DO THE DAKAR
The Dakar Rally is unlike any other motorsport event I have seen and if you are an enthusiast like us there’s no way this isn’t on your bucket list
T“HE DAKAR HAS A WAY OF putting people in their places.” Unless you’re there to witness it in person, there’s no way you will be able to grasp the import of Hero Motosports rider C S Santosh’s words. The numbers are staggering. Over 15 days of racing across some of the harshest terrain on our planet, the 500 odd competitors will have travelled around 10,000km and across three countries in South America. But frankly, the numbers don’t tell the true tale of the Dakar. For that, you’ll have to leave your comfort zone, haul your lazy butt off the sofa and journey to the other side of the world. There, you will find what the Dakar truly means.
Peru is the most arid country I have seen in my life. Now understand this, I spent three years of my life in the Sultanate of Oman and had ample opportunity to see the harshness of the desert from really close quarters. I was no stranger to be held in awe by towering dunes. And yet, I was. Descending from a cruising altitude of over 30,000 feet, this country in west South America resembles a giant beige sand pit. Until you see the mostly white concrete cluster that spells Lima, the Peruvian capital. And when you do see it, you marvel at how people could live in such a madly arid region. Who would even want to come to this dry, stripped to the bone part of our planet? The Dakar Rally.
Without a doubt or argument, the Dakar is the toughest motorsport event there is on the motorsport calendar. The only challenge that is bigger than the Dakar I believe is for the organisers of this mammoth event to find new and more challenging routes each year. And that is precisely where an arid country like Peru fits in.
With its towering dunes comprising more than 80 per cent sand and less than 20 per cent rock and soil, the Peruvian desert is an open challenge to all those who dare to do the Dakar. According to the men who dared, men like Santosh and fellow Indian rider Aravind K P from the rival Sherco-TVS camp, the opening leg of this year’s Dakar in Peru was particularly challenging. Both said that the dunes were nothing like what they had encountered before at the Oilibiya Rally or the Merzouga Rally. The fact that for the better part of the day the sun’s angle made it more difficult to read the dunes made it tougher still for everyone.
And these weren’t just a couple of sissy Indians who were complaining about their lot in life. These were battle hardened men, not yet veterans but not novices either. I saw them ride on the dunes and these guys were going for it on a surface that I was having difficulty walking on. These were people who were not just battling the dunes and the competition but also coping with the news of comrades crashing out of the rally. Before the
end of the first day, a mere 30km stage, Joaquim Rodrigues, Hero Motosports’ star rider was out of the reckoning after a horrendous crash that resulted in a compressed vertebra. Two days later Sherco TVS rider Adrian Metge too was out and by the time I got back home, so was Aravind K P with a broken ankle that would need surgery.
Sample this, of the 139 riders who set off from the podium in Lima, only 85 would go on to take the chequered flag in Argentina two weeks later. Of the 92 cars that took part, 43 would go on to finish. Even the might Kamaz and Tatra trucks could not withstand the rigours of the Dakar. Of the 44 that had come to Peru, only 19 made it to Argentina. In all three cases, about half or more of the grid could not stand up to the Dakar. And they weren’t just a bunch of novices that got taken out.
Among the DNFs there were the likes of Sebastien Loeb and Nani Roma. While the latter had a horrendous crash, the nature of the Dakar led Loeb, a World Rally legend with nine consecutive world titles and 78 wins, to comment at the end of Stage 2, “Maybe I don’t have the experience to read the desert.” He would be out of the reckoning by the end of Stage 5. Our very own C S Santosh who would go on to finish in a career best 34th position overall, had several crashes along the route. One was bad enough to have him dazed and sitting next to his bike for a good ten minutes. He even ran out of fuel in one stage that saw him move down the pecking order to a lowly 101st for that stage classification after having to wait for over an hour for someone to lend him enough fuel to make it to the finish line. In a fantastic show of grit and determination, Santosh would claw his way back up while team mate Oriol Mena would finish a fantastic seventh in his first ever Dakar Rally. The other Indian team, Sherco TVS, would lose two of its three riders but Joan Pedrero Garcia would end up finishing a fabulous 11th. Monster Energy Honda’s front runner Joan Barreda Bort busted a knee on Stage 7 but tenaciously rode on, holding on to his second place. He would ride three more stages with a knee that was so damaged that he couldn’t stand on it, before he was forced to retire.
But the Dakar isn’t just about the challenge and the grit and the determination and the results. It’s also about team spirit, participation and inclusion. In a spectacular display of putting the team ahead of his own interests, Team Total Peugeot driver Cyril Despres would stop and allow fellow teammate Stephane Peterhansel to cannibalise his vehicle and repair the latter’s own vehicle that had suffered a broken suspension. The automotive field surgery would take two precious hours but would eventually see both finish the stage with Peterhansel’s chances of a top finish still alive. At the end of the 14th and final stage, Peterhansel would finish fourth. A rank that he certainly owes to Despres’ valiant and chivalrous assistance at what was possibly the most critical stage for Peterhansel and co-driver Jean Paul Cottret. Spaniard Carlos Sainz and co-driver Lucas Cruz would be on the top step of the podium of the world’s toughest motorsport event, followed by the Qatari who never gives up, Nasser al-Attiyah in second and South African Giniel de Villiers in third. Among the motorcyclists, Kevin Benavides’ Monster Energy Honda in second split the Red Bull KTMs of Matthias Walkner in first and Australian Toby Price in second.
At the same time, participation and inclusion of one of the most vital parts of motorsports – the spectators. Having attended my fair share of F1 and MotoGP races, I can tell you that there’s a huge divide between standing behind the safety of an Armco barrier bolstered by air cushions and being sprayed all over with sand from the wheels of a truck, car, bike or even a quad that’s hurtling between way points. At the Dakar your heroes see you and sometimes acknowledge your support. Perhaps with just a simple nod of the head like the reserved Santosh or a shaking of the fist from a more exuberant Aravind. In either case, it’s enough for you to feel a bond with your hero. You feel proud to be there, one of the very few whose support they can count on. I even saw one privateer stop to take a photograph with a man who was his friend. The sense of participation also comes from the collective gesticulating and shouting that virtually all spectators engage in to indicate which way competitors should head. It’s easy to get lost at the Dakar.
Yes, it’s easy to get lost at the Dakar. It’s a whirlwind of memories that you simply do not want to let go off. A blur of motion with fallen bikes, drifting cars and hurtling trucks. A riot of colours and sound at each bivouac, the feverish rush at the communal shower where every rider and driver jostles for a shower to wash off the day’s dirt. There’s so much to tell and so little space. I thought I was a writer who could put all that I had seen and experienced into words. But I guess Santosh knows the Dakar better than I do. The Dakar does have a way of putting people in their places.