very small structures with a global fixed site where they can set up shop." The rally's logistics manager, Marc Philly, thinks the need for Jeff's work was glaringly obvious in view of the race's importance. "But also with safety in mind, because we have to make sure the bivouac can be swiftly evacuated if the need arises."
