Bill Wood posted on January 07, 2012 13:15
The Dakar Rally: The Greatest Adventure!
By Bill Wood
There's no way to describe The Dakar Rally other than to say it's an adventure. In every definition of the word and concept, it's an adventure. It's even an adventure to follow. Sure there's enormous competition between man and machine but the largest competition is between man and the elements, the actual matrix in which the competition takes place. There's nothing like it in the competitive world. Not even the Tour de France experiences such extremes in competition with entrants and competition with the environment.
For example, at the end of Week One on Friday, the entire bivuoac of cars, motorcycles, trucks, ATVs, support trucks and embedded media lined up in a convoy and drove through what would have been Stage Six of the rally. The stage would have taken the the crews across the border from Argentina where the rally began last Sunday into Chile, with a 170-mile timed section forming the backbone of the 405-mile route. However, The actual competition for the day had to be canceled because the roadway over the Andes Mountain range had been pummeled with rain and snow for the past 40 or so hours.
This is from the Dakar Rally report: "Welcome to the southern hemisphere's summer. In Mar del Plata (the jumping off spot for this adventure), the newcomers to the rally in Argentina perhaps discovered that in the southern hemisphere, January is synonymous with summer. Several days later, they also found out that in the heart of the heat-wave season, you can also come across snow storms and have to deal with the closure of road passes. Two days before the climb up to the Paso San Francisco pass, the first news about the bad weather conditions filtered through to the organizers of the Dakar. As the hours passed, the situation became worse in this region of the Andes Mountain Range, making it more and more unlikely that a special stage could be held on the planned route, in a state of deterioration following the assaults of the snow and rain. More importantly, on 5th January, the Chilean authorities informed the organizers of the Dakar that the border post located after the Paso San Francisco pass had been closed. Since the road climbs to a height of 4,700 meters (15,420 feet and, if that was not enough, descends along hairpin bends on the Chilean side) had become too dangerous for the riders and crews on the rally, the decision to cancel the stage was taken at the end of the afternoon and announced to the competitors during a general briefing at 9 PM. They were convened at 8 AM for the departure of the convoy, hoping that the sky would be on their side."
Now we throw around those numbers - 15,420 feet elevation - easily. America's Pikes Peak outside Colorado Springs is 14,110 feet high. The highest mountain road in North America, Mt. Evans, is listed at 14,240 feet. The highest paved road in Europe is 11,090. Now this pass in the Andes isn't paved but this will give you an idea of how high this road is compared to elsewhere in the world. We're talking heavenly heights, here! And The Dakar Rally would have raced across the road if it wasn't for the damage done by the weather conditions the last two days. Even more incredible is that someone goes to work at that border crossing every day and that's nearly three miles high! You've flown on commercial airline flights that would have flown UNDER this roadway. But that's Dakar. It's the adventure. Check out this video to give you an idea of the beauty of this adventure.
The 2012 Dakar Rally will be the 33rd running of the event that started as a wild idea in France. The Dakar Rally or simply The Dakar is made up of professional racers, amateur adventurists and, frankly, thrill seekers. It originated in 1978. Originally, the rally was from Paris to Dakar, Senegal on the West Coast of Africa. The route included a boat transfer across the Mediterranean. The events usually started on New Year's Day with some sort of Prologue on New Year's Eve. Creator Thierry Sabine's crazy idea took shape at the foot of the Eiffel Tower December 26, 1978. After having discovered the Sahara Desert during a rally between Abidjan and Nice, his aim was to share these thrills with as many as possible. Right away, Sabine the visionary found the motto which still today sums up the very essence of the event: "A challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind." This video, however, looks at that first event in 1978 and gives you a taste of how unprepared the competitors were for this adventure.