The eyes of Dakar competitors and followers will be focused on Paris today where the organisers of the Dakar ASO will make their presentation on the 2019 South American Dakar. They have quite a few problems that need to be addressed and it is not going to be easy to set the minds of those that are interested at ease.
In the past few months and weeks the organisers have had to deal with a number of issues that affect the running of the 40th edition of the Dakar.
The first was when Argentina announced that they did not have money to accommodate the Dakar.
Then followed the announcement by Chile that they too were withdrawing from the Dakar since they and the organisers could not come to an agreement on the route as they wanted the route to be changed to take in other areas of Bolivia to promote the country.
The dust had hardly settled on this issue when Bolivia announced that it too was withdrawing since they too could not come to an agreement with ASO. But in this case it was money that played a role. The Bolivian authorities stated that given the economic situation in the country they could not afford the cost of hosting the rally that was demanded by the organisers.
And if as a country you want to host the Dakar you have to dig deep into your pocket in spite of the fact that the event generates a major income for the hosting country.
So today we may hear what ASO is planning. The one problem that they have is that they still have not been able to finalise the route, something that should have been done a long time ago, but has been held up as a result of the negotiations with the various South American role players.
The other problem they have is to find money and lots of it since the Dakar does not come cheap. And it could be that this could be the main stumbling block since the other South America countries such as Peru and Ecuador are not the flush either. The withdrawal of Peugeot has not made matters easier to cope with. You only have Toyota and Mini as the main attractions. Is that enough?
In the meantime potential competitors are sitting on the side lines waiting to hear what is being planned since that affects their plans too and can have a detrimental effect on their preparations.
Then there are a school of thought that wants to bring the Dakar back to its roots in Africa with its main base in Algeria. However, here you have another problem. When the Dakar left to go to South America, a group of ex-Dakar competitors led by two time winner, Rene Metge, organized the Africa Eco Race usurping most of the routes that were used by the Dakar.
The AER has steadily grown in popularity in the past ten years and another clever off-roader, Jean-Louis Schlesser, also a two time winner of the Dakar, joined the organisers. The AER may therefore be an attractive alternative to South America.
The 2019 AER’s route has been announced and it will run from December 31 2018 to 12 January 2019 with some 6 500km of competitive stages through among others Morocco.
The finish will be at Lac Rose in Dakar.
So what can ASO do? The obvious answer is to find the money they need. They could decide to cancel the 2019 event. They could try to find a different date for the event, but then they would have to negotiate with the FIA and the Dakar has never run under the auspices of the FIA while the FIA also have their own cross country world cup championship. There will just not be dates available.
They could always negotiate to combine the Dakar with the AER, but they would be very strange bedfellows and AER would be calling the tune, something ASO may not like.
In the final analysis it is clear that the organisers, ASO, is in trouble unless they are able to get the proverbial hare out of a hat.
We will have to wait and see what the outcome will be.
Andries van der WALT – Editor
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