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The Dakar Rally (or simply "The Dakar"; formerly known as "The Paris Dakar Rally") is an annual professional off-road race, currently sponsored by Total S.A. and organized by the Amaury Sport Organisation. The race is open to amateur and professional entries; amateurs typically make about eighty percent of the participants.
Despite its name, it is an off-road endurance race rather than a conventional rally – the terrain the competitors traverse is much tougher and the vehicles used are true off-road vehicles rather than the modified sedans used in rallies. Most of the competitive sections ("stages" or "specials") are off-road, crossing dunes, mud, camel grass, rocks, erg, among others. The distances covered vary from several kilometers to several hundred kilometers per day.
History and route
The race originated in 1978, a year after racer Thierry Sabine got lost in the desert and decided this would be a good location for a regular rally. Originally, the rally was from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal, interrupted by a transfer across the Mediterranean; however due to politics and other factors, the course, including origin and destination, have been varied over the years. Early rallies passed frequently through Algeria. Today's rallies pass through Morocco, Western Sahara and onto the grasslands and deserts of Mauritania. The segments running though Atar and the sand dunes and canyons of Mauritania's Adrar Region may be the most challenging in all off road racing.
The last route from Paris to Dakar was organised in 1994; this was also the only time the rally went from Paris to Dakar and back to Paris. Due to complaints of the mayor of Paris, the finish had to be moved from the Champs-Élysées to Euro Disney. This also caused the organisation to lay out the rally through differing locations in the years to follow.
Complete lists of routes followed below:
- 1979: Paris - Dakar
- 1980: Paris - Dakar
- 1981: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1982: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1983: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1984: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1985: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1986: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1987: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1988: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
- 1989: Paris - Tunis - Dakar
- 1990: Paris - Tripoli - Dakar
- 1991: Paris - Tripoli - Dakar
- 1992: Paris - Cape Town
- 1993: Paris - Dakar
- 1994: Paris - Dakar - Paris
- 1995: Grenada - Dakar
- 1996: Grenada - Dakar
- 1997: Dakar - Agadez
- 1998: Paris - Granada - Dakar
- 1999: From Granada, Spain to Dakar
- 2000: From Dakar to Cairo, Egypt
- 2001: From Paris to Dakar
- 2002: From Arras, France (160 km North of Paris), through Madrid, Spain, to Dakar
- 2003: From Marseilles, France to Sharm el Shiekh, Egypt
- 2004: From Clermont-Ferrand, France to Dakar
- 2005: From Barcelona, Spain to Dakar
- 2006-2009: From Lisbon, Portugal to Dakar
In 1992, Hubert Auriol won the Dakar in an automobile after having previously won the motorcycle competition on two occasions, making him the first driver to win on both two and four wheels.
Vehicles and classes
The three major competitive classes of the Dakar are motorcycles, automobiles (ranging from buggies to small trucks) and large trucks. Many vehicle manufacturers exploit the harsh environment the rally offers as a testing ground, and consequently to demonstrate the durability of their vehicles, although most vehicles are heavily modified.
Originally, mostly European utility vehicles such as Land Rover Range Rover, Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen, Pinzgauer, and the Japanese Toyota Land Cruiser dominated the race; other manufacturers entered heavily modified street vehicles such as Rolls-Royce, Citroën and even Porsche. As of 2002, examples in the car class include Mitsubishi (Pajero/Montero), Nissan, and Hyundai; Mercedes-Benz, Range Rover, and BMW sport-utilities are represented but do not appear in the leader positions. Jean-Louis Schlesser builds a series of custom dune buggy vehicles for the race, and has won with them several times. American ("Baja") style pro trucks make an appearance, but they are also seldom in the winner's circle.
Trucks (T4 "Camions" or "Lorries") include Tatra, Kamaz, Hino, MAN, DAF and Mercedes-Benz Unimog. In the 1980s, a strong rivalry between DAF and Mercedes-Benz led to vehicles which had twin engines and more than 1000 hp (750 kW). Later Tatra, Perlini and Kamaz took the race up.
KTM is the most popular and currently leading motorcycle. At the present, the main competitors in the car class are Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Nissan, and in the motorcycle class are Yamaha Motor Corporation and KTM. After 2000, renewed competition started in the truck class between DAF, Tatra, Mercedes-Benz and Kamaz.
Sponsors
- Total / ELF (Petrol distributor)
- Euromaster (tires)
- Telefónica
Television coverage
The English television coverage of the rally is narrated by Toby Moody, a retired motorcycle rider whose distinct accent (especially pronouncing foreign names such as "Schless-ah", "Shi-no-zoo-ker" and "Me-oh-nee") adds to the personality of the race.
Coverage of the race in the United States has been spotty over the years. The Speed Channel devoted a half-hour per day in 2003 and 2004 to the event before being outbid by the Outdoor Life Network for 2005. OLN only programmed a single hour-long retrospective well after the event concluded. But in 2006, OLN has upped its coverage to half-hour long nightly stage recaps including reporters traveling in the bivouacs. None of OLN's coverage to date has featured Toby Moody.
Incidents
In 1982, Mark Thatcher, son of the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with his French co-driver Charlotte Verney and their mechanic, went missing for six days. On January 9, the trio became separated from a convoy of vehicles after they stopped to make repairs to a faulty steering arm. They were declared missing on January 12; after a large-scale search, a C130 Hercules search plane from the Algerian military spotted their white Peugeot 504 some 50km off course. Thatcher, Verney and the mechanic were all unharmed.
In 1986, the organizer of the rally, Thierry Sabine, died in a helicopter crash.
Six people were killed during the 1988 race; three race participants and three local residents. In one incident, Baye Sibi, a 10-year-old Malian girl, was killed by a racer while she crossed a road. A film crew's vehicle killed a mother and daughter in Mauritania on the last day of the race. The race participants killed, in three separate crashes, were Dutch navigator on the DAF Trucks team, an unaffiliated French driver, and a French motorcyclist. Racers were also blamed for starting a wildfire that caused a panic on a train running between Dakar and Bamako, where three more people were killed.Brown, Robert Carlton (1988). Disastrous days in the desert. Sports Illustrated, February 1, v68 n5 p20(4).
In 2005, Spanish motorcyclist José Manuel Pérez died in a Spanish hospital on Monday, January 10 after crashing the week before on the 7th stage. Italian motorcyclist Fabrizio Meoni, a two-time winner of the event, became the second Dakar Rally rider to die in two days, following Pérez on January 11 on the 11th stage. Meoni was the 11th motorcyclist and the 45th competitor overall to die in the history of the race. On January 13, a five-year-old Senegalese girl was crushed beneath the wheels of a service lorry after wandering onto a main road, bringing the total deaths to five. Many other African non-participants are said to have been killed because of the Dakar rally, but unlike the participants, no official figures are available and the names of the victims are usually not given.
In 2006, 41 year old Australian KTM motorcyclist Andy Caldecott died January 9 as a result of neck injuries received in a crash approximately 250 km into the 9th stage between Nouakchott and Kiffa. It was his 3rd participation in the rally. He won the third stage of the 2006 event between Nador and Er Rachidia only a few days before his death. On January 13, a 10-year old boy died while crossing the track after being hit by a car driven by Latvian Maris Saukans, while on January 14 a 12-year old boy was killed after being hit by a support lorry *.
Criticism
The race has been subject to criticism from several sources, generally focusing on the race's impact on the inhabitants of the countries through which it passes. The rally was criticised for crossing through the disputed, non-decolonized territory of Western Sahara, without consulting the Polisario Front, which is considered representative of the Sahrawi people. After the race officials began asking for formal permission from the Polisario from 2000 onwards, this has not been an issue.
After the 1988 race, when three Africans were killed in collisions with vehicles involved in the race, PANA, a Dakar-based news agency, wrote that the deaths were "insignificant for the * organizers". The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano called the race a "vulgar display of power and wealth in places where men continue to die from hunger and thirst."Brooke, James (1988). Dangerous Paris-Dakar race is endangered. The New York Times, March 13, p8. During a 2002 protest at the race's start in Arras, France, a Green Party of France statement described the race as "colonialism that needs to be eradicated".Paterne, Elodie (2001). Protests overshadow start of Paris-Dakar race. Agence France-Presse. December 28.
Some local residents along the race's course have said they see limited benefits from the race; that race participants spend little money on the goods and services local residents can offer. The racers produce substantial amounts of dust along the course, and are blamed for hitting and killing livestock, in addition to occasionally injuring or killing people.Doggett, Gina (2004) Paris-Dakar rally brings "little but dust", Senegalese villagers say. Agence France-Presse. January 18.
List of winners
References
See also
- Plymouth-Dakar Challenge - low-cost alternative
- Budapest-Bamako - another low-cost alternative
External links
- dakar.com (multilingual)
- dakar.total.com (French)
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"Dakar Rally"