Here we go. Ever since I wrote about the concerns of the safety of motorsport/auto racing after the death of two racers in the span of four months, I am constantly hoping that motorsport will be at least remotely safe with all these changes and improvements of safety regulations, but when the new year rolls, a rally raid endurance championship opens its doors for all the drivers and riders to test both the man and the machine to their absolute limits through harsh conditions. No wonder lives are claimed every year during this big motorsport spectacle. Although I am more into the on-road side of the spectrum, the off-road motorsport category always presents something new and unique through every race and every road surfaces these guys have to pass through. Both FIA (for cars) and FIM (for bikes) has their own interpretation, this particular cross-country event is open for all vehicle classes (as in 2019, these categories are cars, bikes, trucks, quads, and the new UTVs). Let me guide you into the wonderful, yet treacherous world of the Dakar Rally.
The Dakar Rally was first held in December 1978 (although its first official edition was dated in 1979) with the starting point in the French capital Paris, finishing in the city of Dakar, Senegal through Algeria, Mali and Niger after a brief sea transport through the Mediterranean Sea. The first event featured a total of 182 competitors separated in three vehicle classes, with 80 cars, 90 motorbikes and 12 trucks. This is also the only edition of the race where all vehicle classes are classified together. The subsequent events saw these categories compete separately. France was the successful country in this edition, as three French drivers all won the overall rally standings in all three classes. Those were Alain Genestier (cars/Range Rover), Cyril Neveu (bikes/Yamaha), and Jean-Francois Dunac (trucks/Pinzauger Trucks). This route ultimately gave the race the current “Dakar Rally” name, as the route between the subsequent events (from 1980 to 1991, as well as 1993, 1994, 1998 and 2001) features Paris as the starting point and finishes in Dakar, with variations of race stages going through cities in between (in 1998, the organizers went overboard, setting the race from Paris to Dakar and back to Paris). There are few times either the start or the finish is in different cities. In 1992, the finish line moved to Cape Town, South Africa in a bid to combat declining number of competitors. During the 1995, 1996 and 1999 events, the rally actually started in Granada, Spain. The rally would return to Spain, traditionally finishing in Dakar, with Madrid served as the route between Arras, France and the Senegalese capital in 2002, and Barcelona, which became the starting point of the 2005 edition. In few instances, the Senegalese city actually start the race, with the 1997 edition featured the Dakar-Agadez (Niger)-Dakar route, and the 2000 edition, which finished in Cairo, Egypt. One edition in particular (before the race moved to South America) featured neither Paris nor Dakar as either the start or the finish. The 2003 edition won by Hiroshi Masuoka and Andreas Schultz in the Automobile category driving the Mitsubishi (Masuoka became only the second Japanese to win the event after Kenjiro Shinozuka in 1997, also with Mitsubishi) started in Marseille and finished in the Egyptian city of Sharm el Sheikh. After the cancellation of the 2008 event due to concerns over terrorist threat, the rally returned in 2009, this time in the South American continent, with the routes taking place between Argentina and Chile. Aside from the two countries, the race also traveled through Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay, with the last edition of the event was back in 2019 held in Peru. The current edition of the Dakar Rally is currently held in Saudi Arabia, the first time for the Asian continent and the Middle East region. The drivers and riders are currently navigating themselves from Jeddah to Qiddiya, comprising 12 stages in total.
Many would say that the Dakar is the true test of endurance for both man and machine, as this particular motorsport event typically held in unnaturally harsh conditions like mountains and deserts (most notably the African Sahara Desert and the Atacama Desert in the South American routes), with varying terrain surfaces like mud, sand, camel grass, erg and many others. The vehicles entered for this particular rally raid event are also specifically modified to last the entire event. You will probably notice a few key differences in vehicle specifications between cars used in the World Rally Championship (WRC) and the ones in the Dakar. Most common difference is the ground clearance level; with rally raid cars are noticeably higher than their WRC counterparts. Cars competing in the Dakar would most likely survive a WRC special stage, but the WRC class car wouldn’t last long in the more harsher desert environment. The key difference between both car classes is while WRC use the base of modern production cars currently on sale, most cars are either heavily modified or specifically built to withstand the more hostile environment. The drivers and navigators (on cars, trucks and UTVs) have to be extra careful on navigating themselves through the stages of the race. There are current talks about the inclusion of electrically powered vehicles to enter the rally itself, although it’s not for the first time. The 2017 edition saw a Spanish manufacturer Acciona, with a crew comprised of driver Ariel Jaton and navigator Tito Rolon competed with a fully electric car in the category, finishing 57thplace overall. The car itself used a 250 kW electric motor with six battery modules capable of charging independently, with a 100-watt solar panel mounted on the roof as the energy source. The bikes used in the rally are also radically different from normal motocross bikes. While the FIM-spec MXGP bike equipped with a 250cc engine, the engines used in rally raid bikes are limited to 450cc. The motorcycle class once had two subclasses, the bikes and the quads. The latter was spun off as a separate class beginning from the 2009 rally. These quads are typically four-wheel drive with the engine capacity up to 900cc. The trucks are probably the biggest and heaviest category competing in this historic rally, with onboard crews can be up to three at a time, this category hold a specific distinction as the most powerful category of the race, with engine capacity exceeding 10 liters. The 2017 edition saw the introduction of the UTVs (Utility Terrain Vehicles). Previously fall under the broader Automobile category. These UTVs are permitted to run as a separate category with engines not exceeding 1000cc in capacity.
The drivers and riders have to familiarize themselves with surrounding environment; with most of them are seasoned rally drivers with varying degrees of experience. Drivers like Stephane Peterhansel, current defending champion Nasser al-Attiyah, rallying legend Sebastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz Sr are some of the famous names competing the rally from that background. Throughout its history, there are only two Formula 1 drivers who entered this prestigious event. Those two are the 1983 winner Jacky Ickx and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, who is currently competing alongside co-driver and multiple Dakar Motorbike Class winner Marc Coma under the Toyota Gazoo Racing banner, driving a Toyota Hilux Dakar. The Japanese manufactures have a long history in the cars category, with Toyota as the current defending champion and Mitsubishi being the most decorated manufacturer in history. Other manufacturers have also taste the victory circle, like Mini (although as a non-factory effort), Volkswagen, Citroen, and Peugeot. On the two-wheeled side of the spectrum, Australian rider Toby Price is the current defending Dakar champion with KTM as the manufacturer, dominating the class since 2001. The last non-KTM winner was BMW in the previous edition. Peterhansel also held a record to be the only Dakar winner to win in two separate categories. In the trucks, Russian manufacturer Kamaz is the current champion with driver crew of Russians Eduard Nikolaev, Evgeny Yakovlev, and Vladimir Rybakov. Although being relatively younger as a race category, the UTVs boasts manufacturers like Polaris and Can-Am as two competing makers. Much like KTM’s dominance on the bikes category, Yamaha has been dominant in the quads since its 2009 inception. Other makers competing with the Japanese are fellow compatriot Honda and Can-Am.
I did mention that The Dakar Rally is the most dangerous, totally unfriendly racing events ever existed, didn’t I? This is also one of the things the event is most famous of. In every event, there are bound to be at least one fatality during the course of the race, with most of the recorded deaths is from the bikes category. The first fatality was back at the first ever rally, when French Rider Patrice Dodin lost control of his Yamaha XT 500 bike approaching the start of the Agadez - Tahoua stage while adjusting his helmet. He suffered from skull fracture and was later declared dead after being transported into a hospital in Paris. The latest competitor to succumb from this rally at the time this article comes out is Portuguese rider Paulo Goncalves; his cause of death is cardiac arrest. There are some other competitors from the trucks and the cars who died after getting involved in a sort of an accident. Kees van Loevezijn from The Netherlands and Frenchmen Charles Cabannes and Laurent Gueguen are the only three competitors (engineer and two support truck drivers, respectively) from the heavy category to die in this rally, with the Dutchman died after being thrown out from the truck after hitting a sand dune, Cabannes was shot dead by rebels at In Kadeouane Village, Mali, and the latter name was killed after caught in a landmine in Morocco. The first automobile accident was occurred in 1998 when co-driver Patrick Canado died after the Range Rover driven by Rene Boubet crashed into a Mercedes-Benz 280 of Italians Klaus Seppi and Ambrogio Azzuffi at high speed while the last accident happened in 2003, this time causing co-driver Bruno Cauvy to lose his life after an accident during the Libyan stage of Zilla and Sarir causing the Toyota Land Cruiser driven by Daniel Nebot to roll over at high speed. Nebot survived this incident.
As a motorsport fan, I can’t seem to enjoy Dakar somehow, not because of lacking any excitement, but because of its body count. Despite this, I always keep on tracking the progress of the drivers and riders currently competing in this event, with the hopes of surviving the Saudi Arabian edition of the race in one piece. With future races expected to be held in the Arabian peninsula in five years time, I can only hope that the organizers would pay more attention on the safety of all parties involved in this event, and in turn, decreasing the death toll during the race itself.
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