Sports

De Villiers, Marcos Win Dakar Rally

by Jordan Yerman | January 17, 2009 at 11:50 am

204 views | 15 Recommendations | 8 comments

South African Giniel de Villiers has won the Dakar Rally. De Villiers drives for Volkswagen. Spanish rider Marc Coma, on his big orange KTM, took first place amongst the competing motorcyclists, his second Dakar victory. The death of French rider Pascal Terry has loomed heavily over the event.

Rounding out the winners' circle: Czech rider Josef Machacek wins in the quad class, and Firdaus Kabirov claims his second win in the truck class.

The Dakar Rally is a war of attrition for most competitors, who are mainly riding or driving just to complete the arduous race, which, aside from the extreme road (or lack-of-road) hazards, can be lost simply by moving too slowly and finding oneself eliminated. A relative few are actually seeking victory.

One untimed liaison stage* remains, which is just a formality.

De Villiers won the auto section and Coma triumphed among the motorcyclists following a final 227km special from Rioja to Cordoba to take the honours in the race's 30th edition, which decamped for security reasons from Africa to South America this year with great success.

De Villiers, driving for Volkswagen, led teammate Mark Miller of the United States by two minutes 20 seconds going into the final special and increased his advantage to eight minutes and 59 seconds to emerge exultant.

This year's rally, despite the moniker, began and ended in Buenos Aires; last year's event was cancelled since its move from Europe and North Africa due to security reasons.
(* In liaison stages, support vehicles are permitted to assist a rider whose vehicle encounters a mishap)

3 See all footage | View Slideshow

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CARLUCHO VILLAR

at 16:44 on January 17th, 2009

gas a fondo!

CARLUCHO VILLAR has contributed a photo to this story.

CARLUCHO VILLAR

at 16:45 on January 17th, 2009

trenque lauquen

Edmund Jenks

at 21:16 on January 17th, 2009

Nice Report, good source.

qfwfq78

at 01:36 on January 18th, 2009

This is in the Predio Rural de Palermo in Jan 2nd, just before the start. Here was the base for the Dakar Rally in Buenos Aires, where technical revisions took place, and visiting people could have a close look at the cars.

qfwfq78 has contributed a photo to this story.

Paschen

at 08:30 on January 18th, 2009

Yes, and the Car is Called "Tuareg" there is an interesting article out on Niger 1 about that calling upon Volkswagen to help the Tuaregs in Niger since with some of the profits generated by sales of the Car by the same name "Tuareg" we did actually petition Volkswagen AG last week on that.

"The Dakar Rallye was inspired in Niger, but transfered to Chili and Argentina due to the rebellion in the Sahara .We pray for the rallye to come back to Niger in 2012 , and bring to us its economic opprtunities in our tourism .

The volkswagen Touareg is still leading the rally amid the crash of leader more "

Jordan Yerman

at 08:41 on January 18th, 2009

Aside from some superb dirt photos, Charlie Boorman's Race to Dakar covers the environmental, cultural, and economic ramifications of running such a huge rally in North Africa.