DUBAI, 27 December 2002 — Champion rally-driver Khalifa Al-Mutawi will carry the colors of the UAE’s Victory Team and the hopes of thousands of Middle East supporters when the legendary Dakar Rally, described as the world’s most demanding motor-sport event starts in France on new year’s day.
Al-Mutawi, 31, will be at the wheel of a powerful Nissan pick-up specially prepared by the Nissan Dessoude Team in France and will be the first UAE driver to take part in the Dakar, regarded as the premier of all desert raids.
He will also have the invaluable advantage of a double winner by his side in the form of navigator Philippe Monet who was right-hand man to star drivers Hubert Auriol and Jean Louis Schlesser when they won the cars category in 1992 and 1999 respectively.
Historically, the long endurance event has run from Paris to the Senegal capital of Dakar but this time the route has been dramatically changed and extended.
Its 25th edition will begin in the French port of Marseilles and continue into Spain from where the competitors will cross by ferry to Tunisia and finish 8,552 km later on January 19 at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh. The talented Al-Mutawi is a four-time UAE National Rally champion and won high praise for his second-place performance in the world-ranking Tunisia Rally earlier this year. Now he faces the toughest challenge of his driving career as one of 342 entrants in the Dakar — an epic test of endurance, long acknowledged as the toughest in competitive motoring and this year setting new extremes of severity.
Entrants are obliged to switch off their global positioning systems for two stages and revert to traditional navigation skills for 1,130 km. They will also be pushed to the limit by a ‘no assistance’ marathon stage of 691 km in the Libyan desert between Ghadames and Ghat, where support teams must follow a parallel route.
Although Paris is no longer the starting point every year, and this year is the first that Dakar is not the end-point, the event is still popularly known as the Paris-Dakar rally. Since its inception in 1977, it has become one of the world’s great sporting challenges and now draws a television audience of millions.
169 countries will air the rally as it travels in 17 stages from an almost festival atmosphere in France and Spain to the grueling extremes of terrain and temperature in the great deserts of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.
This year’s starting line-up comprises 165 bikes, 128 cars, 49 trucks, and 147 assistance vehicles, between them representing 24 countries. Their journey will take them through five countries, two continents and contrasting extremes of heat and cold, mountains and sea level, desert and farmland.
As in some years past, they may have to cope with snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures before tackling the inevitable sandstorms and searing heat of the desert.
Not surprisingly, the conditions exert a severe toll on drivers and vehicles. Several competitors have been killed, and many have suffered injury. The attrition rate is punitive, and even finishing is considered an achievement.
Despite this, Al-Mutawi and his co-pilot Monet in the Victory Rally Team, give themselves a realistic chance of turning in a creditable performance. “It’s a very different route this year with huge challenges all through Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. It’ll vary from twisty mountain tracks to endless sand dunes the size of giant hills. The rally is fast and dangerous and it will be very easy to get lost. I’m very grateful for the support of the Victory Team and I very much want to do well for the team and for Dubai. I feel very proud to be waving the flag for the UAE in this important event. I’m also very pleased to have additional support from ACDelco, the auto parts supplier that now has a network of all-makes service centers throughout the Middle East,” Al-Mutawi said. The Dubai star’s entry will be a popular one among the other competitors. In the Tunisian round of the world championship earlier this year, he gave up a real chance of winning when he stopped for 45 minutes to help an injured competitor. His action won him more than the silverware he eventually collected for second place.
