The Dakar Rally
The Dakar is a rally raid, but first and foremost, it is an incomparable human adventure. Its history has been built in the world’s finest deserts with men and women from all horizons, taking on one of the hardest sporting challenges of our era. A competition of extremes and an orienteering race, the Dakar brings together the leading rally raid riders and drivers, as well as amateur competitors who come to fulfil their dream, experience an adventure and meet the biggest challenge of their life on a bike, on a quad, in a car or in a truck. Over the last 40 years, each year 500 adventurers from more than 60 nationalities have come together for 15 days of a unique competition on which extraordinary feats of human endeavour are played out. The Dakar is a rally-raid. It consists of one stage per day comprising at least one “special stage” per day (often several hundred kilometres), sometimes off-road, on terrain without tracks (desert, etc.). The total distance covered is several thousand kilometres. The event takes place over a period of between 10-15 days (versus two to three days for cross-country rallies). The classification of the stage is made up of the times set in the special stage, to which are added possible penalties. The rallies use navigation, which is done via a roadbook provided by the organizers and distributed every evening at the finish of the stage, for the following stage on the next day. The rally-route remains a secret until the delivery of the roadbook to the competitors. The start order of the special stages will be based on the times set in the Timed Sector, including Sporting Penalties (speed, missing Way Points) taken in the Timed Sector. In the case of a tie, the order will be determined by the race numbers.