“A challenge for those who go and a dream for those who stay behind.” – Thierry Sabine
When writing about the Dakar you tend to get carried away – nostalgia, passion, love, respect and joy all kick in at the same time and if you do not handle that with care – it could end up in a writer’s crash of note.
With that in mind, let’s run through some of the historic highlights leading up to the 2015 Dakar.
Thierry Sabine had a dream in 1977 which he got off the ground in December 1978 when about 178 teams started from Place du Trocadero in Algiers through Niger, Mali to the finish-line 10000km later in Senegal.
The first Dakar was won by a, wait for it, a Range Rover – I shit you not.
1981 – the event was already establishing itself, the public accepted it as a tradition in the making and the ordinary enthusiast could rub shoulders with the best in the world. Rolls Royce against a Citroen CX driven by drivers such as Jacky Ickx.
The Dakar Legend was gaining momentum.
1986 – Tragedy struck when Dakar founder Thierry Sabine and three other died in a helicopter crash. The event went on under a cloud of sombreness.
1987 Peugeot entered the ring and beat all and sundry with Ari Vatanen behind the wheel.
1988 broke entry records when 603 competitors departed from Versailles.
This was the year when Vatanen’s Peugeot 405 T16 disappeared (no joke) long enough to cost him an assured win. Team mate Jahu Kankunen however did still pull it off for Peugeot.
In 1989 a young man on a motorcycle drew all attention to him when he finished 4th in his first event. Peterhansel was on the scence. Vatanen took revenge and won the event.
1990 Peugeot took top three with Vatanen leading out of Dakar. This powerhouse performance punctuated the end of its involvement in off-road rallies.
1991 Ari won in a Citroen and President Kadhafi pays the rally a visit.
1992 the Dakar finished in Cape Town and Auriol won this first and last Paris – Cape Town event. Peterhansel pulled off the bike win.
1993 saw the entry drop to the lowest ever – 154 with Bruno Saby winning the car division and Peterhansel banked his third bike title.
1997 saw the first woman ever winning a stage on the Dakar when Juta Kleinschmidt achieved this fete while Peterhansel recorded his fifth biker win.
2001 Juta Kleinschmidt pulled off the first overall win for a woman when she brought the Mitsubishi home ahead of all comers.
2003 saw the entry into the Dakar by our very own Nissan Team and Giniel de Villiers. This would mark the start of a great Dakar career. Giniel managed to finish in 5th with navigator Pascal Maimon beside him. Hiroshi Masuoka won this event for Mitsubishi that managed to fill the first 4 places.
2004 Peterhansel records his first win in a car driving a Mitsubishi and a proud moment for me as well, when my long-time friend and navigator Francois Jordaan is selected to accompany Giniel de Villiers on the event and they did us all proud to finish 7th overall.
2005 the event started in Barcelona Peterhansel in a Mitsubishi leads from the start and manages to ward off a very persistent team mate Luc Alphant.
Giniel finishes in 4th spot with Jean-Marie Lurquin beside him.
2006 The first time the event starts in Portugal.
Luc Alphant wins after Mitsubishi Team mate Peterhansel makes a series of bad choices in the sand.
Giniel de Villiers this time in a Volkswagen Tuareg with Tina Thomer beside him, finishes an incredible 2nd overall and South Africans, those who knew about it jumped over the moon.
2007 Carlos Sainz and Giniel dominates the first half of the event in their Tuaregs but mechanical problems cause them to drop back while the Mitsubishi team of Peterhansel registered their 7th consecutive overall win.
Giniel won stages 3, 7 and 15 just to prove that he could. South African navigator Ralph Pitchford finished in 4th spot with Mark Miller in a Tuareg.
2008 the event was cancelled due to terrorist activities. Africa loses its most lucrative and biggest sporting event. Viva! Africa Viva – as usual.
2009 The first event held in South America – four million spectators and who wins? Giniel de Villiers wins the first event in South America in a Volkswagen Tuareg Diesel.
2010 this time it was Carlos Sainz’s turn in another VW after a very close battle with Nasser Al-Atiyah
2011 Nasser leads a podium clean sweep for Volkswagen and what happens – they end their off-road program. So next must be Mini?
2012 Peterhansel posts his 10th win while Despres records his 4th on a bike.
2013 Peterhansel leads Giniel now driving a Proudly South African Toyota Hilux over the finish line.
2014 Mini makes it a 1-2-3 with Roma leading Peterhansel over the line. Giniel finishes in 4th preventing Mini from taking 5th and 6th as well.
What does it really take to participate in this gruelling event?
Most people will immediately think about the money side of things, but let’s, out of respect for the less fortunate millionaires not mention the figures associated with the most demanding rally in the world.
Let’s presume that the fees have been paid by a kind-hearted billionaire who had nothing else to do, everything needed is packed into the vehicles ready to follow you on the route and fix whatever you manage to break.
Let us also presume you are fit enough to play a rugby test against Argentina as forward for the Japanese team and you did receive some serious psychiatric training and consultation before the event. Your mind is perfect, the subconscious mind will accept and analyse the “yes-no, yes-no” instructions and it will only really send out all the warning signals of disaster approaching when the ambulance guys pitch up and tell you to lie still and stop driving, you are hurt.
You weigh in the region of 60kg on the heavy side and 45kg on a lighter note.
You are convinced you can survive for three days without water and just to make sure you have gone without water for two weeks.
You have also made sure that you can concentrate non-stop for up to 12 hours – only blinking your eyes once every 45 minutes. You had a robot shoot 9360 golf balls at you – one every 10 seconds for 24 hours, against a sand dune colour background and caught all the balls? Well then I suppose you are sort of ready to go into a sand dune trance and stay there for a day on condition that you can read the incredible surfaces and keep the car on its wheels while driving like a bat out of desert hell.
A number of people from the past who thought I could drive a bit, asked me through the years if I ever wanted to do the Dakar.
My reply every-time, without hesitation, was – “no I have never had the urge and know that I do not have the temperament to dig a car out of sand and then drive two meters to dig it out again.” The second time will be petrol and matches rather than spades.
You simply have to be a special breed – I am talking about those supermen and woman who land on the podium or even finish in the top twenty of every category.
The bikers? Well I suppose everyone that finishes in that category can be seen as a special species – bordering on nothing short of ruthless madness.
One has to be fair by mentioning that the top teams, do not worry too much about getting stuck because their vehicles are superbly developed and their drivers normally very, very experienced and qualified.
Having said that brings me to the man I want to write about.
Our very own Giniel de Villiers.
De Villiers is an exception to many things more than just the rule. He seems to be a bit of a robot – being able to drive perfect lines on a race track, make very few mistakes in rallying and then in this event he seems to have been born for – the Dakar he is magic and seems to be able to read the road surface better than anyone else or at worse better than most and he has that special ability to drive “blind” better than anyone anyone I know.
Giniel is however not a “believer” – short and sweet. I am not talking religion but I know that he hardly ever believes anything anyone, not even the best navigator tells him when he cannot see or judge for himself .
He has recently won a National Championship Rally overall – but think about it – it was a rally in the Cape on roads he was familiar with, where he could see most of what was coming but most important it was on roads that he “understood”.
Giniel will always be one of the hot favourites to win the Dakar and currently he does not have to worry about anyone else in the team – so you may just as well put your January pay on him for a podium finish.
We do have another South African – de Villiers’ team mate in the second Hilux.
Leeroy Poulter, the rally driver I back (upsetting a few other) as currently the fastest in South Africa in rallying in the right car. I have little doubt that he will be able to stand his man in almost any company. Leeroy is not in the Ogier, Latvala, Loeb class, but he sure as hell will give most of the rest problems on a good day and although late to develop much further, he may even break through the holy grails like the other three mentioned men, and be able to drive on the other side of the Pearly Gates for almost every rally stage.
Unlike Giniel, Leeroy is not an endurance driver and he will have to put in a super human effort to stay on the road at the pace he normally drives. If however Leeroy manages to get to the last few days of this rally in good shape, he may just be the surprise for 2015. The Hilux is stronger, faster, lighter and better balanced than the 2014 model was. So who can tell?
The Argentinian Lucio Alvarez will also be an important factor in the rather large Toyota field, but that is about where the Toyota onslaught will start losing its momentum.
The guy to chase will be Nasser Al-Attiyah in the Mini. The Mini is like the Toyotas well sorted out and can only be better than last year, when it was good enough to give them a 1-2-3 result and it could easily have been 1-2-3-4-5-6, given half a chance.
This year Mini lost the services of Stephane Peterhansel and they will feel that – hopefully for them not in the form of looking at the backside of the Peugeot driven by mentioned Dakar icon.
Fact is that Nasser Al-Attiyah will probably lead the Mini assault and no one has any doubt that Nasser is one of the quickest desert drivers around. He will be well supported by Nani Roma who won last year beating Peterhansel to the post fair and square even though the latter had to hold back somewhat in the end after taking “unfair advantage” according to team management of Roma’s help throughout the event.
Both Terranova (5) and also Holowczyc (6) did well last year and there is no reason why they will not once again achieve this type of result or do even better.
Peterhansel will be supported by the Spanish President or so it sometimes seem – the evergreen prima donna of the rally scene, Carlos Sainz – his temperament and incredible self-assurance added to more talent than many rally drivers dream about will ensure that he will be all over Peterhansel – let alone back him up. Whether he will worry about any team orders remains to be seen. Carlos pulled off a win on the event and was unlucky not to do that one or two more occasions. His biggest problem however is the fact that he does not know how to pace himself at all. He wins either by driving flat out every day – or he loses. So – I will give him a 10:1 chance to win in the yet Dakar unproven vehicle. While writing this I see myself swallowing these words after the rally. Sainz is pure magic no matter what he drives.
Cyril Despres 5 times bike winner will drive the third Peugeot 2008 DKR 3 liter V6 bi-turbo diesel engine rated at 340 hp and capable of reaching a top speed of 200 km/h. He will only have to get used to a bit more comfort than on a bike and use his knowledge of the desert well to be right up there with the rest.
If the 2015 comeback for Peugeot is anything close to a repeat of what they achieved on their very first attempt in 1987 when they won the event in the hands of driver supreme Ari Vatanen we will be in for some fun and games.
The long and short of this comeback is that neither Peterhansel not Sainz will get into anything they know can not win the event. So watch this space closely.
Robbie Gordon the showman par excellence in the Hummer always has a chance to pull off a very unexpected win, but the chances are not too good as he is over the top most of the time. His showmanship and performance however makes him almost essential to the rally as he draws more people interst, especially American to the event than any other.
THE ROUTE
9000km is a long, long way even on tar and we all know how easily things can go wrong. The alternating road surfaces, varying altitude and temperature fluctuations will contribute to the testing of every competitor and ensure that they will not forget this experience in a hurry.
This year the Dakar will again include “marathon stages” – these are back to back stages without any use of assistance teams, a particular test of the team’s ability to independently manage on its own. The last time such stages were run was in 2005.
Split over two days, a marathon stage involves some of the competitors spending the night in an isolated bivouac. The vehicles are taken into a closed area, where only help between competitors is authorised.
In Uyuni, it will be the car teams that will spend a night apart, followed by the motorcyclists and quad bikers the next day. The truck category will have its own dedicated bivouac in the middle of the Atacama Desert.
On 11th January, three races will take place on three different routes and in two countries.
Different routes and rest days also gives the car teams the opportunity to fully demonstrate their potential, both in terms of driving and navigation. With 1,382km of open space (a third of the special stages) the cars will be able to compete without being slowed down by overtaking and will also enjoy routes over virgin terrain. The truck drivers will find themselves in this situation for more than 600km.
The rally starts in Buenos Aires – a city with 15m people. People passionate about almost everything they do. It is not exceptional to see more than a million spectators lining up next to the route to watch this spectacle.
Iquique is normally a stopping off point for tourists in their visit to the desert in Atacama. With its beguiling seafront, beaches and internationally renowned port, it marks for many the return to a less wild and silent environment. For the Dakar competitors, however, the town’s name gives them another feeling entirely and sends shivers down their spines. The rally has been based here since 2010, when it set up its bivouac at the foot of a steep descent which makes the site one of the prime spots of off-road rallies. Hurtling down this huge slope, which features a 30% gradient over nearly two kilometres, the drivers experience both fear and wonder, blown away by the view over the Pacific Ocean. The unique geography and visual environment leaves the finishers with an enduring feeling of relief!
This will provide the ideal setting for the organisation of two rest days that will be located in Iquique for the first time.
THE ITINERARY
Day January start from to finish at:
4 Buenos Aires to Villa Carlos Paz
5 Villa Carlos Paz to San Juan
6 San Juan to Chilecito
7 Chilecito to Copiapo
8 Copiapo to Antofagasta
9 Antofagasta to Iquique
10 Rest day Bikes and Quads
10 Iquique to Uyuni Car & Truck marathon
11 Uyuni to Iquique
12 Rest day Cars and Trucks
12 Uyuni to Iquique
12 Uyuni
13 Iquique to Calama
14 Calama Marathon Bike /Salta Car & trucks
15 Marathon Marathon Bike /Salta Car & trucks Termas Rio Hondo
16 Termas Rio Hondo to Rosario
17 Rosario to Buenos Aires
SOUTH AFRICANS IN THE DAKAR
We have 8 more South Africans participating in the event.
BIKES
No. 20 Rian van Niekerk on a KTM
No. 125 Albert Hintenaus on a KTM
No. 143 Wessel Bosman on a KTM
QUADS
No. 275 Brain Baragwanath Yamaha
No. 286 Willem Saiman Yamaha
TRUCKS
No. 553 Sean Berriman will be 3rd crew member in a DAF
We wish them all well and hold thumbs for good finishes and for Rian to pull of a big surprise.
Well that is it for the preview of the event. We will update you as often as possible and we hope to increase our current unique reader numbers from 32 000 per month and the hundreds of thousand clicks even more. It is great to see that the Rallystar international readership is also growing all the time.
Thank you and lets hold thumbs for the greatest event ever!