Dakar Rally set for 2nd running in South America
December 31, 2009
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP)—Considered the most dangerous race on the planet,the Dakar Rally starts Saturday with 378 drivers taking part in the secondedition staged in South America because of security concerns.
Dunes, desert, mountains and other hostile terrain lie in wait for 138 cars,161 motorbikes, 29 quads and 50 trucks in the 16-stage race that covers 9,030kilometers across Argentina and Chile before finishing Jan. 6 in Buenos Aires.
Last year’s winner, Ginield De Villiers of South Africa, leads thefavorites. The 2009 champions in other categories also return: Spanish motorbikerider Marc Coma, Czech quad driver Josef Machacek and Russian truck driverFirdaus Kabirov.
The symbolic start of the race will take place Friday, with a 349-kilometerdrive from emblematic Buenos Aires monument, the Obelisk, to the city of Colon.
Racing begins the following day from Colon with a 684-kilometer first stageto Cordoba. Drivers then head to La Rioja and Fiambala in Argentina before goingto Copiapo on Jan. 5, the first Chilean city to host the Dakar, followed byAntofogasta, Iquique, La Serena and Santiago.
The race returns to Argentina, passing through San Juan, San Rafael, SantaRosa and finally Buenos Aires. The only rest day in the 32nd edition of theDakar Rally will be Jan. 9.
Teams from Volkswagen and BMW are the favorites. Volkswagen boasts DeVilliers, as well as former world rally champion Carlos Sainz from Spain andQatari driver Al Attiyah.
BMW will have French driver Stephane Peterhansel behind the wheel, asix-time champion on motorbikes and three-time winner in cars of the Dakar Rallyin Africa, plus Nani Roma of Spain.
“The Dakar is the hardest race in the world, you have to work hard andsuffer a lot,” said Roma, the 2006 winner. “But when you get to be champion,it’s worth it.”
Sainz, meanwhile, will be looking for revenge after leading the race in 2009before being forced to retire following an accident, apparently due to an errorin the map produced by the race authorities.
“I’m worried about the road book being correct,” Sainz said. “It’s such along race over so many days that you run into all sorts of obstacles. You haveto be patient and prudent to solve them.”
Safety will be an important feature after Pascal Terry died in the lastrace. The French motorcyclist died of a pulmonary edema on Jan. 7 in the secondstage between Santa Rosa and Puerto Madryn after reportedly only receiving helpseveral hours after requesting it.
In another incident, Cristobal Guerrero of Spain had an accident in the 10thstage in the middle of the Atacama, the world’s most arid desert, and spentseveral days in a coma.
Argentine quad driver Marco Patronelli said the 2009 stage between Neuquenand San Rafael was “terrible.”
“It looked like a movie,” he said. “At the side of the road were cars onfire, trucks turned on their sides. I was thinking: ‘What’s happening here?’ Thecars accelerated even when they couldn’t see anything, they didn’t care. Therewas a lot of irresponsibility.”
In order to reduce accidents, organizers have decided to make motorbikes andquads race almost 100 kilometers less than the other vehicles, along withspecial sections to avoid crashes with cars and trucks and prevent the problemsfrom 2009.
“Those that are in the lead don’t care (about the crashes). They look theother way and carry on,” said Patronelli, who came second in 2009. “You couldbe dying at the side of the road and they would pass by at top speed.”
The rally was moved to South America in 2009 because of safety concerns andthe possibility of a terrorist attack in Africa.
The 2008 race was canceled after the deaths of four French tourists inMauritania in December 2007. The deaths were linked to Al-Qaida. It was thefirst time the rally had been suspended since the first race in 1979.
After the cancellation, organizers vowed to prevent the rally disappearingand decided to move to South America.
