Three little stories, without which the Dakar marathon would not have happened

Five hundred and fifty-six participants will take to the Dakar tracks this year, and about five million spectators are going to watch it live.
But none of this would have been possible without one enterprising sweet potato exporter from Africa, a motorcyclist lost in the dunes of the Sahara. and three short but very important stories.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Dakar was one of the centers of French colonial West Africa - a deputy even tried to be elected to the French parliament from here. And when the local republics became independent, Dakar remained an attractive piece of exoticism, where local residents continued to speak the language of Voltaire and Rousseau as their native language.

From coast to coast

The romance of adventure, deserts, elephants and dunes prompted the planter and exporter of sweet potatoes and wood, Jean-Claude Bertrand, who knew Africa well, to organize a car race in Côte d'Ivoire in 1969 - the Bandama Rally! Based on the name of a local river.

Jean-Claude Bertrand's next grandiose project was to organize an annual marathon on each of the five continents in turn, but this idea turned out to be too large-scale from a logistics point of view.
Extending the route from the former French colony to its metropolis was incomparably easier. And most importantly, without suspecting it, Bertrand came up with a new format of rally-raid - the prototype of the future “Paris-Dakar”. In addition, a man who was destined to glorify the race on African sands throughout the world was already at the start of the second Abidjan-Nice marathon.

Lone Hero

The sun, the unbearable heat and the endless yellowing horizon, the whole world now seemed to consist only of sand. Nature itself played with him like a cat and a mouse, squeezing out the last vital juices. Three days ago, Thierry Sabine, a participant in the Cote d'Ivoire - Cote d'Azur marathon, got lost in the desert and had to come to terms with the fact that there was no more hope.

Having started competing with his father Gilbert in rallies, he immediately began to fight for victories and luck has not yet left him. When he tried his hand at endurance racing, he won the Six Hours of Spa and finished at Le Mans. When I decided to organize a motorcycle beach race to shake up the resort town of Le Touquet in winter, it turned out to be a competition that every French motorcycle racer knows today.

And now the final point of this story has come - Sabin got lost on a motorcycle in the Abidjan - Nice race. La Fin. Dimming the screen. End!

The motorcycle, which had become useless, lay somewhere between the Tenere desert and Libya, in a place with the terrible name “Black Mountain,” and Thierry Sabine was slowly dying without strength and water, until the pilot of a small plane sent by Jean-Claude Bertrand descended from the skies to him. search for the missing participant.

Winner takes all

The first Dakar was created like a family party: a handful of assistants, a few friends, wife, model Diane Thierry-Meg, and a sponsor - the fruit juice manufacturer Oasis. Knowing a lot about how to make the right impression, Sabin managed to work as a press secretary for the Le Corbier resort and the musical group “Il etait une fois”, the Frenchman turned the familiar world of auto racing upside down.

The start of the new rally-raid took place not in some Abidjan familiar only to bores and geography teachers, but with noise and pomp in the center of Paris on Trocadéro Square, opposite the Eiffel Tower. Finished the marathon after 10,000 kilometers in the resort town of Dakar - the capital of Senegal and the westernmost point of the African continent.

Among the participants there is anything from cars to trucks and without any division into tests. As a member of the Abba group sang then: “The Winner Takes It All” - the winner takes it all. Moreover, the most popular and fastest class immediately became motorcyclists, between whom a hot struggle for victory ensued.

By the sixth special stage of the 1978 race, Patrick Schaal was in the lead, but he broke his little finger after an unfortunate fall. Two hundred kilometers before the end of the race, the engine of Jean-Claude Morellet's motorcycle failed and the first, having curiously slipped on the finishing ramp, was Cyril Neveu, who did not win a single special stage during the marathon. Just ten years later, “Paris - Dakar” already hosted 473 participants at the start and least of all resembled a family adventure. Medical and television helicopters circled in the air, equipment was transported between bivouacs on transport aircraft, broadcasts covered the whole world, and Jean Todt threw a ten-franc coin to decide which of his charges would receive the order to slow down. In the fight for victory, Vatanen and Ickx were ready to crumble their ultra-expensive Peugeot prototypes into African dust.

Having once escaped inevitable death, the main romantic of Dakar, alas, could no longer see this. On January 14, 1986, during another marathon, his helicopter was caught in a sandstorm and crashed in the dunes of Mali. “A challenge for those who dare, a dream for those who remain,” these words of Thierry Sabin still remain the motto of the race. The combination of danger, fighting at the limit and an unforgettable adventure is what makes it so special.

    The famous French motorcycle racer Thierry Sabin came up with the idea of ​​​​organizing a purely desert rally in 1977, after he himself got lost in the sands of Tenere (a region of the Libyan Desert) and was rescued by the Tuaregs: Sabin believed that the race through the Sahara Desert would be a real test - a challenge for the strongest racers all over the world.
    

MOTOGONKI.RU, January 2, 2018- He gathered a group of enthusiastic people and on December 26, 1978, the first off-road multi-day race started at the Trocadéro in Paris, which changed auto and motor sports beyond recognition. That “Dakar” is called the Dakar of 1979, but the countdown still starts from ’78.

What has changed in 40 years?

Participants

The very first Dakar was attended by 182 crews: 90 motorcyclists, 80 jeeps and 12 trucks. 74 starters reached the finish line. Since then, the predominance of motorcyclists on the starting list has been the hallmark of the marathon rally. In 1979, there was no division into categories and classes of equipment, so there was only one podium and one winner, and it was the Frenchman Cyril Neveu on a Yamaha XT500, and the prizes were taken by Gilles Comte and Philippe Vassar - all three on motorcycles.

In 2017, 143 motorcyclists, 79 jeep crews, 50 truck crews, as well as 37 ATVs and 8 UTV crews took to the start line - a total of 317 participants. Now each type of transport is included in its own classification: BIKE, QUAD, UTV (SxS from 2018), CARS and TRUCS. Cars are divided into three subcategories - T1, T2 and Open. Even team technicians (T5 class) unofficially participate in the truck category (and receive starting numbers).

The record for the number of Dakar participants was set in 2005 - 688 crews at the start, mainly bikers and jeeps.

Route

From 1978 to 2008, the race was held in Africa. In the first rally, the route was laid through traditionally “French” countries (former colonies where French is the official language) - Algeria, Niger, Mali, Upper Volta and Senegal. Then, the geography of the race expanded, including across Europe: in addition to France, the route began to be laid in Portugal and Spain; The list of participating countries on the African continent included Morocco, Niger, Egypt, South Africa, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania and others. Every year, despite remaining committed to the idea of ​​​​conquering the desert, Thierry Sabin came up with more and more new routes, and the length of the route varied from 8,000 to 15,000 km, the races lasted from 10 to 20 days.

Since 2009, the race has been held in South America. The main “base” is Argentina, where the rally started and/or finished all these 10 years. In the early years, the route was laid across Chile, but in 2015 the Chilean side was forced to abandon the race due to technical, administrative and financial difficulties. In 2017, the race started in Paraguay - for a change. Now the resources of Peru and Bolivia are involved; these countries share the burden of providing the caravan with each other along with Argentina: each country accounts for a third of the route. In 2018, its duration will be almost 9,000 km: the paths of motorcyclists, jeepers and trucks will diverge several times, so in total bikers will cover 8,276 km, cars - 8,793, and trucks - 8,710 km. 9000 km is the new “standard” length of the marathon rally route.

Race conditions

The African chapter of the Dakar is a story of pure desert racing. The exception was the 1992 edition from Paris to Cape Town (South Africa), where part of the route passed through the Namibian highlands with altitudes of up to 2000 m, and where participants had to cross deep rivers.

South America is an incredible mix of classic rally tracks, desert and dune areas, and the high Andean Cordillera. Since 2009, rally participants have been faced with a daunting task: they must be prepared to climb 3,000 m and descend to ocean level. The highest point of the route in recent years was the 5000 m mark on the way along the Bolivian Altiplano (the highest plateau after Tibet) in the 2017 race. Most of the routes in Bolivia pass at an altitude of more than 2000 m above sea level over several days.

Security

The very first start on December 26, 1978 was a serious gamble: symbolic support from the authorities and minimal technical support for the participants became a real test for the athletes. The riders personally maintained their motorcycles, they had to transport provisions from bivouac to bivouac, and most of the cargo was transported by horse-drawn vehicles and trucks. Refueling along the route was carried out at designated points where fuel supplies arrived. So, if you missed the checkpoint, you could get lost in the sand forever. There was no need to wait for medical assistance: the race was served by only two (!) ambulances and one helicopter, which was mainly engaged in searching for those lost in the sands.

Now the race is supported at the state level, with the participation of local authorities. A.S.O. organizes a bivouac and logistics between camps along the route. The bivouac is a huge tent city, which even has its own mobile clinic. Each bivouac has a press center and a large dining room with catering, where rally participants are offered a wide variety of dishes and at least two meals a day. Each team sets up its own camp and transports 10 tons of equipment from bivouac to bivouac, including the personal belongings of the riders.

The race is served by 137 specially prepared vehicles, including: 1 equipped medical aircraft, 6 aircraft for transporting journalists, film crews and A.S.O. personnel, 10 helicopters (including 7 medical and 3 for race control), 10 equipped ambulances , 10 buses for transporting staff and guests, 60 escort jeeps and mobile technical equipment, 50 trucks, as well as a fleet of ATVs. The day before the start, scouts go out onto the route - a route reconnaissance group that checks the passability of the previously laid course or changes it otherwise.

Navigation

Until 1992, all navigation on the Dakar was carried out using maps and handwritten road books. In 1992, GPS technology was first used, thanks to which a 20-day route was completed along the west coast of Africa to Cape Town (South Africa).

Now the use of ERTF Unik II GPS navigators, as well as IriTrack satellite tracking systems, is mandatory for each race participant. To prevent the passage of the route from becoming an easy walk from point to point, Unik’s navigation capabilities are limited: the navigator only shows the direction to the next control point on the route, hiding the current coordinates on the ground from the pilot; the navigator records the route track to record the passage of all checkpoints, the telemetry data is then studied by the directorate.

Missing checkpoints (CP) entails a fine (additional minutes). IriTrack is a “safety beacon” that is always in touch with race headquarters; it can be used to send a distress signal. To navigate the route, race participants use a “legend” written in the roadbook: a listing for each day of the race is issued at the briefing before the start or in the evening of the previous day. The “Legend” may change depending on messages from scouts along the route, changes in weather conditions, etc. Flashing Unik II is also necessary in these cases.

Safety

From 1978 to 2007, desert racing was not threatened. Safety issues concerned mainly the personal safety of each rider in the battle with the desert. However, the 2008 race was disrupted due to the terrorist threat and the virtual lack of government control over the vast areas where the large-scale sporting event took place, after which A.S.O. was forced to change continents.

Since 2009, the Dakar Rally Marathon, as already mentioned, has been taking place in South American countries, which guarantee strong support and support. Argentina showed its most ardent support for the Dakar. Rally participants receive a special status when crossing the state border. The safety of riders and bivouacs in 2018 will be ensured by 22,000 police and national guards along the entire route.

The Paris-Dakar Rally is a good example of a timely successful idea. Frenchman Thierry Sabine was one of the best racing drivers of the 1970s. The circumstances of his life were such that at a certain moment he was able to start a pendulum that has not stopped for the fourth decade.

A pragmatic start

In the 1970s Europeans, who have nothing to do at home, are driving around the northern part of the African continent on two- and four-wheeled vehicles. These small races were known to a narrow circle of fans. But even then there were prizes. Sponsors provided financial support, and administrators dealt with organizational issues.

The official history of the Dakar portrays the nascent race as being driven entirely by the enthusiasm of the riders. This is not entirely true: there was a lot of enthusiasm, but the commercial component was present even then.

Thierry Sabin was one of those “enthusiasts” who raced across the sands and rocks of Africa on a motorcycle. He was 28 years old. While participating in one of the rallies in 1977, he got lost in the African desert of Tenere, stretching across the territories of Niger, Libya and Chad.

History is silent about the miracle by which he escaped. It is only known that local nomads helped him. The very fact of returning from the African desert was extraordinary: Sabin became a famous, as they would say now, media figure. He receives the nickname "rescue from the sands." Against the backdrop of Sabin’s heroic aura in the community of racers, their sponsors and administrators, the prospect of organizing a large-scale race, which by all calculations could attract the attention of a large number of people, looms.

The calculation turned out to be absolutely correct. By the end of 1978, a route with a schedule of daily tasks had been prepared, participants had been announced, and Thierry Sabin, as a “true pioneer,” began to come up with exciting slogans. The most successful one is still used today: “Duel for participants. A dream for the audience."

Difficulties with the name

On what basis the Dakar race was called a “rally” is not entirely clear. The meaning of the word “rally” is a race along a highway, which can take place over short distances and over long distances between cities and countries. However, the presence of a general purpose road, any kind, not necessarily paved, is a distinctive element of this type of race. In contrast, Paris-Dakar is an off-road endurance event (human and vehicle). To eliminate terminological confusion, the name “rally raid” was invented, which came to mean an off-road race. But the complex term did not catch on: they still use simply “rally”, although this is incorrect.

The race started from Paris for the first 6 years. Since 1985, the starting point of the rally has changed periodically. Various regions of France, Spanish cities and even Portuguese Lisbon became the starting point. In this regard, the presence of Paris in the name became irrelevant. They left it as a simple “Dakar Rally”.

Africa is a turbulent continent. Low living standards, political instability, terrorism - these factors plagued the rally throughout the African stage. The organizers of the Dakar were able to hold the race along the initial route 2 times: in 1979 and in 1980. The riders, after landing on the African continent, followed through Algeria, Mali, Niger and further east through small African countries to Dakar in Senegal.

But already in the third race, in 1981, for safety reasons they began to change the route: the race took place bypassing one country or another. In 1984, the route was laid out with a significant deviation to the south, with a stop in Côte d’Ivoire. The difficult situation in Algeria led to the fact that since 1989, landings on the African continent were carried out alternately in Tunisia, Libya and Morocco.

Despite minor changes in routes, the general direction of travel for 12 years was from the northern coast of Africa to the south, to the center of the continent, and then to the western Atlantic coast. 1992 was a revolutionary year. The organizers abandoned the detour from north to west and decided to hold the world's first trans-African race. The rally participants crossed the continent from north to south – from Libya to South Africa. The route, naturally, was straightened out as much as possible, but it still turned out to be long - more than 12 thousand km.

For safety reasons, skiing in central Africa has been stopped since 1994. They carefully pave the way along the west coast with a stop in the relatively calm Mauritania and Mali.

The routes of 2000 and 2003 stand out. The first one again became trans-African, only this time - from west to east. The riders traveled from Dakar to Cairo. In 2003, Sharm el-Sheikh became the destination.

The African story ended in 2008, when a few days before the start of the race, the French Foreign Ministry officially warned the organizers that holding it along the proposed route would pose a potential threat to the safety of not only the participants, but also several thousand spectators. The terrorists planned to carry out the attack in Mauritania, along which most of the route passed. There was no time to work out a new route: the race was cancelled.

American routes

Since 2009, the Dakar Rally has radically changed its location. From Africa, located near the European coast, it moves across the Atlantic Ocean to South America. There are no shootings, hostage takings, or hotel bombings here. Organizationally, the event only benefited from the move. It has become more expensive and longer for European fans to travel.

Since you can’t really travel through the tropical jungle, less hot and more passable Argentina, Chile, Peru and a little Bolivia were chosen for the races. Today the South American Dakar is a well-organized, safe competition. However, crazy routes of 15 thousand km. remained in the distant 1980s.

Table 1. Routes, length and number of participants in the rally 1979-2016.

	Route	Route length		Number of participating vehicles
		Total, km.	Of which special stages, %	At the start, pcs.	Of these reached the finish line, %
1979	Paris – Algiers – Dakar	10 000	32	182	41
1980		10 000	41	216	38
1981		6 263	54	291	31
1982		10 000	60	385	33
1983		12 000	43	385	32
1984		12 000	49	427	35
1985	Versailles – Algiers – Dakar	14 000	53	552	26
1986		15 000	52	486	21
1987		13 000	64	539	23
1988		12 874	51	603	25
1989	Paris – Tunisia – Dakar	10 831	61	473	44
1990	Paris – Libya – Dakar	11 420	75	465	29
1991		9 186	63	406	43
1992	Paris – Libya – Cape Town (trans-African)	12 427	50	332	51
1993	Paris – Morocco – Dakar	8 877	50	153	44
1994	Paris – Spain – Morocco – Dakar – Paris	13 379	33	259	44
1995	Granada (Spain) – Morocco – Dakar	10 109	57	205	50
1996		7 579	82	295	41
1997	Dakar – Niger – Dakar	8 049	81	280	50
1998		10 593	49	349	30
1999	Granada – Morocco – Dakar	9 393	60	297	37
2000	Dakar – Cairo	7 863	64	401	56
2001	Paris – Spain – Morocco – Dakar	10 219	60	358	39
2002	Arras (France) – Spain – Morocco – Dakar	9 436	69	425	31
2003	Marseille – Spain – Tunisia – Sharm el-Sheikh	8 552	61	490	38
2004	Auvergne Province (France) – Spain – Morocco – Dakar	9 507	49	595	27
2005	Barcelona – Morocco – Dakar	9 039	60	688	31
2006	Lisbon – Spain – Morocco – Dakar	9 043	53	475	41
2007		7 915	54	511	59
2008	Canceled due to safety reasons
2009		9 574	50	501	54
2010		9 030	53	362	52
2011		9 605	52	407	50
2012	Mar Del Plata (Argentina) – Chile – Lima (Peru)	8 393	50	443	56
2013	Lima – Argentina – Santiago (Chile)	8 574	48	449	67
2014	Rosario (Argentina) – Bolivia – Valparaso (Chile)	9 374	56	431	47
2015	Buenos Aires – Chile – Buenos Aires	9 295	51	406	51
2016	Buenos Aires – Bolivia – Rosario	9 075	53	354	60
AVERAGE:		10 040	55	402	41

How the Dakar race works

This is the freest racing in the world. Anyone can participate, using any vehicle, from a motorcycle to a truck. Despite the fact that automobile corporations make full use of the rally as an advertising platform, the organizers have always welcomed those wishing to participate “from the street.” The amateur spirit of Dakar is still alive. Anyone can apply to participate. But there are fewer and fewer such “eccentrics” every year. Perhaps people have become more pragmatic. Perhaps the time of Dakar is passing.

The rules of the Dakar race are minimal:

• All participants in the race must strictly follow the given route and complete daily tasks.
• The average length of the route is 10 thousand km. About half of them are occupied by so-called “special sections”: sand, mud, grassy soils, rocks.
• The entire route is divided into daily continuous stages. The length of each is up to 900 km.
• As a rule, one day in the middle of the rally is a “rest day” - no racing is held.
• Routes for motorcycles, cars, trucks and ATVs vary in difficulty and length. The winner is determined in each mode of transport.
• The South American race lasts 15 days (the African ones were 22 days);
• The month of the event is January.

Dakar winners

For almost forty years, the Dakar race has developed some trends typical of sports competitions. In particular, participants and teams representing a particular country specialize in certain vehicles. Accordingly, in each of the four types of race there are leaders who win most often. For example:

• Russian teams are usually the best in truck racing (KAMAZ vehicles, of course);
• the French traditionally lead the way in motorcycles (don’t forget that the founder, the Frenchman Thierry Sabine, was a motorcyclist);
• in cars, the French are also often the best;
• Argentines usually take the lead in quad bikes.

Below is a summary table of representatives of the countries that most often won in Dakar.

Table 2. Countries whose representatives were the best in rallying from 1979 to 2016

What about Thierry Sabin?

He took an active part in organizing these races for 9 years. In 1986, during the rally, he and several other people flew in a helicopter over the Malian desert. As a result of a sandstorm, the helicopter lost control and crashed. So, the desert allowed him to survive at the age of 28 so that he could create the best and largest race in the world. But she took his life at 37.

The air smelled of New Year's holidays. This means that rally-raid teams from all over the world are about to start in the main race of the season - the Dakar marathon, which has been taking place in Latin America for the last nine years. This time the legendary competition starts on January 6 in the capital of Peru, Lima, and finishes two weeks later in Argentina, in the city of Cordoba. Thus, the route of the current Dakar immediately begins with the sands, and in the middle of the distance the riders will face an almost five-day test in the highlands in Bolivia.

And a little earlier, the Africa Race will end on the Dark Continent. The route of these two-week competitions runs through the territory of three countries - Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. That is, literally in the same places where earlier, before the forced move to South America, the “classic” Dakar took place.

This year, 92 crews in passenger cars are preparing to start in the South American Dakar. Among them there are only two Russian duets - from the Kaliningrad team Konturterm Racing. Businessman Sergei Shikhotarov, who made his debut in Dakar a year ago, will sit behind the wheel of a prototype Toyota FJ Cruiser, and his son Ivan will pilot his father's car last year - a Toyota Hilux pickup truck. Navigator Andrey Samarin, who also began his sports career in trophy raids, will lead Sergei’s route, and Ivan will be led by Riga resident Oleg Uperenko.

The main contender for victory in this year's Dakar looks, of course, to be the Peugeot Sport factory team. Since last year, the French have again modernized their Peugeot 3008 DKR buggies. These rear-wheel drive vehicles stand out due to their combination of low weight, huge suspension travel, tire inflation system and powerful V6 3.0 turbodiesel. And Peugeot’s pilot lineup is a real “dream team”: there is the thirteen-time Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel, and the nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, and the 2010 Dakar victor Carlos Sainz, and Cyril Despres, who won the legendary marathon five times on a motorcycle .

The German team X-raid is preparing to compete with the French, having built its own team for this Dakar. The Mini John Cooper Works Buggy will be driven by Finn Mikko Hirvonen, American Bryce Menzies and Saudi Arabian Yazid Al-Rajhi. True, their chances of winning do not seem high: the new car has not yet completed a single race and may simply turn out to be “crude.” And traditional all-wheel drive Minis are too inferior to French buggies in speed. Although the 4x4 vehicles from X-raid will also be led into battle by experienced pilots - Argentinean Orlando Terranova, Spaniard Nani Roma and Pole Jakub Przygonski.

Who will surely put pressure on the Peugeot Sport drivers is Nasser Al-Attiyah. For the second year in a row, the Qatari competes in the Hilux pickup truck of the Toyota Gazoo Racing SA factory team. He is able to compensate for the car's shortcomings with his outstanding skill and calculated risk. And South African engineers have done a lot of work to improve the Toyota design. We should certainly expect a good performance from Nasser’s teammate, Giniel de Villiers. The South African has a reputation for outstanding reliability: he has finished all fourteen Dakars he has competed in and was the marathon winner in 2009. And de Villiers also won prizes four times, having obviously weaker technique than his competitors.

Of course, the main attention of Russian fans is traditionally focused on the Dakar truck competition, where the KAMAZ squad competes. This time, four crews will take part in the race in blue and white trucks: last year’s winner Eduard Nikolaev, 2015 champion Airat Mardeev, as well as Dmitry Sotnikov and Anton Shibalov. All vehicles are of the traditional KAMAZ cabover design, but there are differences between them. So, Sotnikov’s truck is equipped with an experimental in-line engine with a volume of 13 liters, while the others have the usual Liebherr V8 engine with a volume of 16.2 liters.

In previous years, the main rivals of the KAMAZ team were the drivers of the Iveco factory team. But this time the Italian-Dutch team is performing with a reduced lineup: its leader, two-time Dakar winner Gerard de Roy, decided to compete in the Africa Race marathon. The crew of Woof van Ginkel will go with him to the Dark Continent. De Roy hoped to fight in the African sands with the KAMAZ team, but this time the Russian team decided not to scatter its forces and focus on the more prestigious Dakar. However, Iveco in South America should not be written off - the highly experienced Argentinean Federico Villagra, Arthur Ardavichus from Kazakhstan and the Dutchman Ton van Genutgen are aiming to fight the squad from Naberezhnye Chelny.

It is worth keeping a note of several other fast pilots: for example, the Dutchman Martin van den Brink on a hooded Renault Sherpa (a year ago he won one stage), the Czechs Martin Koloma (on a Tatra Phoenix with a DAF cabin) and Ales Loprais (on a bonneted Tatra T815 ). We will also root for three “cargo” crews from fraternal Belarus, which will be led into battle by Mazovians Sergei Vyazovich, Alexander Vasilevsky and Alexey Vishnevsky.

In the ATV class, Russian Sergey Karyakin will again take the start; last year’s Dakar winner remained faithful to Yamaha equipment. But the Yekaterinburg resident will have very serious rivals: first of all, the 2014 Dakar winner Ignacio Casale from Chile and the legendary Rafal Sonik - the 51-year-old Pole has a victory in 2015, a silver and two bronze medals. Let's add here the young Argentine Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli (second place in 2015), his experienced countryman Pablo Copetti and the fast Bolivian Walter Nosiglia. The French can also perform strongly - Simon Wits (in 2017, before retiring, he fought with Karjakin) and last year's debutant Axel Dutrieu, who immediately finished fifth. And at Dakar 2018, quad cyclists from Kazakhstan will make their debut - Maxim Antimirov and Dmitry Shilov.

Updated ATV by Sergey Karyakin

Predicting the outcome of a motorcycle race is a difficult task: there are as many as 142 participants, and of these there are almost a dozen extremely strong athletes on well-prepared equipment from factory and semi-factory teams. Here are the winner of Dakar 2017, Englishman Sam Sunderland (KTM), and silver medalist of the same race Matthias Walkner (KTM) from Austria, and one of the heroes of Dakar 2015, Portuguese Paulo Gonçalves (Honda), and the entire three medalists of 2016 - Toby Price (KTM) from Australia, Slovenian Stefan Svitko (KTM) and Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) from Chile. But there will be no Russian motorcycle racers in South America this year.

The Africa Race marathon is, of course, inferior to Dakar in terms of the level of participants, their number, and prestige. But not for the quality of the route! Multi-kilometer special stages in the Moroccan and Mauritanian deserts attract more and more participants every year. And now the number of crews entered in the Africa Race in cars and all-terrain vehicles has already reached forty-five.

This year, one of the most successful Russian marathon runners, Vladimir Vasiliev, again chose the African race over the Dakar. Let us remind you that the 2014 World Cup winner already participated in the Africa Race last season and completed it. According to the St. Petersburg navigator, Konstantin Zhiltsov, after missing half of the 2017 season, there was no point in going to Dakar. “Five days in the highlands would put too much stress on the body, but in the African sands you can prepare well for the new season.” The Russian duo will bring their usual equipment to the start line - the Mini All4Racing diesel prototype.

In addition, three more of our fast pilots will go to Africa. The winner Andrei Rudskoy will drive a gasoline G-Force prototype, Denis Krotov will drive a diesel BMW X3 into battle, and the national champion Alexey Titov will drive a Ford F-150 Raptor pickup truck of the “serial” T2 category to the start.

The African race has also attracted the attention of strong Europeans, for whom participation in Dakar is too expensive or simply does not bring satisfaction. In particular, the French buggies Mathieu Serradori, Lionel Bo and Pascal Thomas, who have already taken part in the South American marathon, as well as regular World Cup participants, the Czech Miroslav Zapletal and the Romanian Costel Cazuneanu, will set off on the road to the Pink Lake in Senegal .

A total of 38 athletes will start in the Africa Race motorcycle and quad competitions. The main star is the Norwegian Pal-Anders Ullevaster, silver medalist of the 2010 Dakar. One rider from Russia is also preparing for the race: for the third time, Dmitry Agoshkov will ride a KTM at the start of the African marathon. In 2016, the Togliatti resident finished fourth, but last year he retired due to a motorcycle breakdown.

There are also 25 trucks starting the marathon. Of course, many of them are mediocre technicians, but this year Gerard de Rooy, the head and pilot of the Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco factory team, decided to try the African sands personally. And this means that it definitely won’t be boring!

Paris-Dakar is probably the most prestigious rally, in which four types of vehicles participate: motorcycles, cars, trucks and ATVs. And victories in it are also very prestigious, and also bright and memorable, because they are always achieved as a result of a stubborn struggle.

When the race just began, motorcycles and cars were not separated - they went in the general classification. And it so happened that in 1978 the entire podium was occupied by motorcyclists. Winners:

• 1st place - Cyril Neve (Yamaha 500 XT motorcycle);
• 2nd place - Gilles Comte (Yamaha motorcycle);
• 3rd place - Philip Vassar (Honda motorcycle).

For Cyril Neve, this victory was especially dear because it was the fruit of a family journey: his father provided technical support, his brother also participated in the race. The following year, Neve again became the winner, but lost his position in 1980, changing his motorcycle - Honda did not bring him luck; Hubert Auriol became the winner of the 1981 rally. In 1982, Cyril returned to the podium, then led and lost, but could not give up racing for many years.

The winners of the Paris-Dakar rally became known throughout the world; their successes and ups and downs of the struggle were followed with special attention, rejoicing for their favorite athletes and teams and being sad with them.

Truck Winners

Probably the most exciting part of the famous rally has always been the truck racing. The track, laid out virtually off-road, like Paris-Dakar, gives trucks the opportunity to show their strengths to the fullest. The first winner among the heavyweights of the Dakar in 1980 was the Algerian team at Sonacome. And the first record for the number of victories was set by the Mercedes-Benz teams, which were in first place for five years - from 1982 to 1986. Having won its first victory in 1988, Tatra then became the winner five more times, still being one of the leaders. The Perlini team won four victories in a row (1990–1993), but it never came out on top again.

And since 1996, the victories of KAMAZ-Master, the Russian team that has won the champion title 12 times, begin. Our athletes simply have no equal in desert and off-road racing. Their victories are largely explained by the fact that the team members design and assemble the vehicles themselves, test them themselves, and know all the features of each truck. Winners of not only Paris-Dakar, but also many other races, they became legends of world motorsport.

Dakar winning teams (first places):

• KAMAZ - 12 victories;
• Tatra - 6 wins;
• Mercedes-Benz - 5 wins;
• Perlini - 4 wins;
• Sonacome, ALM/ACMAT, DAF, Hino, MAN, Iveco have so far won one victory each.