Dakar Rally opens  2011 Robby Gordon schedule

Robby Gordon roams around his shop about three weeks before his 2011 season kicks off with the Dakar Rally, and he has a group of mechanics working on his Hummer for that event and a smaller group working on a Sprint Cup car for the Daytona 500.

The three Dakar support haulers, with millions of dollars worth of equipment, were ready a month earlier and left by boat for South America. The actual race vehicles needed to be finished in a week so they could be put on a hauler to Miami and then shipped as air freight to Argentina.

For a guy who finished 34th in the Sprint Cup standings in 2010 and has had his share of spats with sponsors in the last year, Gordon is surprisingly upbeat on what lies ahead for him and his 50 employees in 2011.

He most likely won’t run for any season-long championships. Instead, he will compete in Dakar, in the Daytona 500 and 16 other Cup races, the Indianapolis 500, other off-road competitions, and, when he’s not racing, will go to other motorsports events, such as the X-Games, and promote his new Speed Energy drink.

The 41-year-old Gordon (he turns 42 on Sunday) will race where he wants to, when he wants to.

“This [racing] is what we’ve all dreamed of doing," Gordon said as he looked at the variety of vehicles in his shop. “They all have engines, wheels and tires. … I just want to race cars. That’s all I really want to do. I like to make a little money, but I really like to race cars. We’re doing a pretty decent job of it." Scenedaily.com