Dakar, the last adventure

Mankind looks for new challenges to satisfy their need for new emotions within an extremely sophisticated and technological world. Motor sport, both on two and on four wheels, is one of the ways that man has in hand to release his need for risk and adventure. However success is very hard to get thus true sport spirit is seldom reached.

We are not too sure that Thierry Sabine, when he started to imagine the first Paris/Dakar Rally had all these considerations in mind, but it is true that this mythical race has managed to put together all those features which have converted it in a unique race, capable to focus the entire world's attention during the fortnight that it takes to be completed.

This rally covers many aspects like sport competition, incredible mechanical diversity, the magic of Africa and the dessert, thus making this rally in to something above any other competition. But, without a doubt, it is the hardest race in the world because it has an extremely big demand of effort and mechanical know how which make it a real adventure. Dakar 's legend is formed by many single adventures as well as individual experiences, just as many as participants and as bikes used by the pilots who reflect the particular essence of this race.

We have gathered in the Bassella Motor Cycle Museum a selection of the mechanical protagonists in this story. It is a difficult task considering the destructive nature of the rally which makes that a lot of these bikes, not only cannot arrive to the finishing line, but that they never return back home. You will find within this selection, several winning bikes, but also many others which never reached the top positions, but in turn were protagonists of particular stories as victims of a pilot's mad dream to find his own limits or even to go beyond them.

The Pioneers

What is now considered as the hardest race in the world was conceived by the Frenchman Thierry Sabine in 1977 while he was participating in the Abidjan/Nice rally and got lost several days in the desert. Rather than hating that place where he almost lost his life, he decided to launch a better organised race which he named Paris/Dakar and whose first edition took place in 1979.

At that time there were needs for adventure, but there were no motorcycles engineered for this type of competitions. Naturally, at the beginning, endurance or trail bikes where widely used. This was the case of the first winner, Ciryl Neveu who used a Yamaha XT 500. It was curious that in the first editions, there was a mixed qualifying system for vehicles on two, three or four wheels so this Yamaha was the absolute winner qualifying before the first car which came only in fourth place.

The first Spanish pilot to participate, Juan Porcar, used in 1982 an OSSA 350, two stroke engine Super Pioneer. Obviously it was not strong enough, but Porcar's adventure was widely displayed in the Solo Moto magazine in which he worked and served as an incentive to future participants.

Winners

If arriving to Dakar is a real challenge in itself, the fact of winning this rally is something which only an elite can get. There have been many pilots who started the rally with great ambitions and supported by many years of practice, whose dreams rapidly fell to pieces in the desert sand.

A Dakar winner as well as the engines do not grow on their own, on the contrary it is the result of hard dedication. Nothing today is like the pioneers of this race: nowadays you do need a properly engineered bike, specially designed for this race and extremely well looked after. Apart from performance, you need factors like robustness, reliability, autonomy, easy to pilot. Throughout these years rules have changed from free inscription of prototypes of any cc until today which is not allowed the participation of bicylindric of over 450 cc. In any case, for a motorbike to win the Dakar , it must be a top class model in every aspect and well kept by a full professional team.

KTM and the Dakar Rally

KTM is the manufacturer completely identified nowadays with the rally. The Austrian company is the only one which produces motorbikes specifically designed for this type of races and its implication in this rally comes from years ago when, apart from private pilots (like Carles Mas in 1985), Heinz Kinigadner tried his best year after year in the early nineties.

The development process of their bikes has been very hard, but finally results have arrived in a six consecutive victories record from 2001 to 2005, never achieved by any other manufacturer. Spanish pilots have been very close to this successful line. Nani Roma nearly got the first victory for KTM in 2000, but its engine broke down only two stages before the finish when he was an undisputed leader. Previous to that, Jordi Arcarons had the honour to obtain the best result until then by becoming second. And Roma, has been the only Spanish to win the Dakar with a KTM.

Both Dakar and KTM owe a lot to each other, since it has been the only official manufacturer who has believed in this race in past years by creating an internal dispute among their own pilots in order to raise the sport interest in the motorbike category.

Private pilots

Headlines are usually devoted to top pilots, but in the Dakar Rally the majority of pilots are completely unknown, they participate on a private basis, almost without any help but loyal to the true spirit of this race.

Whereas the official pilots compete against their rivals, private pilots fight against elements and in favour of their own survival, not only under the sport side, but many times in a literal sense of the word survival. Behind each private pilot, a personal chapter is written and together with rest of pilots gives life to the real Dakar book.

Obviously private pilots cannot afford top class motorcycles. For them, the reliability and feeling with their bikes, usually developed from mass produced units, is far more important than their own performance.

AIn the end, at the beaches of Rose Lake , there are as many winners as motorbikes reaching the finishing line. May this selection of motorbikes, survivors to this adventure, serve as a small tribute to those who in fact make this race so great.

Africa Twin Honda Operation

Honda offered attractive economic conditions to private pilots through an initiative of their French subsidiary in an attempt to show the great possibilities of their “Africa Twin” model as an evolution from the bicylindric prototypes which lead the race in previous years. Thus, France Honda, through their director Jean Louis Guillot launched in 1989 the “50 Twin Africa to Dakar ” operation virtually taken over by French pilots. Those motorbikes were practically strictly mass produced, with the aim to participate in the “ Marathon ” class fitted with a double back auxiliary tank, adapted suspensions, overdimensioned radiator, new air filters and certain changes in the display. The following year, Honda España obtained a small number of vacancies for the Spanish pilots: Ramón Serra, Andreu González and Antonio Boluda, the latter brilliant winner in the "Marathon" category.

Camel

From the beginning, the Dakar rally has been an extremely good tool for the manufacturers to show their products. There have been always sponsors willing to associate their names to this great adventure. Camel is a perfect example of this: thus its logotype fits perfectly with the entourage in which the race takes place and that for many years it was closely linked to.

The implication of Camel with the race came out of the initiative of Toni Soler, Events Director of the company, who had the know how through the organisation of the Camel Trophy to create a powerful Spanish team on two and on four wheels in the 1987 Dakar with Emilio Bosser (depicted in the photograph on the mini cycle used to move around in the camp) as manager, being this idea followed by other Camel European delegations. Some of the Spanish pilots sponsored by Camel are Salvador Cañellas, Juan Porcar, Josep Mª Pibernat, Agustín Fernández, Joan Regás and Josep Mª Serviá.