Today is a rest day in Gao, Mali, and if there are people on the face of the earth who deserve a day of rest more than the entrants on the Paris-Dakar rally, I don't know who they might be. Ninety-four bikes made the transit zone from Taoudenni to Gao but only eighty-seven of them will resume the rally tomorrow. Joan Roma, the Spaniard who led the event at times and put some true pressure on the odds-on favorite, Stephane Peterhansel, won't be among those on the starting grid. His engine is dead. Peterhansel will begin tomorrow's leg with nearly an eleven minute lead over Fabrizio Meoni.

Watching Peterhansel at work is like observing a Chinese water torture. He is methodical, careful, and certain of his purpose. He knows he doesn't have to win every stage, so he doesn't try. He can grind down the competition slowly and he does just that. His fellow riders must feel as if they're being bitten to death by a duck. You might handle him today by a couple of minutes, but he'll be ahead of you tomorrow by five. After two weeks of that, he's two hours in front. He could be the poster boy for Alcoholics Anonymous: One day at a time.

He has never broken down. In fact, with the exceptions of 1994 (where he sat out because Yamaha was protesting changes to the rules) and 1996 (where he withdrew following a protest about the quality of gas he had received during a stage), he has won every time he has entered. Death and taxes may be life's only abiding certainties, but Stephane Peterhansel standing atop the podium at the finish of the P-D isn't a bad bet either. A great rider on an underpowered bike --- Edi Orioli, for example --- could flush a poor rider on a fine bike, but Peterhansel is the best rider the P-D rally has ever seen, and he's riding a bike that has won almost half of the nineteen rallies. I don't know how you beat a combination like that, except maybe by dripping poison into his ear.

Tomorrow they will follow the north bank of the Niger river west to Timbuktu. It will be an easy day, just 420 km, almost all of it a stage. Rescue trucks and reconnaissance planes in the meantime have found everyone lost in the desert. Nearly all of them have retreated to Atar or Nema in Mauritania, places notable principally because they have airports that can facilitate their return to the real world. In a few days their teeth will stop chattering.

The stolen truck is still missing. After O.J. Simpson has found the person responsible for his ex-wife's murder, maybe he can start looking for it. Somehow I doubt that it will turn up on a golf course, which is where O.J. is concentrating his search these days.

Bob Higdon

© 1998 Iron Butt Association, Chicago, Illinois

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