Robert Higdon's Paris-Dakar Report Day 6

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Ten thousand years ago lakes, rivers, and McDonalds covered what is now known as Mauritania. Elephants, hippos, and rhinos sang and danced and read "The Cat in the Hat" in this happy land. It was a Garden of Eden where the lion lay down with the lamb. Then the Sahara showed up at the doorstep. Things haven't been the same since. Today Mauritania is a sand box, a living example of how bad things can get, given enough time and determination. In that sense it is sort of like Washington, D.C., but the roads are better.

The Paris-Dakar contestants weren't on any Mauritanian roads today because they came into the country from the north, and there are no roads in northern Mauritania, at least by any normal definition of a road. There is a path in that area, however. It is called The Imperial Route, and it formerly was the camel interstate that linked Casablanca to the north with Timbuktu to the south. The finish of the leg today was in Zouerat, a mining town that continues to linger on after the mines played out a few years ago.

At 614 km it was a short day, 494 km of it on a stage with four checkpoints. Stephane Peterhansel, apparently irritated at being in third place overall, came out of the starting gate like a Quaker oat. He led Spain's Carlos Sotelo at the first checkpoint, increased the lead by the second, and at the third checkpoint was more than sixteen minutes ahead of Sotelo's Cagiva. Everyone else was far behind. The soft sand was obviously favoring Peterhansel's and Sotelo's big twins over the single cylinder KTMs and BMWs.

But Peterhansel was paying a heavy price for his speed and he knew it. By the 170 km mark he was averaging a ludicrous 12 miles/gallon, perhaps just 25% of what the bike could normally produce on the street. He had no choice but to back off or run out of gas. When Peterhansel slowed down, Sotelo continued apace. By the stage's finish he had come within a minute of catching the flying Frenchman. The rest of the pack was eight minutes or more behind them. But Peterhansel's effort had been enough for him to slip back into first overall, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

It wasn't that the other competitors were dogging it. Fabriozi Meoni had yet another fine day to take third on the stage, just ahead of Oscar Gallardo's BMW, and in so doing managed to hold onto his second place standing overall. Steady Raymond Sainct took fifth. South African Alfie Cox, fourteen minutes behind Peterhansel today and sixth on the stage, said that he'd had his throttle pegged for the first 240 km. What he really needed, he said, was Mick Doohan's Grand Prix bike with knobbies.

The overall leader for the past two days, Joan Roma, had a sub-par run, finishing 9th on the stage and more than seventeen minutes behind Peterhansel. He has dropped back to third overall. Still, he was luckier than Edi Orioli, who was halted for some forty minutes with electrical problems. His 20th place finish on the stage dropped him back to 12th overall, more than an hour behind the leader.

At this point attentive readers might wish to recall what was going on back in the good old days of this rally, when riders would lope along through a 700-km transit zone, run a ten-minute stage, and suck contentedly on a quart of ouzo at night while they watched their mechanics take care of the bikes. Yes, it was a simpler, happier time and place, much as was Mauritania 10,000 years ago. But that was then. For a week I've been promising that it would get bad, and we are now on the eve of three consecutive Real Bad Days.

Tomorrow is a 684 km leg from Zouerat east through the Sahara to El Mreiti, a nothing place in the middle of nothing. The stage takes 680 km, or 99.4% of the total distance. That's why they call it a "marathon." They will run across sand dunes that are described as "cathedral-sized." On top of that the mechanics who routinely fly in to service the bikes at night will be barred. Nobody is permitted to work on anything at night except prayers and if you need a spare part, that's too damned bad. You can't have it. The day following, Leg #9, is 478 km, all of it a stage. No mechanics, no spare parts, no mercy. The tenth day is 918 km, 806 of it being the stage, the longest of the entire event. On the 11th day they will rest.

I think then I will too. I get tired just thinking about what these poor bastards are going through.


 1  PETERHANSEL	        YAM	FR	0:00:00
 2  MEONI		KTM	IT	0:02:25
 3  ROMA		KTM	ES	0:08:48
 4  COX			KTM	AF	0:18:02
 5  GALLARDO		BMW	ES	0:18:31
 6  SAINCT		KTM	FR	0:19:39
 7  KATRINAK		KTM	SL	0:22:14
 8  SOTELO		CAG	ES	0:47:59
 9  HAYDON		KTM	AU	1:05:21
10  DEACON		KTM	GB	1:05:52
11  SALA		KTM	IT	1:06:32
12  ORIOLI		BMW	IT	1:12:47
13  VON ZITZEWIT	KTM	AL	1:33:44
14  MARQUES		KTM	PO	1:50:55
15  JIMMINK		KTM	HO	1:51:18

Bob Higdon

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Please respect our intellectual property rights. Do not distribute any of these documents, or portions therein, without the written permission of the Iron Butt Association.