Rally Dakar(formerly the Paris-Dakar Rally) is a marathon rally that has been held annually since 1978. Of all the rally races, it is the longest in terms of length. Not only professionals compete - up to 80% of the participants are amateurs who lack adrenaline in their lives. Entrants are divided into categories of cars, motorcycles, ATVs and trucks. Before the race was moved to the American continent in 2009, the rally routes ran through Europe and Africa.
Story.
The organizer of the new desert rally was the famous French motorcycle racer Thierry Sabin. In 1977, while participating in another rally in the Sahara Desert, he lost his way but was rescued by local residents. The debut Dakar Rally began in Paris on New Year's Day 1979 and ended in Dakar three weeks later.
In the first race, the crews of cars, trucks and motorcycles left the start at the same time, as a result, the entire podium was occupied by motorcyclists. Since 1980, a classification of participants has been introduced, and since then prizes have been awarded to the winners of each of the three categories. The founder of the race died tragically in 1986 in a helicopter accident, but his work lives on.
Initially, the rally routes were laid across the countries of Europe and Africa, and one of the extreme points of the race, with rare exceptions, was the city of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. On the eve of the 2008 race in Mauritania, there was a clash between visitors and the local population on religious grounds, which resulted in the death of French tourists. Therefore, the race had to be cancelled, and since 2009 the competition has been held in South America across Argentina, Peru and Chile. The Sahara was replaced by the Atacama Desert. Also, since 2009, the category of ATVs was introduced.
Rules.
The rally starts annually in the first days of January. Races are held on public roads without traffic restrictions. Competitions take place every day, the average length of a daily stage is from 700 to 900 km. Usually, the organizers lay out the route along mountain roads through the Andes, along the Pacific coast of South America, and through the Atacama Desert.
The total length of the route is about 10,000 kilometers.
The road surface is characteristic of a desert - salt marshes, sand, sand dunes, stones. In addition, the weather also throws up surprises, which complicates the competition.
For control, participants are given GPS transmitters, but they have to plot the route in the traditional way; for this they are given a legend and a map of the area. When passing the route, riders are marked at checkpoints. For more precise control, there are also hidden points that participants are not aware of.
The stage lasts all day - from dawn to dusk, when the racers arrive at the intermediate finish. As a rule, a couple of hours are allotted for sleep, the rest of the time is spent repairing and preparing the car for participation in the race.
The winner is the leader in the overall standings. If serious factory teams are fighting for the first places on the podium, then for most amateurs the main thing in the race is to at least just reach the finish line. As a rule, less than half of the participants make it.
Based on the results of the race, the title of Dakar Champion among pilots and navigators is awarded, and the manufacturers are awarded the Constructors' Cup. A memorable prize in the form of a small Tuareg figurine is awarded to each participant who reaches the finish line safely. Despite the fact that almost every year there are accidents and fatalities at the rally, hundreds of enthusiasts go under the New Year V South America. Just like in Vysotsky’s song “This is not a plain for you.”
Records.
In the class of cars and motorcycles, the best pilot is the Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel, who competed on motorcycles until 1998, and then switched to a car (he won 5 and 6 times, respectively). In 2015, Spaniard Marc Coma won his fifth title. In the ATV class, Argentines Alejandro Patronelli and Marcos Patronelli won twice. Out of competition in the truck class is Vladimir Chagin (7 wins).
Leaders in the Constructors' Championship in each class: cars - Mitsubishi (12 wins), motorcycles - KTM (14 wins), ATVs - Yamaha (7 wins) and trucks - KAMAZ (13 wins).
France (cars – 20 times, motorcycles – 22 times), Argentina (quad bikes – 4 times) and Russia (trucks – 13 times) are in the lead in the ranking of nations.
The Paris-Dakar Rally is a good example of a timely successful idea. Frenchman Thierry Sabine was one of the best racing drivers of the 1970s. The circumstances of his life were such that at a certain moment he was able to start a pendulum that has not stopped for the fourth decade.
A pragmatic start
In the 1970s Europeans, who have nothing to do at home, are driving around the northern part of the African continent on two- and four-wheeled vehicles. These small races were known to a narrow circle of fans. But even then there were prizes. Sponsors provided financial support, and administrators dealt with organizational issues.
The official history of the Dakar portrays the nascent race as being driven entirely by the enthusiasm of the riders. This is not entirely true: there was a lot of enthusiasm, but the commercial component was present even then.
Thierry Sabin was one of those “enthusiasts” who raced across the sands and rocks of Africa on a motorcycle. He was 28 years old. While participating in one of the rallies in 1977, he got lost in the African desert of Tenere, stretching across the territories of Niger, Libya and Chad.
History is silent about the miracle by which he escaped. It is only known that local nomads helped him. The very fact of returning from the African desert was extraordinary: Sabin became a famous, as they would say now, media figure. He receives the nickname "rescue from the sands." Against the backdrop of Sabin’s heroic aura in the community of racers, their sponsors and administrators, the prospect of organizing a large-scale race, which by all calculations could attract the attention of a large number of people, looms.
The calculation turned out to be absolutely correct. By the end of 1978, a route with a schedule was prepared daily tasks, the participants are announced, and Thierry Sabin, as a “true pioneer,” begins to come up with fascinating slogans. The most successful one is still used today: “Duel for participants. A dream for the audience."
Difficulties with the name
On what basis the Dakar race was called a “rally” is not entirely clear. The meaning of the word "rally" is a race on a track, which can also take place on short distances, and over long distances between cities and countries. However, the presence of a general purpose road, any kind, not necessarily paved, is a distinctive element of this type of race. In contrast, Paris-Dakar is an off-road endurance event (human and vehicle). To eliminate terminological confusion, the name “rally raid” was invented, which came to mean an off-road race. But the complex term did not catch on: they still use simply “rally”, although this is incorrect.
The race started from Paris for the first 6 years. Since 1985, the starting point of the rally has changed periodically. Various regions of France, Spanish cities and even Portuguese Lisbon became the starting point. In this regard, the presence of Paris in the name became irrelevant. They left it as a simple “Dakar Rally”.
Africa is a turbulent continent. Low living standards, political instability, terrorism - these factors plagued the rally throughout the African stage. The organizers of the Dakar were able to hold the race along the initial route 2 times: in 1979 and in 1980. The riders, after landing on the African continent, followed through Algeria, Mali, Niger and further east through small African countries to Dakar in Senegal.
But already in the third race, in 1981, for safety reasons they began to change the route: the race took place bypassing one country or another. In 1984, the route was laid out with a significant deviation to the south, with a stop in Côte d’Ivoire. The difficult situation in Algeria led to the fact that since 1989, landings on the African continent were alternately carried out in Tunisia, Libya and Morocco.
Despite minor changes in routes, the general direction of travel for 12 years was from the northern coast of Africa to the south, to the center of the continent, and then to the western Atlantic coast. 1992 was a revolutionary year. The organizers abandoned the detour from north to west and decided to hold the world's first trans-African race. The rally participants crossed the continent from north to south – from Libya to South Africa. The route, naturally, was straightened out as much as possible, but it still turned out to be long - more than 12 thousand km.
For safety reasons, skiing in central Africa has been stopped since 1994. They carefully make their way along the west coast with a stop in the relatively calm Mauritania and Mali.
The routes of 2000 and 2003 stand out. The first one again became trans-African, only this time - from west to east. The riders traveled from Dakar to Cairo. In 2003, Sharm el-Sheikh became the destination.
The African story ended in 2008, when a few days before the start of the race, the French Foreign Ministry officially warned the organizers that holding it along the proposed route would pose a potential threat to the safety of not only the participants, but also several thousand spectators. The terrorists planned to carry out the attack in Mauritania, along which most of the route passed. There was no time to work out a new route: the race was cancelled.
American routes
Since 2009, the Dakar Rally has radically changed its location. From Africa, located near the European coast, it moves across the Atlantic Ocean to South America. There are no shootings, hostage takings, or hotel bombings here. Organizationally, the event only benefited from the move. It has become more expensive and longer for European fans to travel.
Since you can’t really travel through the tropical jungle, less hot and more passable Argentina, Chile, Peru and a little Bolivia were chosen for the races. Today the South American Dakar is a well-organized, safe competition. However, crazy routes of 15 thousand km. remained in the distant 1980s.
Table 1. Routes, length and number of participants in the rally 1979-2016.
|
Route |
Route length |
Number of participating vehicles |
|||
|
Total, km. |
Of which special stages, % |
At the start, pcs. |
Of these reached the finish line, % |
||
| 1979 | Paris – Algiers – Dakar | 10 000 | 32 | 182 | 41 |
| 1980 | 10 000 | 41 | 216 | 38 | |
| 1981 | 6 263 | 54 | 291 | 31 | |
| 1982 | 10 000 | 60 | 385 | 33 | |
| 1983 | 12 000 | 43 | 385 | 32 | |
| 1984 | 12 000 | 49 | 427 | 35 | |
| 1985 | Versailles – Algiers – Dakar | 14 000 | 53 | 552 | 26 |
| 1986 | 15 000 | 52 | 486 | 21 | |
| 1987 | 13 000 | 64 | 539 | 23 | |
| 1988 | 12 874 | 51 | 603 | 25 | |
| 1989 | Paris – Tunisia – Dakar | 10 831 | 61 | 473 | 44 |
| 1990 | Paris – Libya – Dakar | 11 420 | 75 | 465 | 29 |
| 1991 | 9 186 | 63 | 406 | 43 | |
| 1992 | Paris – Libya – Cape Town (trans-African) | 12 427 | 50 | 332 | 51 |
| 1993 | Paris – Morocco – Dakar | 8 877 | 50 | 153 | 44 |
| 1994 | Paris – Spain – Morocco – Dakar – Paris | 13 379 | 33 | 259 | 44 |
| 1995 | Granada (Spain) – Morocco – Dakar | 10 109 | 57 | 205 | 50 |
| 1996 | 7 579 | 82 | 295 | 41 | |
| 1997 | Dakar – Niger – Dakar | 8 049 | 81 | 280 | 50 |
| 1998 | 10 593 | 49 | 349 | 30 | |
| 1999 | Granada – Morocco – Dakar | 9 393 | 60 | 297 | 37 |
| 2000 | Dakar – Cairo | 7 863 | 64 | 401 | 56 |
| 2001 | Paris – Spain – Morocco – Dakar | 10 219 | 60 | 358 | 39 |
| 2002 | Arras (France) – Spain – Morocco – Dakar | 9 436 | 69 | 425 | 31 |
| 2003 | Marseille – Spain – Tunisia – Sharm el-Sheikh | 8 552 | 61 | 490 | 38 |
| 2004 | Auvergne Province (France) – Spain – Morocco – Dakar | 9 507 | 49 | 595 | 27 |
| 2005 | Barcelona – Morocco – Dakar | 9 039 | 60 | 688 | 31 |
| 2006 | Lisbon – Spain – Morocco – Dakar | 9 043 | 53 | 475 | 41 |
| 2007 | 7 915 | 54 | 511 | 59 | |
| 2008 | Canceled due to safety reasons | ||||
| 2009 | 9 574 | 50 | 501 | 54 | |
| 2010 | 9 030 | 53 | 362 | 52 | |
| 2011 | 9 605 | 52 | 407 | 50 | |
| 2012 | Mar Del Plata (Argentina) – Chile – Lima (Peru) | 8 393 | 50 | 443 | 56 |
| 2013 | Lima – Argentina – Santiago (Chile) | 8 574 | 48 | 449 | 67 |
| 2014 | Rosario (Argentina) – Bolivia – Valparaso (Chile) | 9 374 | 56 | 431 | 47 |
| 2015 | Buenos Aires – Chile – Buenos Aires | 9 295 | 51 | 406 | 51 |
| 2016 | Buenos Aires – Bolivia – Rosario | 9 075 | 53 | 354 | 60 |
| AVERAGE: | 10 040 | 55 | 402 | 41 | |
How the Dakar race works
This is the freest racing in the world. Anyone can participate, using any vehicle, from a motorcycle to a truck. Despite the fact that automobile corporations make full use of the rally as an advertising platform, the organizers have always welcomed those wishing to participate “from the street.” The amateur spirit of Dakar is still alive. Anyone can apply to participate. But there are fewer and fewer such “eccentrics” every year. Perhaps people have become more pragmatic. Perhaps the time of Dakar is passing.
The rules of the Dakar race are minimal:
- All participants in the race must strictly follow the given route and complete daily tasks.
- The average length of the route is 10 thousand km. About half of them are occupied by so-called “special sections”: sand, mud, grassy soils, rocks.
- The entire route is divided into daily continuous stages. The length of each is up to 900 km.
- As a rule, one day in the middle of the rally is a “rest day” - no racing is held.
- Routes for motorcycles, cars, trucks and ATVs vary in difficulty and length. The winner is determined in each mode of transport.
- The South American race lasts 15 days (the African ones were 22 days);
- The month of the event is January.
Dakar winners
For almost forty years, the Dakar race has developed some trends characteristic of sports competitions. In particular, participants and teams representing a particular country specialize in certain vehicles. Accordingly, in each of the four types of race there are leaders who win most often. For example:
- Russian teams are usually the best in truck racing (KAMAZ vehicles, of course);
- the French traditionally lead the way in motorcycles (don’t forget that the founder, the Frenchman Thierry Sabine, was a motorcyclist);
- in cars, the French are also often the best;
- Argentines usually take the lead in quad bikes.
Below is a summary table of representatives of the countries that most often won in Dakar.
Table 2. Countries whose representatives were the best in rallying from 1979 to 2016
What about Thierry Sabin?
He took an active part in organizing these races for 9 years. In 1986, during the rally, he and several other people flew in a helicopter over the Malian desert. As a result of a sandstorm, the helicopter lost control and crashed. So, the desert allowed him to survive at the age of 28 so that he could create the best and largest race in the world. But she took his life at 37.
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Books
- The mystery of the glass crypt, Yulia Nelidova. 1907 Former lawyer Emil Gershin, returning from a long trip to the Himalayas, will have to solve the mystery of the death of Dr. Inozemtsev. To do this, he will have to face...
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Paris-Dakar is probably the most prestigious rally, in which four types of vehicles participate: motorcycles, cars, trucks and ATVs. And victories in it are also very prestigious, and also bright and memorable, because they are always achieved as a result of a stubborn struggle.
When the race just began, motorcycles and cars were not separated - they went in the general classification. And it so happened that in 1978 the entire podium was occupied by motorcyclists. Winners:
- 1st place - Cyril Neve (Yamaha 500 XT motorcycle);
- 2nd place - Gilles Comte (Yamaha motorcycle);
- 3rd place - Philip Vassar (Honda motorcycle).
For Cyril Neve, this victory was especially dear because it was the fruit of a family journey: his father provided technical support, his brother also participated in the race. The following year, Neve again became the winner, but lost his position in 1980, changing his motorcycle - Honda did not bring him luck; Hubert Auriol became the winner of the 1981 rally. In 1982, Cyril returned to the podium, then led and lost, but could not give up racing for many years.
The winners of the Paris-Dakar rally became known throughout the world; their successes and ups and downs of the struggle were followed with special attention, rejoicing for their favorite athletes and teams and being sad with them.
Truck Winners
Probably the most exciting part of the famous rally has always been the truck racing. The track, laid out virtually off-road, like Paris-Dakar, gives trucks the opportunity to show their strengths to the fullest. The first winner among the heavyweights of the Dakar in 1980 was the Algerian team at Sonacome. And the first record for the number of victories was set by the Mercedes-Benz teams, which were in first place for five years - from 1982 to 1986. Having won its first victory in 1988, Tatra then became the winner five more times, still being one of the leaders. The Perlini team won four victories in a row (1990–1993), but it never came out on top again.
And since 1996, the victories of KAMAZ-Master, the Russian team that has won the champion title 12 times, begin. Our athletes simply have no equal in desert and off-road racing. Their victories are largely explained by the fact that the team members design and assemble the vehicles themselves, test them themselves, and know all the features of each truck. Winners of not only Paris-Dakar, but also many other races, they became legends of world motorsport.
Dakar winning teams (first places):
- KAMAZ - 12 victories;
- Tatra - 6 wins;
- Mercedes-Benz - 5 wins;
- Perlini - 4 wins;
- Sonacome, ALM/ACMAT, DAF, Hino, MAN, Iveco have so far won one victory each.
the site continues the series of materials dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Dakar. In the previous issue we met the most titled drivers of the main rally raid on the planet, and now it’s time to find out about the most successful teams...
MINI
The British automaker is tied with brands such as Citroen and Volkswagen for the number of wins. All three companies have won the Dakar SUV category four times. But if VW and “Double Chevrons” won three times in a row, then MINI’s winning streak turned out to be a little longer, and their percentage of Dakars won was higher.
Having made its debut in collaboration with the German racing team X-Raid in 2011, the following year MINI celebrated its first success together with the legendary Stephane Peterhansel. The departure of Volkswagen, which won all three of the first Dakars in South America, definitely played a role in this. But to its credit, the MINI ALL4 Racing SUV, based on the MINI John Cooper Works Countryman, is very fast, efficient and reliable. All five cars not only reached the finish line, but also ended up in the top 10.
In 2013, Peterhansel was able to repeat his success and again rose to the top of the podium, while Russian racer Leonid Novitsky and Nani Roma finished in third and fourth places.
But the most successful for MINI was Dakar 2014. 11 ALL4 Racing cars took to the start line in Rosario, Argentina, and after 14 days all of them arrived safely at the finish line in Chilean Valparaiso, including seven cars in the top ten. X-Raid's advantage was so overwhelming that they allowed themselves to play with team tactics, ultimately confusing the racers and fans. Nani Roma was pushed to victory in every possible way, but even when Peterhansel deliberately slowed down, the winner of the 2004 race was unable to take the lead. Only a complete deliberate stop of the Frenchman on the penultimate day allowed the Spaniard to lead the overall classification and remain ahead until the finish.
MINI won its fourth and currently last victory at the Dakar in 2015, together with Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah. Peterhansel joined the new Peugeot project, which was not at all surprising after all the events in the previous race, and the following year put an end to the dominance of his former team.
MINI was unable to compete with the French Lions at the last two Dakars and in 2018, in the hope of challenging, together with the Mini John Cooper Works Rally updated last year, it will field three buggies. So, X-Raid will be fully prepared for the 40th anniversary rally-raid.
Peugeot
The history of Peugeot's performances at the Dakar goes back less than ten years and now the second four-year period is coming to an end, after which the French Lions will leave the main rally raid for the second time since 1990. But what a story it is!
Having switched from the WRC to the Dakar after the closure of Group B, Peugeot, under the leadership of Jean Todt, immediately and against all odds won. At the very start - a short prologue - the team's main hope, Ari Vatanen, crashed his 205 Turbo 16 car and fell back to 274th place in the overall standings. But the Finn did not give up, made up for lost time and was the first to arrive at the finish line at Pink Lake after 13,000 kilometers.
Vatanen had every chance to defend the title of the reigning winner in 1988 and was in the lead for 2/3 of the distance, and then, after the 13th of 19 stages, the unexpected happened. No, he didn’t have an accident, he wasn’t let down by an offensive technical breakdown. While spending the night in the capital of Mali, Bamako, his Peugeot 405 T16 was stolen! The car was found, but too late and after a series of protests from his rivals, Vatanen was forced to withdraw from the race. Not everyone believed the hijacking version back then, and disputes remain to this day. There is a version that there was no theft, and Peugeot pulled this trick on the car in order to fix a faulty engine, the repair of which was not enough in the allotted time limit. But the victory still went to Peugeot - another Finnish WRC champion, Juha Kankunen, won.
Ari bounced back at the next two Dakars, but to say that these victories were easy for him is to say nothing. In 1989, the Finn fought so desperately with his teammate Jacqui Ickx that Peugeot decided to determine the winner with a simple coin toss and avoid a dramatic outcome of this duel. As you understand, luck was on Vatanen’s side, including during the further part of the distance, when he turned over twice. Despite all the problems - the co-driver's broken compass and a hole in the body after a collision with a tree - the Finn also won the 1990 Dakar and brought Peugeot a fourth victory out of four possible. On this high note, the French automaker left the famous rally-raid and returned only 25 years later, when the race had already moved to South America.
There was no triumphant return in 2015. The 2008 DKR16 machine turned out to be crude, and the best representative of Peugeot, Stéphane Peterhansel, ended up only in 11th place, while the five-time winner in the motorcycle category Cyril Despres finished his debut Dakar at the wheel of an SUV only in 34th position, and Carlos Sainz retired after coup. For the French Lions, this was the first and so far only defeat. Having seriously worked on the mistakes, the company introduced the new model 2008 DKR, driving which Peterhansel added two more victories in the next two years, WRC legend Sebastien Loeb fought for victory in both editions of the rally raid, and Despres climbed to the podium in 2017. m.
The upcoming Dakar will be Peugeot's last. Once again, just like 25 years ago, at the end of the four-year period, the French brand is leaving. The PSA Group, unfortunately, decided to redistribute resources and focus on rallycross.
It will be a matter of honor for Peugeot to win the bye and take the ninth out of ten victories.
KTM
How important is the role of the team when the participant overcomes all 10 thousand kilometers of a grueling and difficult race on a motorcycle, without the help of a navigator and almost completely alone on the track, not counting the support of the “water carrier” and rivals in the form of landmarks? You only have to look at KTM's history to find the answer to this question. The Austrian motorcycle manufacturer has been participating in the Dakar since 1994 and has won 16 victories in a row over these 23 years.
From 2001 to this day, KTM has been invincible, and for two years in a row - in 2002 and 2003 - it won all the special stages. No matter how hard Honda, Sherco, Husqvarna or any other brand tries, they cannot boast of such numbers, reliability of equipment and skill of riders. A few years ago, when Marc Coma and Cyril Despres retired from the motorcycle class, having won ten Dakars in a row between them, it seemed that KTM’s winning streak would finally be broken. But no. Just like KAMAZ-Master, well-prepared and talented young people came: Australian Toby Price won in 2016, and Briton Sam Sunderland won in 2017.
Can KTM claim a record 17th consecutive victory?
Mitsubishi
In the entire history of the Dakar, only one manufacturer has managed to win in the SUV category more than ten times and no one else - not Citroen, Volkswagen, MINI or even Peugeot - has such a long and successful series as Mitsubishi. For 25 years, the Japanese company, with its flagship Pajero car, nicknamed the “King of the Desert,” has been giving its rivals a hard time, winning 12 times.
The first success came at the third Dakar for Mitsubishi in 1985, when the Frenchman Patrick Zaniroli won for the first and only time in his entire career.
The Japanese had to wait seven whole years for their next triumph. Peugeot was too strong in the second half of the 80s, and rivals from Porsche and Citroen did not miss their chance. But the wait was worth it.
In the 1992 race, three crews led by Hubert Auriol arrived at the finish line at Lake Rose in the first three places. Another triumph came the next year - Bruno Sabie won.
Mitsubishi staged a real rout of its competitors in 1997. Six Pajero cars finished in the top ten, taking four first places led by Kenjiro Shinozuka, who became the first Japanese driver to conquer the Dakar.
In 1998, the Mitsubishi quartet again had no equal. It's no joke - Jean-Louis Schlesser, who finished fifth in a buggy named after himself, lost eight hours to the winner Jean-Pierre Fontani, about two hours to the second Shinozuka and the third-place winner Sabi. The Frenchman lost even to his closest competitor Hiroshi Masuoka for almost two hours.
However, this was only a harbinger of dominance, the likes of which the SUV category has never seen before or since.
For seven years in a row - from 2001 to 2007 - the “King of the Desert” invariably finished first, including under the control of the German racer Utah Kleinschmidt, with whose victory, in fact, this series began.
Mitsubishi achieved its main success at the Dakar in 2002, taking the first eight (!) places at the end of the race.
In 2008, the rally raid was canceled at the very last moment, and when the race moved to South America, the Japanese concern replaced the Pajero with a Lancer. The new car turned out to be damp, and out of four crews, only one made it to the finish line, and only in tenth place. Then a few weeks later, Mitsubishi announced that it was winding down its rally-raid program. Like Honda and Toyota in F1, Subaru in WRC, Suzuki and Kawasaki in MotoGP, the 12-time Dakar winner had to reallocate resources amid the global crisis.
Several years ago, in 2015, during a visit to Moscow, Hiroshi Masuoka, who continues to work at Mitsubishi Motors, admitted the possibility of the Three Diamonds returning to the Dakar, but the talk has not gone further...
KAMAZ-Master
The history of Dakar is unthinkable without KAMAZ-Master. For almost 28 years of performances, the “Blue Armada” has become a symbol of the classification of trucks of the main rally raid on the planet. Until the era of the Russian team, which debuted in 1990, the heavyweight category did not know such a formidable force. Mercedes (five victories 1982-1986, Tatra (1988, 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2001) and the little-known Italian company Perlini (1990-1993) dominated their time, but so rich and long history they cannot boast of success. In this regard, KAMAZ can only compete with KTM in the motorcycle class.
Two years after its founding in 1988, the team from Naberezhnye Chelny made its debut at the Dakar, and already in 1991 it took two places on the podium with Vladimir Goltsev and the Estonian Yoel Tammeki, losing only to the Frenchman Jacques Hussa on Perlini. At the same time, all five KAMAZ vehicles reached the finish line, which no one else managed in the truck category that year.
The first victory came in 1996, when, a few tens of meters before the finish, Viktor Moskovskikh, on a sharp sandy turn, overtook the then three-time Dakar winner, the Czech Karel Loprais in a Tatra, and thus put an end to the dispute for first place. But the dominance of the “Blue Armada” began a few years later, when the once former mechanic Vladimir Chagin, in a confrontation with the same Loprais, won the Dakar 2000 race, and two years later began a series of victories that lasted until 2005, when the second took the initiative KAMAZ-Master driver Firdaus Kabirov.
So they exchanged positions at the top of the podium until the end of their racing careers in 2011, having won eight out of nine Dakars between them since 2002 (the canceled rally raid in 2008 does not count).
During this time, only the race in 2007 did not submit to the KAMAZ drivers, but this is how the circumstances developed - at the fifth stage, the leader Chagin got into a serious accident, running into a three-meter pile of stones in the dust at a speed of 100-110 km/h and turning over several times. There were no tragic consequences, but even now, when you look at photographs of what is left of the truck, your heart skips a beat.
Chagin received a concussion, navigator Semyon Yakubov broke his arm, and mechanic Sergei Savostin received a compression fracture of a vertebra. Kabirov’s crew took over the evacuation of the wrecked cars; Sergei Reshetnikov also did not abandon his comrades and lost an hour and a half, stopping at the scene of the accident. Only the “fast technical” of Ilgizar Mardeev remained on the track, who could not compete for victory, but finished second.
The second defeat occurred in 2012, when KAMAZ-Master completely changed its lineup, and the burden of responsibility fell on the shoulders of the younger generation of racers. The transitional Dakar turned out to be difficult - for the first time in 11 years, not a single rider from Naberezhnye Chelny was on the podium. But the very next year KAMAZ returned to its rightful position and began a new winning streak: Eduard Nikolaev won in 2013, Andrey Karginov won in 2014, and Ayrat Mardeev won in 2015. Moreover, in 2015, KAMAZ-Master drivers occupied the entire podium.
In 2016, there seemed to be no signs of failure, but all KAMAZ crews sorely lacked stability and speed. As a result confident victory Dutchman Gerard de Rooy for Iveco, and Mardeev, who finished second, became the only representative of the Blue Armada in the top five.
“It’s okay, next year we’ll be angrier, we’ll get ours back,” Airat said then, and he turned out to be right.
Mardeev Jr. himself, due to problems in the sand and the lost two hours, could not win back, but Nikolaev and Sotnikov brought KAMAZ-Master a victorious double.
Thus, over 21 years, the Russian team has won 14 victories at the Dakar, 12 of them since 2002. Impressive statistics.
Next year KAMAZ-Master celebrates 30 years since its founding. It would be nice to win the 15th Victoria on such an anniversary. On the one hand, it should be easier than in previous years, given that Gerard de Rooy and his team chose to go on the Africa Eco Race. But you shouldn’t write off such rivals as Renault, Tatra, MAZ and other racers driving Iveco cars.
The Dakar is a difficult and unpredictable race, and not a single one of the 14 victories was easy for KAMAZ...
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