Cork’s desert dream
Brit in Dakar bid
A LIFELONG dream becomes reality for Chris Cork in Buenos Aires today, as the former punk rocker from High Wycombe sits on his bike to begin the world’s most punishing motorsport event.
The 43-year-old Englishman, a builder by trade, will put his bike, body and possibly even his life on the line during the Dakar, the 5,500mile race across the Andes and the Atacama desert.
He has left his partner and two sons, including three-month-old Oliver, behind and even sold their farm to fund his ride of a lifetime.
‘He’s always wanted to do the Dakar, it’s been a dream of his,’ said partner Mel, who remains confident, if a little anxious.
‘He’s quite a safe rider, it’s just everything else that goes into the equation that worries me. It’s a bit of a mixed bag because I’m excited for him but obviously it’s a bit tricky here for the next three weeks with two young kids.’
And that’s also the hardest part for Cork, who once upon a time played drums and bass in punk bands Chineapple Punx and Blossom, but nowadays is found doting on Mel and the children. ‘I have pictures of my two sons with me at all times and I miss them greatly,’ he said.
Thoughts of home will disappear today, however, when Cork lines up at the start of one of the most gruelling and dangerous of all races. A total of 665 competitors will leave Buenos Aires in cars and trucks and on quad bikes and motorcycles.
British interest is restricted to a mere eight racers, a far cry from the heyday of the old Paris-Dakar when dozens of home hopefuls would cross the Channel and begin the epic journey down to Dakar in Senegal.
Cork, whose preparations for the rally have not been ideal — he broke his wrist in August and crashed out of the Rally of Morocco in October — is Britain’s only amateur rider this year, though Paul Round from Huddersfield and Mike Jones, from Sandbach, founders of Rally Raid UK, continue to fly the flag in all categories, taking four cars, two trucks and two bikes.
Crossing the barren terrain of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia sounds daunting enough, but Jones paints an even scarier picture. ‘The Dakar is an addiction, it takes over your life,’ he explained. ‘The organisation are out to break you and your vehicle, simple as that.
‘Some of the terrain looks mind blowing when you see it and you never believe a vehicle can cross it, let alone at speed.
‘You can be 3km off track and still be classed as on course, yet a 10-metre deviation in the desert can be a smooth fast track or a 500ft-deep canyon. The route designer puts secret waypoints that must be passed by into the most devilish places, at the top of the steepest dunes and the bottom of the biggest holes and sand pits.
‘In the daylight it is difficult, when the sun goes down it really sorts the men from the boys or the girls from the women.’
Of the eight British competitors at Dakar this year it is with Cork’s sole compatriot in the bike category, Sam Sunderland, where British hopes lie. Sunderland, 25, has secured a ride with the dominant KTM squad, on the back of taking the second stage win riding a works Honda in last year’s Dakar.
For Cork, however, ambitions are more modest. Given what lies ahead, the endless tests over unyielding surfaces, in extreme temperatures, from sea level to the peaks of the Andes and back, he speaks for the majority when he says: ‘My expectation is simply to finish.’