Robic is in the lead, but it's a surprisingly close ride right now. They're only 2.5 days in, so the real challenge is just getting underway; but for these first few days, Robic has been exchanging the lead with Baloh (another Slovenian), Strasser (who got dropped last night) and Wyss (who had the lead going into TS-11).

Surprisingly, Gulewicz and Garcia (last year's closest contenders for the front) are sitting back at the 5 and 6 positions, over 2 TimeStations behind the lead.

The pace this year is farking insane. Almost 20mph for the first couple hundred miles, and now tapering off to 17.8mph as they approach TS-12 and TS-13 around the 750 mile markers.