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Dakar Rally charts new route in South America

Source: Agencies | January 3, 2009, Saturday | Print Edition

TRANSFERRED from Africa by the threat of terrorism, the Dakar Rally started late yesterday with a symbolic drive in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires before heading out on an South American adventure.

The first Dakar Rally to furrow the soil of South America will last 14 stages and 9,574 kilometers before it rolls back into Buenos Aires on January 18.

The rally crosses the Pampas, heads into Patagonia, arrives at the Andes next Thursday, drives into Chile the following day, cruises up alongside the Pacific for 5 days including a loop in the Atacama Desert, then heads back to the start.

"The drivers will discover a new territory, another landscape, but they are imbued with the same spirit of competition and adventure," rally director Etienne Levigne said.

The 2008 edition was canceled after four French tourists and three Mauritanian soldiers were killed before the start. The French government warned of a terrorist threat and the race was canceled for the first time in its 30-year history.

But Levigne promised it would race again, and moved it to South America with the hope of returning to Dakar in 2011 or 2012.

The South American version included an unofficial 530 vehicles made up of 82 trucks, 188 cars, 30 quad bikes and 230 motorcycles, nearly all of them shipped from Europe. As in recent years, the car race was expected to be a showdown between the Mitsubishis led by French great Stephane Peterhansel and the Volkswagens by two-time world rally champion Carlos Sainz.

Mitsubishi has dominated the race since 2001, but this year it has changed models from Pajero to Lancer and the fuel to diesel, finally copying Volkswagen.
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