Dakar Rally

A support truck during the 2004 Dakar

The Dakar Rally (or simply "The Dakar"; formerly known as "The Paris Dakar Rally" and now as "The Lisbon Dakar Rally") is an annual off-road race, organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation. The race is open to amateur and professional entries; amateurs typically make up 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 specials are off-road, crossing dunes, mud, camel grass, rocks, erg, among others. The distances of each stage covered vary from several kilometers to several hundred kilometers per day.

History and route

Tracks through the desert

Countries the rally has been through during its history (orange those countries only travelled through in the 1992 race to Cape Town).

The stages of Lisbon–Dakar 2006

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 varied over the years. Dakar has been the destination city on all but four occasions. The rally began at Paris each year until 1995. The previous year, the rally both began and ended in Paris, but due to complaints by the mayor, the finish had to be moved from the Champs-Élysées to Euro Disney. This also caused the organisation to lay out the rally through different locations in following years.

Complete list of routes

• 1979-1980: Paris - Dakar
• 1981-1988: Paris - Algiers - Dakar
• 1989: Paris - Tunis - Dakar
• 1990-1991: Paris - Tripoli - Dakar
• 1992: Paris - Cape Town, South Africa
• 1993: Paris - Dakar
• 1994: Paris - Dakar - Paris
• 1995-1996: Granada - Dakar
• 1997: Dakar - Agadez - Dakar
• 1998: Paris - Granada - Dakar
• 1999: Granada, Spain - Dakar
• 2000: Dakar - Cairo, Egypt
• 2001: Paris - Dakar
• 2002: Arras, France - Madrid, Spain - Dakar
• 2003: Marseilles, France - Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt
• 2004: Clermont-Ferrand, France - Dakar
• 2005: Barcelona, Spain - Dakar
• 2006-2009: Lisbon, Portugal - Dakar

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.

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)
• Full size Trucks ("T4" "Camions" or "Lorries")

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.

Automobile Class

Porsche 959 racing the 1986 Dakar Rally.

Nissan Navara Lisbon-Dakar 2006

Originally, European utility vehicles like the Land Rover, Range Rover, Mercedes-Benz G, Volkswagen Iltis and the Pinzgauer, as well the Japanese Toyota Land Cruiser, dominated the race.

Other manufacturers have entered heavily modified street vehicles such as Rolls-Royce, Citroën, Peugeot (405 T16 and 205 T16) and even Porsche.

In 2003, examples in the Automobile Class included the Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero, the Volkswagen Race Touareg, the Bowler Wildcat 200 and the Nissan Navara. Mercedes Benz M, BMW X5 and BMW X3. Hummer H1 and Hummer H3 sport-utilities were represented but did not appear in the leader positions. Jean-Louis Schlesser built a series of custom dune buggy vehicles for the race, and has won with them several times. American ("Baja") style pro trucks have also made appearances, but they have seldom won. At the present some of the main competitors in the car class are Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Nissan.

The Full Size Truck Class

Unimog U400L n.541 on second stage of the rally-raid Lisbon-Dakar 2006

Russian KAMAZ Seven times Dakar winner

The Full Size Truck Class ("T4" "Camions" or "Lorries") include Tatra, LIAZ, Kamaz, Hino, MAN, DAF, PERLINI, Mercedes-Benz Unimog, Renault Kerax, SCANIA, IVECO, GINAF. 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. After 2000, renewed competition started in the truck class between DAF, Tatra, Mercedes-Benz and Kamaz.

Motorcycle Manufacturers Class

The most popular of the Motorcycle Manufacturers Class in the race series would be KTM and Yamaha, as many of their Motorcycles have finished in top positions over the years. Also BMW motorcycles have been quite successful in Dakar.

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. The Versus (TV channel) (formally Outdoor Life Network) is covering half an hour segments of the 2007 Dakar Rally, daily showtimes are at 3:00 PM North American Eastern Standard Time Zone and repeats can be seen at varying times.

In Europe the coverage is also covered by EuroSport. In 2007 Eurosport both shows live feeds and some reruns the next day of the past days live show.

Incidents

Frontier between Morocco and Western Sahara during the Dakar Rally

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 Lockheed L100 search plane from the Algerian military spotted their white Peugeot 504 some 50 km (30 mi) off course. Thatcher, Verney and the mechanic were all unharmed.

In 1986, the organiser of the rally, Thierry Sabine, was killed when his Ecureuil helicopter crashed at 07:30 p.m. on Tuesday 14 January 1986, into a dune at Mali during a sudden sand-storm. Also killed onboard was the singer-songwriter Daniel Balavoine, helicopter pilot François-Xavier Bagnoud, journalist Nathalie Odent and Jean-Paul Lefur who was a radiophonic engineer for RTL^[1].

Six people were killed during the 1988 race, three 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 a Dutch navigator on the DAF Trucks team, a French privateer, and a French rider. 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.^[2]

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 stage 11. 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, in his third time in the Dakar, died January 9 as a result of neck injuries received in a crash approximately 250km (155mi) into stage 9, between Nouakchott and Kiffa, only a few kilometers from the location where Meoni had his fatal wreck the year before. He won the third stage of the 2006 event between Nador and Er Rachidia only a few days before his death. The death occurred despite efforts by the event organisers to improve competitor safety, including speed limits, mandatory rest at fuel stops, and reduced fuel capacity requirements for the bike classes. On January 13, a 10-year old boy died while crossing the course 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 [1].

In 2007, 29-year old South African motor racer Elmer Symons died of injuries sustained in a crash during the fourth stage of the Rally. Symons crashed with his bike in the desert between Er Rachidia and Ouarzazate, Morocco.^[3] Another death occurred on January 20, the night before the race's finish, when 42-year-old motorcyclist Eric Aubijoux died suddenly. The cause of death was initially believed to be a heart attack,^[4] however it was later suggested that Aubijoux died of internal injuries sustained in a crash earlier that day while competing in the 14th stage of the race.

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 environmental impact of the race has been another issue. This rejection of the race is notably the topic of the song 500 connards sur la ligne de départ by French singer Renaud ("500 assholes on the start line").

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 [race's] 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."^[5] 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".^[6]

Some 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.^[7]

List of winners

Year	Cars		Motorcycles		Trucks		Route
	Driver Co-Driver	Manufacturer	Rider	Manufacturer	Driver	Manufacturer
2007	Stéphane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret	Mitsubishi Pajero	Cyril Despres	KTM 690 Rally	Hans Stacey	MAN	Lisbon-Dakar
2006	Luc Alphand Gilles Picard	Mitsubishi Pajero	Marc Coma	KTM LC4 660R	Vladimir Chagin	Kamaz	Lisbon-Dakar
2005	Stéphane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret	Mitsubishi Pajero	Cyril Despres	KTM LC4 660R	Firdaus Kabirov	Kamaz	Barcelona-Dakar
2004	Stéphane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret	Mitsubishi Pajero	Nani Roma	KTM LC4 660R	Vladimir Chagin	Kamaz	Clermont-Ferrand-Dakar
2003	Hiroshi Masuoka Andrea Schulz	Mitsubishi Pajero	Richard Sainct	KTM LC4 660R	Firdaus Kabirov	Kamaz	Marseille-Sharm el Sheikh
2002	Hiroshi Masuoka Pascal Maimon	Mitsubishi Pajero	Fabrizio Meoni	KTM LC8 950R	Vladimir Chagin	Kamaz	Arras-Madrid-Dakar
2001	Jutta Kleinschmidt Andrea Schulz	Mitsubishi Pajero	Fabrizio Meoni	KTM LC4 660R	Karel Loprais	Tatra	Paris-Dakar
2000	Jean-Louis Schlesser Henri Magne	Schlesser-Renault Buggy	Richard Sainct	BMW F650RR	Vladimir Chagin	Kamaz	Paris-Dakar-Cairo
1999	Jean-Louis Schlesser Philippe Monnet	Schlesser-Renault Buggy	Richard Sainct	BMW F650RR	Karel Loprais	Tatra	Granada-Dakar
1998	Jean-Pierre Fontenay Gilles Picard	Mitsubishi Pajero	Stéphane Peterhansel	Yamaha YZE850T	Loprais	Tatra	Paris-Granada-Dakar
1997	Kenjiro Shinozuka Henri Magne	Mitsubishi Pajero	Stéphane Peterhansel	Yamaha YZE850T	Peter Reif	Hino	Dakar-Agades-Dakar
1996	Pierre Lartigue Michel Perin	Citroën ZX	Edi Orioli	Yamaha YZE850T	Viktor Moskovskikh	Kamaz	Granada-Dakar
1995	Pierre Lartigue Michel Perin	Citroën ZX	Stéphane Peterhansel	Yamaha YZE850T	Karel Loprais	Tatra	Granada-Dakar
1994	Pierre Lartigue Michel Perin	Citroën ZX	Edi Orioli	Cagiva Elefant 900	Karel Loprais	Tatra	Paris-Dakar-Paris
1993	Bruno Saby Dominique Seriyes	Mitsubishi Pajero	Stéphane Peterhansel	Yamaha YZE850T	Francesco Perlini	Perlini	Paris-Dakar
1992	Hubert Auriol Philippe Monnet	Mitsubishi Pajero	Stéphane Peterhansel	Yamaha YZE850T	Francesco Perlini	Perlini	Paris-Sirte-Cape Town
1991	Ari Vatanen Bruno Berglund	Citroën ZX	Stéphane Peterhansel	Yamaha YZE750T	Jacques Houssat	Perlini	Paris-Tripoli-Dakar
1990	Ari Vatanen Bruno Berglund	Peugeot 405 T16	Edi Orioli	Cagiva Elefant 900	Villa	Perlini	Paris-Tripoli-Dakar
1989	Ari Vatanen Bruno Berglund	Peugeot 405 T16	Gilles Lalay	Honda NXR800V			Paris-Tunis-Dakar
1988	Juha Kankkunen Juha Piironen	Peugeot 205 T16	Edi Orioli	Honda NXR800V	Karel Loprais	Tatra	Paris - Alger - Dakar
1987	Ari Vatanen Bernard Giroux	Peugeot 205 T16	Cyril Neveu	Honda NXR750V	Jan de Rooy	DAF	Paris-Alger-Dakar
1986	René Metge Dominique Lemoyne	Porsche 959	Cyril Neveu	Honda NXR750V	Giacomo Vismara	Mercedes-Benz	Paris-Alger-Dakar
1985	Patrick Zaniroli Jean Da Silva	Mitsubishi Pajero	Gaston Rahier	BMW GS980R	Karl-Friedrich Capito	Mercedes-Benz	Paris-Alger-Dakar
1984	René Metge Dominique Lemoyne	Porsche 911	Gaston Rahier	BMW GS980R	Pierre Lalleu	Mercedes-Benz	Paris-Alger-Dakar
1983	Jacky Ickx Claude Brasseur	Mercedes 280 G	Hubert Auriol	BMW GS980R	Georges Groine	Mercedes-Benz	Paris-Alger-Dakar
1982	Claude Marreau Bernard Marreau	Renault 20	Cyril Neveu	Honda XR550	Georges Groine	Mercedes-Benz	Paris-Alger - Dakar
1981	René Metge Bernard Giroux	Range Rover	Hubert Auriol	BMW GS800R	Adrien Villette	ALM/ACMAT	Paris-Dakar
1980	Freddy Kottulinsky Gerd Löffelmann	Volkswagen Iltis	Cyril Neveu	Yamaha XT500	Ataouat	Sonacome	Paris-Dakar
1979	Alain Génestier Joseph Terbiaut	Range Rover	Cyril Neveu	Yamaha XT500			Paris-Dakar

References

See also

• Plymouth-Banjul Challenge - low-cost alternative
• Budapest-Bamako - another low-cost alternative
• DARPA Grand Challenge - Cars are driven with out drivers
• Baja 1000

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Paris Dakar Rally

• dakar.com (multilingual)
• Dakar 2007 Video and Photo Gallery

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