Everything about Paris-dakar totally explained
The
Dakar Rally (or simply "
The Dakar"; formerly known as "The Paris Dakar" or "Paris to Dakar Rally" and now as "The Lisboa Dakar") 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's an off-road
endurance race, called a
rally-raid 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 special sections are off-road, crossing dunes, mud, camel grass, rocks and
erg among others. The distances of each stage covered vary from several
kilometers up to 800 to 900 kilometers (500–560
mi) per day.
History and route
The race originated in 1978, a year after racer
Thierry Sabine got lost in the
desert and decided that it 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, has varied over the years. Dakar has been the destination city on all but four occasions. The rally began at Paris each year until 1995. In 1994 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
Recent rallies pass through
Morocco,
Western Sahara and on to the grasslands and deserts of
Mauritania. The segments running through
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. Later on, Stéphane Peterhansel managed to do the same. In 2001, Jutta Kleinschmidt was the first woman to win the Dakar, driving a Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero, co-driving with fellow German Andreas Schulz. In 2006,
Patsy Quick became the first British woman to complete the Dakar (on a motorcycle).
The
2008 Dakar Rally was canceled on
January 4,
2008 amid fears of terrorist attack(s). This caused serious doubts over the future of the rally. Various newspapers in Africa called the cancellation a "death sentence" for the race.
Chile and
Argentina, in
South America, offered their territory to host the event, as well as the
Czech Republic, or
Hungary in
Central Europe. The ASO finally decided to establish the Dakar Series competition, which first event is the 2008
Central Europe Rally (
Hungary-
Romania), between
April 20 and
April 26 2008. The 2009 event will organized in the two South American countries, between
January 3-
18,
2009. Group 2 is Super-Production bikes, which are more substantially modified than Marathon bikes, subdivided between engines of greater and less than 451 cc. The Open class accepts weight-qualifying vehicles such as
SCORE International trucks. They are divided into two groups, T4 and T5.
T4 class trucks participate in the competition, while T5 trucks travel from bivouac to bivouac to support the competition vehicles.
T5 vehicles don't have to be homologated.
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.
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 250 km (155 mi) 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
Māris Saukāns, while on
January 14 a 12-year old boy was killed after being hit by a support lorry.
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. 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, 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.
The
2008 Dakar Rally was cancelled due to security concerns after the
al-Qaeda based murder of four French tourists on Christmas eve in December 2007 in
Mauritania (a country in which the rally spends eight days), accusations against the rally calling it "neo-colonialist," and accusations against Mauritania calling it a supporter of "crusaders, apostates and infidels", the France-based
Amaury Sport Organisation, in charge of the rally, said in a statement they'd been advised by the French government to cancel the race which was due to begin on
January 5,
2008, from Lisbon. They said direct threats had also been made against the event by al-Qaeda related organizations.
Omar Osama bin Laden, son of
Osama bin Laden, recently attracted widespread news coverage by promoting himself as an "ambassador of peace" and proposing a horse race across North Africa as a replacement to the Dakar Rally, with sponsors' money going to support child victims of war, saying
"I heard the rally was stopped because of al-Qaida. I don't think they're going to stop me."
The Dakar Rally had been held uninterrupted since 1979 although there have been regular calls for its cancellation over security fears and the danger the fast-driving vehicles pose to local populations.
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"
("500 Assholes at the Starting Line"), by
French singer
Renaud. But recent figures show that throughout the whole of two weeks of racing, with over 500 vehicles competing, the carbon emissions of The Paris Dakar are approximately that of a single Formula 1 race.
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 hasn't 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." 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".
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.
List of winners
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