(former: Rallye Paris- Dakar)
The Rallye Dakar is without doubt one of the most famous and also dangerous (probably the most dangerous) (Desert-) Rallyes on the whole world. Since 1979 is this motorsport- offroad race made, mainly on the african continent. The event is always at the beginning of the year. This time it will start at 6th of January in Lissabon and it will finish at the 21th of January in Dakar.
The french man Thierry Sabine was the one who made and owned the Rallye Paris- Dakar, but in 1986 he died on a helicopter accident during the Rallye. His father took over the Rallye for some years, but sold it then to the ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation), which is making the Rallye till nowadays.
In contraditiction to the usual Rallye world Championships (WRC= World Rallye Car) that there are not short challenges, but long ones, sometimes till to 800 kilometres at once. Of course this is quite exhausting and can need a lot of time, because of that there are some time limits, in which the people have to take the challenges. The cars usually have to be repaired from their own drivers (of they are private) or from the team, but they have just a short amount of time for that, specially when they drivers reach their day finish deep in the night. The result is: less time for sleep, less time for repairing. Mostly 50% of the cars and also motorbikes fall out during the race and never reach Dakar.
First the Rallye was between the french Paris and Dakar in Senegal, but now the race routes are changing from year to year. The Rallye of 2006 leaded in 17 challegnes from Lissabon (Portugal) over Spain, Marokko, Western-Sahara, Mauretain, Mali,Guinea (since1996) and Senegal to the finish Dakar.
Because of the big amount of deathly accidents at racers, audience and the organisation team the race always got back into the headlines, but even of that (or exactly because of that) the Rallye became to one of the most famous sport events world wide. Since it exists the Rallye caused 51 human lives so far. At the Dakar 2006 died the australian Motorcycler Andy Caldecott and 2 young people of the audience. Because of that they didn’t measuer the time of the last race day in 2006.
The Record winner of the Rallye Dakar is the french Stephane Peterhansel, who won alltogether 6 times on the motorbike in the 90ies and in 2004 he won his first race in a car as well. Next to him is Hubert Auriol the only one who was able to win the race at two (1981, 1983) and also four tyres (1992). The most successful driver is the finn Ari Vatanen, who had 4 victories between 1987 and 1991. In the year of 2001 the german woman Jutta Kleinschmidt made a sensation: She was able to win the Rallye- Dakar as first woman.

All winners of the Rallye Dakar (car):
1979: Genestier (CIV), Range Rover
1980: Freddy Kottulinsky (S), VW
1981: René Metge (F), Range Rover
1982: Claude Marreau (F), Renault
1983: Jacky Ickx (B), Mercedes-Benz
1984: René Metge (F), Porsche
1985: Patrick Zaniroli (F), Mitsubishi
1986 : René Metge (F), Porsche
1987: Ari Vatanen (FIN), Peugeot
1988: Ari Vatanen (FIN), Peugeot
1989: Ari Vatanen (FIN), Peugeot
1990: Ari Vatanen (FIN), Peugeot
1991: Ari Vatanen (FIN), Citroën
1992: Hubert Auriol (F), Mitsubishi
1993: Bruno Saby (F), Mitsubishi
1994: Pierre Lartigue (F), Citroën
1995: Pierre Lartigue (F), Citroën
1996: Pierre Lartigue (F), Citroën
1997: Kenjiro Shinozuka (J), Mitsubishi
1998: Jean-Pierre Fontenay (F), Mitsubishi
1999: Jean-Louis Schlesser (F), Renault-Buggy
2000: Jean-Louis Schlesser (F), Renault-Buggy
2001: Jutta Kleinschmidt (D), Mitsubishi
2002: Hiro Masuoka (J), Mitsubishi
2003: Hiro Masuoka (J), Mitsubishi
2004: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Mitsubishi
2005: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Mitsubishi
2006: Luc Alphand (F), Mitsubishi
Motorbike:
1979: Cyril Neveu (F), Yamaha XT 500
1980: Cyril Neveu (F), Yamaha XT 500
1981: Hubert Auriol (F), BMW
1982: Cyril Neveu (F), Honda
1983: Hubert Auriol (F), BMW
1984: Gaston Rahier (B), BMW
1985: Gaston Rahier (B), BMW
1986: Cyril Neveu (F), Honda
1987: Cyril Neveu (F), Honda
1988: Edi Orioli (I), Yamaha
1989: Gilles Lalay (F), Honda
1990: Edi Orioli (I), Yamaha
1991: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Yamaha
1992: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Yamaha
1993: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Yamaha
1994: Edi Orioli (I), Yamaha
1995: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Yamaha
1996: Edi Orioli (I), Yamaha
1997: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Yamaha
1998: Stephane Peterhansel (F), Yamaha
1999: Richard Sainct (F), KTM
2000: Richard Sainct (F), KTM
2001: Fabrizio Meoni (I), KTM
2002: Fabrizio Meoni (I), KTM
2003: Richard Sainct (F), KTM
2004: Nani Roma (E), KTM
2005: Cyril Despres (F), KTM
2006: Marc Coma (E), KTM
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Links:
Dakar:
http://www.dakar.com
Thierry Sabine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/Thierry_Sabine
Jutta Kleinschmidt:
http://www.jutta-kleinschmidt.de
Stéphane Peterhansel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stéphane_Peterhansel
Ari Vatanen:
http://www.arivatanen.com/