Remembering the triumph and tragedy of the 1986 Paris-Dakar rally
The 2021 Dakar Rally wrapped up on January 15, after 14 days and 7646 kilometers (4751 miles) traversing the unforgiving desert terrain of Saudi Arabia. Fifty-five-year-old Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel, essentially the most profitable competitor in Dakar’s historical past, received his eighth title within the automotive class (he additionally received the bike class six instances within the Nineties), and Argentinian Kevin Benavides turned the primary South American rider to win the two-wheeled class. Russian Dmitry Sotnikov received the truck class. French rider Pierre Cherpin died from accidents sustained on the occasion’s seventh stage.
This was solely the Dakar’s second operating on the Arabian peninsula, however it was the forty third iteration of the world-famous rally. The raid has gone via three continents over the a long time, however its popularity for toughness and hazard has by no means wavered. This yr additionally marks 35 years for the reason that 1986 operating of the occasion, a yr which gave rise to a number of the biggest triumphs (and positively a number of the biggest tragedies) within the historical past of the Dakar Rally.
By 1986, the Paris-Dakar (because it was recognized then) was in its eighth yr, and the competitors’s newbie spirit was very a lot intact. But when an occasion as harmful as Paris-Dakar ever had any wide-eyed naiveté, ’86 was the yr actuality set in.
Large, skilled manufacturing unit groups had arrived in full pressure in all three courses (bikes, automobiles, and vehicles), together with three experimental supercars from Porsche. Sports activities automotive followers primarily keep in mind the 1986 Paris-Dakar for these Porsches and their glowing efficiency within the desert that yr, however the occasion was additionally marred by tough climate and an particularly treacherous route, which contributed to 1986 being one of many deadliest years within the occasion’s historical past. Six individuals misplaced their lives, together with two contributors, a well-known singer, and the occasion’s founder and figurehead. Let’s have a look again at what the official Dakar web site calls “The Black Yr.”
Paris-Dakar’s origins
Again in 1977, whereas using a Yamaha XT 500 within the Abidjan-Good Rally, a rich French motorbike racer named Thierry Sabine acquired misplaced within the Libyan desert. Pressured to attend for rescue, he was captivated by the panorama and have become impressed to arrange a rally raid (basically a long-distance, multi-day endurance rally) via the terrain. He wished “to transcend my limits and to take different individuals past theirs,” and in flip introduce the world at massive to the pure great thing about the Sahara.
Sabine made it occur the very subsequent yr, and the primary Paris-Dakar started the day after Christmas in 1978. The official begin was on the Esplanade of the Trocadero, close to the Eiffel Tower, and the race completed within the Senegalese capital of Dakar. The hundreds of miles of punishing rocks, boulders, dunes, rivers, and different risks in between took a number of weeks to beat.
Of the 182 contributors who set out from Paris, 108 failed to complete, and the occasion’s first fatality occurred in Niger. The massive winner was 21-year-old Cyril Neveu, of France, who received the occasion using a Yamaha bike, whereas a Vary Rover took fourth general and first within the automotive class. A number of dozen extra adventurers discovered themselves tempted by the second operating in 1980, and Paris-Dakar’s official motto turned “A problem for many who go. A dream for many who keep behind.” It rapidly gained a popularity as one of the crucial grueling, most controversial, and most violent occasions of its type wherever on the earth.
For the primary few years, nevertheless, the Paris-Dakar entry lists had been principally stuffed with French amateurs in frivolously modified highway automobiles. Many had been in it simply as a lot for the journey as they had been for the competitors. One group tried to sort out the primary rally in a Nineteen Twenties Renault KZ, and a quartet of riders gave the 1980 occasion a go on their Vespas.
It wasn’t till 1982 that Paris-Dakar achieved mainstream worldwide buzz, however hardly for rosy causes. Through the rally, within the desert close to the Algeria-Mali border, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s son Mark went lacking. Serving as navigator in a rally-prepped Peugeot 504 that he known as “the very worst automotive to do the journey in,” he made it a lot of the method via Algeria earlier than the rear axle broke and stranded him, the driving force, and the on-board mechanic. The organizers went searching for them—albeit within the mistaken place—and newspapers ran headlines like “Maggie’s Son Misplaced in Sahara” and “Fears Develop For Misplaced Mark” because the trio waited six days, consuming water from the Peugeot’s radiator to maintain from dehydrating, till their rescue.
From there, Paris-Dakar acquired slightly extra severe, attracting extra decided competitors past simply newbie thrill seekers and eccentrics. The notoriety of the rally attracted more cash, extra company sponsorship, and OEM involvement. Large-budget manufacturing unit groups had been eager to attain unforgettable PR worth, and engineers wished to place new expertise to the hardest of real-world checks. Even stars of Method 1 and sports activities automotive racing wished a crack on the rally’s rigorous challenges.
All of the whereas, hazard endured. The 1983 rally entered the Ténéré part of the south central Sahara for the primary time, and 40 opponents (nonetheless navigating by compass and paper maps) acquired separated and have become misplaced throughout a large sandstorm. Jacky Ickx received the occasion in a closely modified, Texaco-sponsored Mercedes G-Wagen.
Porsche arrived as one of many first manufacturing unit groups in 1984, enlisting Ickx to steer the hassle sponsored by Rothmans tobacco. Regardless of garnering appreciable skepticism for fielding a small sports activities automotive to an notorious vehicle-breaking trial just like the Dakar, Porsche’s 953 (basically a 911 with upgraded suspension and manually-controlled four-wheel drive system) silenced the naysayers by ending first, sixth, and twenty sixth. The affect of those rally Porsches can still be felt today.
The stage for ’86
An extended, harder route set the stage for the 1986 Paris-Dakar rally. Having labored lengthy hours via the vacations prepping, checking, and determining logistics (worldwide journey and delivery had been much more difficult in these pre-E.U.days), the opponents formally set off on New Yr’s Day from the Place d’Armes in Versailles.
Forward of them had been 15,000 km (over 9300 miles), nearly none of it on paved roads and over half of it on particular levels winding via seven international locations and alongside a number of war-torn borders. Within the Sahara, opponents may anticipate temperatures of as much as 120 levels F within the daytime, however beneath freezing at night time. Touring with them and accessible at night time was a cellular base camp, or bivouac, providing meals, few hours of relaxation, and time for automobile restore and upkeep. Every day would begin with a briefing with up-to-date data on the route for that day, however each the briefing and the highway e-book offered had been solely in French. The organizers deliberate for the entire thing to take about three weeks, with opponents divided up into three courses: bikes, automobiles, and huge purpose-built vehicles. (The parts-laden assist vehicles for the bigger-budget groups may technically compete within the truck class, too.)
For 1986, the rally additionally introduced it could donate water pumps to a number of the villages alongside the route. Was this purely an act of goodwill? Perhaps, however it was extra possible a calculated hedge in opposition to unhealthy publicity; the yr earlier than, the rally-goers purchased up all of the gas in Timbuktu, and one charity reported a three-week scarcity after it left.
In keeping with the official tally, 486 opponents lined up at first in Versailles, divided between 131 bikes, 282 automobiles, and 73 vehicles. Star of the bike class and going for his third consecutive Dakar win was Belgian rider Gaston Rahier on a Marlboro-liveried BMW motorbike, who mentioned his “first opposition is the desert.” Rahier had loads of different opposition as effectively. Honda developed a brand new NXR750 for the 1986 Dakar with a brand new 779-cc, 70-hp overhead cam V-twin, and the favourite on the Rothmans-sponsored Honda was 1979, ’80, and ’82 race winner Cyril Neveu. Hubert Auriol, the 1981 and 1983 winner, was additionally a favourite, using for Cagiva.
The bike class was essentially the most reasonably priced to enter and thus hosted many amateurs paying their very own method and performing their very own repairs. For them, simply ending the rally could be victory sufficient. The automotive class, in the meantime, demonstrated how the desert can really stage the taking part in discipline. Nowhere else would you discover Toyota Land Cruisers and Porsche supercars all vying for a similar prize. Among the many entrants was a gaggle of German Opel Kadett 4x4s, Russian Ladas, and British Vary Rovers. Mitsubishi, winners in 1985, arrived with even sooner variations of its confirmed Pajero SUV. Among the many privateers, and likewise operating a Pajero, was Prince Albert of Monaco, having his second go on the occasion after failing to complete the yr earlier than. (A number of days later, he would lose a few of his royal baggage after the door of his Mitsubishi flew open mid-race.)
Porsche, winners of the 1984 occasion, had been again with a vengeance after unhealthy luck and some tactical errors took all three of its automobiles out of the 1985 rally. The weapon of alternative for ’86 was the 959, the full-fledged idea of a four-wheel drive competitors supercar that had been rigorously developed over the earlier two years. With water-cooled heads and two turbochargers, it developed almost twice the facility of the profitable 1984 automotive however was barely any heavier. Suspension included double wishbones and twin dampers up entrance, with double wishbones within the rear as effectively. There have been extra superior touches, corresponding to knobs on the sprint to regulate ignition timing (the gas in Africa might be as little as 75 octane), but additionally easy options: items of wooden on which to set the jacks prevented the automotive from sinking into the Sahara sand.
The Rothmans Porsche workforce, recent from a win within the 1985 Pharaoh’s Rally, fielded three 959s and introduced over 20 individuals, two massive MAN assist vehicles, a DC-3 chase airplane, and a “quick service automobile” within the type of a Mercedes G-Wagen full of a Porsche 928S 4.7-liter V-8. Porsche even consulted a health care provider to concoct particular drinks with nutritional vitamins and electrolytes to maintain the drivers, co-drivers, and mechanics in peak situation.
Piloting 959 #186 was 1984 winner René Metge, a desert specialist recognized for chain smoking Gauloises cigarettes, alongside along with his co-driver Dominique Lemoyne. Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur had been in one other, whereas Porsche engineer Roland Kussmaul and co-driver Wolf-Hendrik Unger had been within the different.
Within the truck class had been a number of purpose-built rigs, in addition to the assist vehicles for the bigger automotive and bike groups. However even a number of the race vehicles had their very own assist vehicles, one other signal of how this entire loopy enterprise had scaled up within the eight years because it started. Among the many major opponents had been some Spanish Pegasos and Czech Tatras, whereas the Minardi workforce—recent from a disastrous debut season in Method 1—made issues tougher for itself by braving Dakar in a CVS (Costruzione Veicoli Speciali) truck. Dutchman Jan De Rooy’s purpose-built DAF was the favourite; with two twin-turbo engines making 500 hp every, it boasted a 200-kmh (124-mph) high pace and promised to be as quick because the automobiles on a number of the open levels.
Cruel fury
On January 1, the “Prologue” began from Versailles. This primary stage via the comparatively tame terrain of Europe decided the beginning order when the rally reached the rough-and-tumble in Africa. Because the opponents made their method from Versailles to the French port metropolis of Sète, some 300,000 spectators turned out to observe the parade of loud bikes, automobiles, and vehicles making their method throughout the nation. The prologue was purported to be the straightforward half, however issues acquired off to a tough begin. Climate conspired in opposition to the almost 500 automobiles, and a snowstorm blasting via France made issues notably laborious on the bikes, inflicting a number of wipeouts. Then, in a highway accident in between levels, the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally noticed the primary of a number of fatalities when Japanese rider Yasuo Keneko acquired hit by an vehicle. Some stories cited a drunk driver as the reason for the incident.
With the beginning order set following the completion of the Prologue, the rally departed on Algerian ferries throughout the Mediterranean with the automobiles, contributors, organizers, gas, and provides. The subsequent 5 levels via Algeria greeted opponents with rocks and boulders recognized for breaking axles and bursting tires. The retirements started to mount, as four-time Le Mans winner Henri Pescarolo’s Vary Rover caught fireplace simply 15 km into one of many first Algerian levels and burned to the bottom.
The Rothmans Porsche workforce’s all-out assault wasn’t off to a great begin, both. Having suffered issues in these levels the yr prior, Porsche was purposely taking issues simple, ready for the extra open desert within the southern Sahara to press their pace benefit. Even so, the workforce misplaced each the 928-powered G-Wagen assist automobile and one of many massive MAN assist vehicles, so Roland Kussmaul’s 959 was loaded up with spares and relegated to the position of backup automotive. A spare intercooler and a few radiators had been strapped to the spoiler of his 959.
Algeria was laborious on everyone, and the hazard wasn’t simply restricted to the opponents. Through the sixth stage, a loop via the Hoggar mountains that began and ended within the city of Tamanrassett, a helicopter filming the rally crashed proper subsequent to the route. Considered one of its rotors needed to be moved to permit the opponents to cross. Other than that impediment, the vehicles particularly struggled to maneuver via the tall, steep mountain passes. A number of tipped over whereas rounding tight bends.
For the seventh stage, the route went 828 km (514 miles) south from Tamanrassett in Algeria to Agadez in Niger. There have been nonetheless rocks to hit, however the panorama mercifully opened up a bit. Within the automotive class, which had the one night time stage of the rally alongside this a part of the route, the Porsches of Metge and Ickx had been capable of open up a convincing lead over the Mitsubishis that had been the early leaders. Within the bike class, Gaston Rahier suffered a crash, cracking six ribs and breaking his collarbone, however he saved using in hopes of a 3rd win. He relied on acupuncture therapies on the finish of every day’s journey.
As soon as the rally entered the Ténéré, the panorama opened as much as extensive open sand, deep dunes, the horizon, and little else. The one actual factors of reference had been a metallic tree sculpture and a downed plane—a press airplane that occurred to crash in the course of the 1985 Paris-Dakar Rally whereas getting into for a close-up. It was each a landmark and a warning.
Porsche driver Roland Kussmaul in contrast the various terrain to browsing, as a result of the Ténéré has “small up and downs, and with the automotive you go up and fly down, up and fly down. And it was simple, it was smooth, it was not harsh … So that you sit within the automotive and you’re smiling. However then, if you hit a step within the sand, it steps down and the smiling is gone.”
The levels winding to Dirkou and Zinder (each in Niger) noticed steeper, extra harmful grades. There could not have been boulders, tree stumps, or livestock to hit, however the mixture of deep sand and steep dunes with quickly transferring automobiles proved much more harmful than the rocky and mountainous elements of the desert. Flying via the sand on his Cagiva, Hubert Auriol launched into the air on his bike over one dune and worn out. Whereas unhurt, he misplaced valuable time restarting his motorbike. After nosediving over a ridge, each codrivers in one of many Czech Liaz vehicles suffered inside accidents, whereas a Vary-Rover Proto flipped over a dune and crushed the roof. Jan De Rooy’s DAF turned so slowed down within the sand that it needed to be dug out with shovels. The Minardi workforce’s CVS truck, in the meantime, skilled {an electrical} fireplace and fully torched itself. The truck had been in second place.
Then got here the sandstorms. The air fleet that usually follows the rally was grounded. With mounting accidents among the many opponents, the organizers commandeered a Hercules plane to make use of as a cellular hospital. Veronique Anquetil, a 26-year-old Yamaha rider, was considered one of a number of to crash within the dunes earlier than being carried unconscious to the bivouac on the finish of the stage. Jean Michel Baron, one of many top-running Rothmans Honda riders, was even worse off, sustaining severe head accidents within the dunes. Medical doctors operated in a makeshift hospital space on the fringe of an airstrip, however each Baron and Anquetil had been finally airlifted to hospital in Paris. Baron fell right into a coma, from which he by no means awoke. He handed in 2010.
After 14 days, the rally reached the two-thirds mark. Fewer than one-third of those that set off had been nonetheless within the operating. Simply 99 automobiles, 44 bikes, and 37 vehicles reached the Niger River. On the twelfth stage of the rally, from Niger’s capital of Niamey to Gourma, 1985 winner Patrick Zaniroli, in a Mitsubishi, acquired misplaced and acquired a 10-hour penalty for not ending the allotted distance in time. In the meantime, on the night of January 14, amid worsening sandstorms and as the remainder of the plane related to the rally remained grounded, occasion organizer and figurehead Thierry Sabine took off in his white helicopter, nicknamed Sierra, on one other mercy mission searching for misplaced opponents. Sabine was ceaselessly wearing a white jumpsuit and he wore his blonde hair lengthy. He additionally saved a beard, and all this naturally that led to the nickname “Jesus” as misplaced Dakar opponents may ceaselessly depend on Sabine coming to their rescue.
After January 14, 1986, they couldn’t depend on him anymore. Close to Gourma-Rharous in Mali, Sabine’s helicopter crashed within the midst of the sandstorms, killing everybody on board. Sabine, 36 years outdated and engaged, was on board with well-known French singer Daniel Balavoine, 25-year-old reporter Nathalie Odent, journalist Jean-Paul Le Fur, and pilot Francois-Xavier Bagnoud—a cousin of Monaco’s Prince Albert. Some questioned if the rally could be stopped then and there, however the organizers determined to proceed on, noting that it was what Sabine would have wished. They did, nevertheless, cancel the January 15 levels. The opponents who had been left made a silent convoy to Bamako in Mali. Sabine’s deputy, Patrick Verdoy, took the reins for the remaining levels.
Upon arriving to Labe in Guinea, the organizers introduced an additional relaxation day (often there is just one relaxation day for the whole occasion). A number of members of the Rothmans Porsche workforce had their passports stolen earlier than leaving Labe, however the 959s had a snug lead within the automotive class and stuffed the highest three locations. However because the panorama modified to bushes, rocks, streams, and villages, their outright pace and energy benefit diminished. Jan de Rooy’s twin-engine DAF truck, which had been significantly quick to date, broke its entrance axle and retired because the rally moved to Mauritania. In the meantime, Gaston Rahier on the Marlboro BMW suffered extra unhealthy luck, with two flat tires and a gearbox drawback delaying him sufficient to earn a 10-hour penalty and sprint his hopes for a win. With nothing left to lose, he threw warning to the wind and pushed laborious on the final three levels, ending first in all three simply to show a degree.
As on the dunes of the Ténéré, the crossing on the Senegal River proved to be a serious obstacle that may unexpectedly shuffle the standings. An irregular quantity of rain for that point of yr introduced a lot of mud, an excessive amount of for the highest three contenders within the truck class to handle. All of the sudden, the Mercedes Unimog assist truck for the Honda of Italy motorbike workforce discovered itself within the lead.
In the meantime, within the automotive class, the Porsche workforce was witnessing an rising menace to its once-comfortable lead. Each Metge and Ickx’s 959s acquired caught within the mud. Roland Kussmaul, within the third 959, then watched rigorously how one of many bikes crossed the river, and he efficiently adopted the identical path earlier than turning round to assist the opposite two Porsches. Utilizing some spare cable, he was capable of pull each different automobiles to security; within the course of, nevertheless, his personal automotive sunk all the way down to the hubs in thick, gloppy earth. Metge and Ickx wished to stay round to assist, however Kussmaul honorably despatched them on their approach to take the category win. After digging himself out and making his approach to the bivouac, he was too exhausted to talk and needed to see a health care provider. Had he gone on forward as a substitute of serving to his teammates, he might need received the whole 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally.
Reaching Dakar
Precisely three weeks after departing Versailles, simply 100 opponents (fewer than 21 %) reached Dakar. There have been simply 29 bikes and a handful of vehicles on the end alongside the seashores of Lac Rose, a salt lake recognized for its pinkish water.
The final stage was a brief 60-km sprint down the seashores. After three weeks’ price of racing, the ending order was usually set by this level, and the ultimate side-by-side dash on the sand was extra a procession for the finishers than a severe competitors stage. But even right here hazard lurked, as each water and moist sand posed tangible threats. Cagiva rider Giampaolo Marinoni crashed and died simply 40 km from the end.
Understandably, celebrations had been subdued out of respect for the fallen, however the finishers had all achieved one thing exceptional. Cyril Neveu on the Rothmans Honda took his fourth bike win (he received once more in 1987). The Rothmans Porsche workforce took first and second, whereas Roland Kussmaul got here house sixth regardless of his sacrifice (which included carrying piles of elements for the opposite two automobiles). The 959 had proved its price, and a manufacturing model adopted that may be the quickest and most technologically superior highway automotive at introduction. Within the truck class, the shock winners had been Giacomo Vismara and Giulio Minelli within the Mercedes assist truck for the Honda of Italy bike workforce.
Endurance rally
After Sabine’s loss of life within the 1986 occasion, many questioned if the rally may or would proceed on in any respect, however it endured. Porsche, having achieved its aim, didn’t come again for 1987 however one other large manufacturing unit workforce arrived to take its place. Peugeot, caught with out of date 205 rally automobiles after the FIA banned Group B rallying in Europe the yr earlier than, introduced them to Africa and received the automotive class with 1981 WRC Champion Ari Vatanen on the wheel. Cyril Neveu received but once more in ’87, after Hubert Auriol broke each his ankles in a fall. Jan de Rooy got here again to win the truck class.
Criticism of the occasion was gathering steam. A 1988 New York Instances article quoted one French group campaigning to finish the Paris-Dakar, criticizing it for utilizing “Africa’s poorest nook as a playground for the wealthy.” An organization known as ASO purchased the rally within the early Nineties, however regardless of extra corporatization and sponsorships its fearsome popularity carried on. A journalist as soon as quipped that Paris-Dakar was “like warfare with out the bullets,” however generally there have been precise bullets. In 1991 a assist truck driver for the Citroën workforce was shot lifeless, and the Malian military escorted the rally via the remainder of the nation. In 1996 one other assist truck driver ranover an outdated Moroccan military land mine and died. However the remaining nail within the rally’s coffin, at the very least in its unique type, got here years later. When terrorist teams in Mauritania threatened the 2008 rally instantly after the slaying of 4 French vacationers there on Christmas Eve 2007, the occasion was shuttered and moved to South America for 2009 with the “Dakar Rally” identify intact. It’s unclear if the Dakar Rally will ever return to Africa, however the occasion seems to have discovered a profitable house in Saudi Arabia after the final two years in that nation.
There are infinite tales that come out of the Dakar Rally in any given yr, however 1986 was essentially the most eventful iteration of an already notoriously loopy occasion. Little doubt the competitors will proceed to be a supply of journey for so long as it endures.