Dakar Rally organizers have revealed the route for the 2014 edition of the legendary off-road race. Scheduled for Jan. 5-18, 2014, the 35th edition of the Dakar Rally returns to South America and adds Bolivia to its route. The route will include several marathon stages and special stages, testing competitors’ endurance as well as their tactics.

The 2014 Dakar Rally will begin in Rosario, Argentina, the birthplace of Che Guevara located on the Paraná River  about 185 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. From Rosario, the route travels westward before turning north towards San Juan and continuing alongside the Andes to Salta, which will host a rest day Jan. 11. From Salta, the route travels north to the Bolivian border. Continue Reading »

Cyril Despres won his fifth career Dakar Rally while helping KTM win for the 12th consecutive time, in taking the motorcycle class in the 2013 edition of the famed off-road race.

KTM was again the dominant manufacturer with the top five finishers in the motorcycle class riding motorcycles from the Austrian manufacturer. Despres finished with an overall time of 43:24:22 for the win, including a 15-minute penalty for swapping an engine after the one he was using in his KTM 450 Rallye failed. The engine problem hindered Despres on the marathon 7th and 8th stages but he received help from another KTM-supported rider, Marek Dabrowski who offered his engine in an emergency swap.

Second place went to Despres’ KTM Red Bull Factory teammate Ruben Faria (43:35:05) while Francisco Lopez finished third with a time of 43:43:10 and would have finished second if not for his own 15-minute penalty for an engine swap on the 14th and final stage. Rounding out the top five were KTM riders Ivan Jakes and Juan Pedrero. Continue Reading »

Looking for someone to cheer for in the 2013 Dakar Rally? Then how about Hugo Payen, a French racer competing on a Yamaha WR450F. Payen is racing in his seventh Dakar Rally, with his best result a 48th place finish in 2011. As of this writing, Payen is 61st overall on Stage 5 of the Rally after starting the day in the 67 spot.

Payen competes in a category called “Malles Moto” or “Motorcycle Trunk”. That means he competes without a support team, relying only on storage trunks of tools and supplies that race organizers transport from stage to stage. But that’s not why Payen has drawn a lot of attention. It’s because he’s sponsored by porn.

Or to be more specific, Payen is sponsored by Marc Dourcel, a French producer of pornography. This is actually the third year Dourcel has sponsored Payen’s Dakar effort. Payen followed up his 48th-place result with a 60th-place result in 2012, both times on a motorcycle dressed in livery promoting Dourcel’s work. Last year, his bike featured an image of Russian-born French porn star Anna Polina. Continue Reading »

The 2013 Dakar Rally will again be held in South America with event organizers announcing a new route for the 34th running of the off-road race. Now in its fifth year in Latin America, the 2013 edition of the Rally will feature a new route running from north to south, starting Jan. 5 in Lima, Peru, and ending Jan. 20 in Santiago, Chile.

The new route puts the desert portion of the course in the first few days of the Dakar Rally, the first time the event has ever started in a desert. The course follows the Pacific coast before turning inland, briefly traversing Chile before crossing the Andes into Argentina which offers a mix of terrain towards San Miguel de Tucumán for the midpoint of the Rally.

After a day of rest in San Miguel de Tucumán, the Dakar Rally continues south towards Córdoba before turning northwest and through the Andes again back to Chile before again following the Pacific coast southward towards the finish in Santiago. The entire course spans about 5000 miles of challenging terrain for the 459 entries registered for this year’s race. Continue Reading »

Honda announced it will enter a works team in the 2013 Dakar Rally‘s motorcycle class, returning to the event for the first time in 23 years.

The Japanese manufacturer competed in the Rally from 1981 to 1989 when it was known as the Paris-Dakar Rally. Honda won five times during that period but then stopped entering its own team. The 2013 Dakar Rally will represent the first time Honda has entered a team in the motorcycle class since the race moved from Europe and Africa to South America in 2009.

Honda will enter a new prototype machine based on the CRF450X, which itself has a winning tradition in Baja racing. The prototype will be produced by Honda’s Motorccyle R&D Center. Honda will also develop kit parts for the standard CRF450X to be offered to other Dakar teams. Continue Reading »

Cyril Despres beat his teammate Marc Coma to win his fourth Dakar Rally, while KTM captured its 11th consecutive win in the 33rd running of the off-road race.

Despres won three stages and finished the 5,214-mile race in South America in a total time of 43 hours, 28 minutes and 11 seconds. Despres crossed the finish in Lima, Peru, with a lead of 53 minutes and 20 seconds ahead of his fellow Red Bull KTM rider Coma. Despres also won the Dakar Rally in 2010, as well as 2007 and 2005 when the rally was held in Europe and Africa.

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Although I’ve never followed the Dakar Rally (formerly known as Paris-Dakar) intently, I’ve nevertheless been fascinated by the machines and men competing in this seemingly impossible-to-finish race. As far as I’m concerned it’s less a race and more a brutal test of human endurance.

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