Disastrous Days In The Desert

Paris-to-Dakar's problems were soon to get much more serious than mere disorganization and favoritism. On the seventh day in Africa, during a 414-mile leg in Niger, a 10-ton, 1,200-horsepower truck built by the Dutch firm DAF hit a sand dune at an estimated speed of 110 mph and rolled over several times. The truck's navigator, Kees van Loevezijn, was thrown from the vehicle and instantly killed. The driver survived but was seriously injured. DAF withdrew its other truck and issued a statement that the company "did not wish to be associated with a race in which so many people die [in the preceding nine years there had been 17 fatalities]."

Not even 24 hours passed before another death occurred. On the Arlit-to-Agadez stage, Patrick Canado, driving a non-factory-sponsored Range Rover, crashed into a support vehicle and was killed. That night, Gérard Lafond, a mechanic asleep in his sleeping bag on the desert floor, was run over by a 4 X 4 truck. He was evacuated to a Paris hospital with a crushed rib cage.

Then on Jan. 14, motorcyclist Jean-Claude Huger was scouting the course after a grueling speed trial when he crashed into a ditch. He would die five days later in Paris.

In Mali, the day after Huger's crash, a fire, which local police suspect was started by one of the race teams as they cooked breakfast near a stretch of railroad track, threatened to engulf the Dakar-to-Bamako train. Passengers panicked, and three were killed after jumping from the moving train.

Just three days after that, Baye Sibi, a 10-year-old girl watching the race in the town of Kita, Mali, saw one car roar by and proceeded to cross the dirt road. Another car, hidden in the dust cloud behind the first, struck and killed her. Finally, in Mauritania on the penultimate day of the race, a car being used by a film crew covering the race hit a mother and daughter and killed them both.

Throughout the race, as the death toll and the number of nonfatal injuries rose (at least two motorcyclists were paralyzed), the surviving participants would dutifully roar off into the desert each day, never knowing whether some unpredictable occurrence might leave them stranded in the middle of the Sahara. It came as no surprise when, on Jan. 8 in Algeria, the organizers discovered that there was not enough fuel for the safety crews and canceled a speed trial. A few days later another stage of the race was aborted because the support helicopters were suddenly refused permission to overfly part of Mali. Most reporters covering the event assumed that TSO—despite its operating budget of an estimated $60 million—simply hadn't come up with a sufficient fee for local officals to allow the race to pass through.

Depression and disillusionment with the rally grew wider daily. At one point L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, condemned the race as "a vulgar display of power and wealth in places where men continue to die of hunger and thirst."

In the meantime Peugeot's Ari Vatanen, the 1981 World Rally Champion, had built up a huge lead as he pursued his second straight Paris-to-Dakar victory. And since Peugeot had enough spare parts on hand to virtually rebuild a vehicle overnight, it seemed that the only way Vatanen could lose would be if his car suffered a total wreck—or suddenly disappeared.

After the 17th day of the race, Vatanen parked his car in the Peugeot compound in Bamako. During the night, while he and his mechanics slept, the car was stolen. The thieves demanded $90,000 in ransom for it, but at daybreak it was spotted in a junkyard and recovered with no ransom paid.

Vatanen arrived at the starting line with minutes to spare. The race rules require, however, that a car be on hand 30 minutes before a scheduled start. Vatanen was allowed to join the field while officials decided whether to disqualify him. The next morning Vatanen was thrown out of the rally.