Pic: ASO / DPPI
insider. It could certainly look that way to the casual ob-
server; motorcycles racing across the vast dunes chased
by odd looking cars and massive trucks. It is a scene
from a post-apocalyptic world. Ben is of course talking
about the liaison stages, where public roads are used
often at great risk as spectators’ dice with competitors
just in the hope of getting close to their heroes, a selfie is
a must.
Along with the 334 competitor vehicles, backed by
many, many support vehicles there’s also hundreds of
official and media vehicles. In fact, 1,900 journalists
cover the Dakar, along with print and web-based media
it is broadcast into 190 countries. Such is the size of the
Dakar it could be argued that it has lost some of the sense
of adventure presented in the early days, when numerous
countries were traversed, through varying continents,
often at great risk.
“Unfortunately, I think it has become too much of a
business now and that the adventure side of it may have
been slightly lost,” sighed James. “There’s so much mon-
ey being spent by the big teams that I don’t think it could
really go back to being something like I watched on TV
back in the early 1990’s.”
“I think it (the adventure) was lost for sure,” added
Ben. “On days 6 to 10 we were going back over the same
tracks for the first five days so it felt more of a World
Championship race were this would normally happen.
Still went through some amazing landscapes but just not
the same adventure as Eco race.”
John confirmed that the adventure has changed, “it
was a little disappointing that some bits of the course
were a reverse run of stages prior but 90% was all new
terrain.”
“Dakar is still a full-blown adventure no doubt,” he
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