Highways to the Danger Zone
All forms of motorsport are dangerous, but some are more (much more) dangerous than others.
The Dakar
An ordinary rally is no laughing matter. Hurtling at breakneck speeds through rough terrain (unpaved dirt paths, mountain passes, snowed-out back roads) is tough work, requiring an inordinate amount of bravery and an even greater amount of driving skill.
And rally racers don’t have the benefit of a pit lane stuffed to the gills with experienced mechanics should they encounter a flat tyre or worse while out racing. Any mechanicals must be attended to by the drivers/ co-drivers themselves, and if you can’t continue, well, you don’t race.
However, if you’re the sort who thinks all that is tame – after all, each special stage is only around 30km long and competitors often drive less than 100km a day – then you might want to try your hand at a rally raid. As its name implies, it’s a rally… but on steroids, and the most steroidal, most crazy one of them all is The Dakar, a race formerly known as the Paris-Dakar Rally. It takes its name from the ‘traditional’ finish point in Dakar, Senegal after setting off from Paris, France where it was run from 1978 to 2007.
Unlike a regular rally, which is over in about four days, The Dakar takes about two weeks to complete. Competitors can look forward to around 7,900km of driving, with 5,000km of that being special stages.
The main challenge of The Dakar is the terror of being in an inhospitable environment with no landmarks, limited use of GPS (it’s used mainly for safety and tracking purposes) and extremely long stages that can be in excess of 400km.
Oh, and if you’re on a motorcycle, you’ll have to do the racing and navigating on your own. How’s that for a tough race event?
Unlike a regular rally, which is over in about four days, The Dakar takes about two weeks to complete.
Isle of Man Tourist Trophy
There’s a good reason why the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (or Manx TT as it’s more popularly known) is one of the most dangerous races today.
For starters, the current course length is 60.72km long and even the fastest racing motorcycles tearing around at speeds of over 300km/hr take over 15 minutes to complete a lap of the circuit.
Even the current record holder Peter Hickman completed the Manx TT in a time of 16 minutes 42 seconds, hurtling around the ‘track’ at an average speed of 218km/hr. That speed would cause most people to go weak at the knees even if they were just there for a few brief moments, but bear in mind that’s Hickman’s average speed.
And volumes could be said about said circuit, which is not a purpose-built race track with generous run-off areas, but narrow public roads with such obstacles as concrete walls, hedges, lamp posts, dips, jumps and blind corners. As such, in the 113-year history of the event that was first run in 1907, there have been a total of 252 fatalities. That toll is just for the racers and it doesn’t include the race officials, spectators and bystanders who have been killed during the Manx TT. In fact, barely a year goes by that someone doesn’t lose their life on the improvised race track, and in the event’s deadliest year, 1970, there were six fatalities.
There has been criticism of the event, naturally, especially since we now live in a world where motorsport fatalities are generally rare. However, the Manx TT still attracts more than its fair share of riders, with entry slots usually oversubscribed.
Pikes Peak International Hill Climb
If you ever find yourself in Colorado, USA, you’ll definitely want to make Pikes Peak one of your stops. One of the highest peaks in the American Rocky Mountains, the 4,300m summit of Pikes Peak offers
That toll is just for the racers and it doesn’t include the race officials, spectators and bystanders
who have been killed during the Manx TT.
rarefied views, rarefied air and if you’re there during June, some rarefied racing as well.
That’s because Pikes Peak is home to the eponymous International Hill Climb (PPIHC), a race against the clock to see who can go up the 20km-long course the fastest, whether on two wheels or four. The road up the mountain is fully paved now, but to say it’s any less dangerous is somewhat understating things.
The route consists of some 156 turns, with a good number of blind corners, and a mistake could see you going through the guard rails and down the sheer side of the mountain.
Just to highlight how dangerous the event still is, four-time PPIHC motorcycle champion Carlin Dunne tragically lost his life there in 2019.
But for those who dare take on the challenge, the PPIHC has some of the most interesting racing machinery that human ingenuity can produce, owing to the existence of the Unlimited class. As long as the vehicle passes safety scrutineering by the organisers, pretty much anything goes.
This has led to such exotics as cars with shovellike front spoilers, rear spoilers that wouldn’t look out of place on an aeroplane and cars with two engines powering each axle, as used to devastating effect by six-time champion Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima.
Since the paving of the track, and over the past decade, the PPIHC has seen plenty of drama, with the record falling three times. First in 2012 to Rhys Millen, smashed a year later in emphatic fashion (by around a minute-and-a-half ) by Sebastien Loeb and finally last year by Romaine Dumas driving a prototype Volkswagen electric racer.
Only time will tell how many more records will fall this decade, but one thing’s for certain, the danger – and allure – of Pikes Peak is only going to get stronger.