DAKAR RALLY: BONE-JARRING, ADVENTUROUS, HARROWING – AND DEADLY
It has lured racers for a quarter of a century, serving up a bone-jarring adventure through the Sahara desert in one of the most harrowing motor racing competitions on the planet.
Sandstorms, land mines, armed bandits and sand dunes so steep they can hurl cars upside down are all part of the perilous history of the Dakar Rally. And, for drivers and spectators alike, this race can be deadly.
This year, there have been two fatalities: Spanish motorcyclist Jose Manuel Perez and Italy’s Fabrizio Meoni, a two-time motorbike winner who had said this Dakar Rally would be his last.
”The rally is very dangerous,” said Jordi Arcarons, a team manager with KTM Repsol.
Organisers said that since the first rally in 1979, about two dozen competitors have died. The total figure — including spectators, organisers and journalists — exceeds 30. One of the worst years, 1988, claimed six lives — three participants and three African spectators.
Rally authorities have done what they can to bolster safety, including ensuring that a rescue helicopter is always hovering nearby and limiting the maximum speed in villages to 50kph.
This year’s race covers 8 956km and features separate races for cars, trucks and motorcycles. Unlike the old days, each vehicle is now equipped with GPS tracking devices, allowing fans and emergency teams to pinpoint competitors’
positions.
That’s important, because in many places, the track — if you can call it that — is more than 6km wide. How to navigate is up to the racer.
But even then, it can be too late. French rider David Fretigne was first to alert authorities to Meoni’s crash. A medical team arrived by helicopter 15 minutes later, but despite on-the-scene treatment, the rider died less than hour later.
The 47-year-old racer, winner of the Dakar motorcycle title in 2001 and ’02, had been in second place this year. Organisers cancelled the 12th stage of the motorcycle event on Wednesday at the request of riders mourning Meoni. Cars and trucks proceeded in the leg from Kiffa, Mauritania, to Bamako, Mali.
South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers won the 12th stage in 7 hours, 20 minutes, 58 seconds. Overall leader Stephane Peterhansel of France was 3:01 behind, with fellow Frenchman Luc Alphand trailing by 6:27.
Peterhansel maintained his overall lead, with 41:05:13, followed by Alphand, 23:16 back, and Jutta Kleinschmidt of Germany third, trailing by 1:18:47.
A day earlier, organisers took the precaution of cutting off 250km of the 695km stage because of poor weather and exhausted drivers.
The rally’s route changes every year, making many parts of it largely new to the riders. The trek usually begins in Europe and ends in the south of the Sahara in Senegal’s seaside capital, Dakar. The 2003 race skipped West Africa for the first time — heading through Libya and Egypt instead because of fears over security, banditry and terrorism.
This year, 230 motorcycles, 165 cars and 70 trucks began the trek from Spain on December 31. The route takes them through Morocco, Mauritania and Mali before reaching Dakar on Sunday.
The off-road race has a reputation for unrivaled toughness, particularly in the more remote West African stretches where competitors zoom across rock-strewn roads to mountain passes and sand-swept desert oases filled with camels and curious turbaned nomads. Crashes are reported nearly daily and drivers often arrive at the end of each stage banged-up and bruised.
In the 1982 race, Mark Thatcher, the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, got lost in the Sahara for a week when his car broke down. In 1999, Sahara bandits robbed competitors at gunpoint in Mauritania. Wayward drivers veering off-route have even hit land mines left over from the Morocco-Western Sahara war that ended in 1990.
Last year, Saharan nations pledged thousands of troops to guard against possible terror attacks along route that skirted the desert home of Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
”When I was a rider, as I left my home, I thought, ‘Will I return in 15 days?”’ said Arcarons, the team manager with KTM Repsol.
”I never said that to my family, but I was aware of the danger and the risks. When you are in the rally, you never think of the danger, you think you are the fastest and the best.” – Sapa-AP