No one was killed today on the 613 km run south from the Mediterranean coastal city of Nador, Morocco to Er Rachidia, but not for want of trying. At noon a helicopter carrying a TV crew crash landed, but somehow no one was seriously hurt. At least the occupants of the bird got an up-close and personal look at what a mechanical breakdown actually looks like on the Paris-Dakar. Film at 11:00.

The middle 40% of the overall route, roughly on parallel with the western border of Algeria, was today's stage. The area is known as the "Moroccan Baja," a paved road but one not to be confused with a superhighway. It alternated fast stretches with potholes, smooth tarmac with rocks, and low-speed corners with high-speed terror. The route instructions point out areas of the course that deserve attention with exclamation marks. One mark (!) suggests a potential problem. Two marks (!!) cautions the rider that a definite hazard is present. Three marks (!!!) indicates the spot at which the rider's family may erect a suitable memorial if the rider ignores the route book's warning. An example of a !!! instruction might be at the end of a 180 km/hr stretch, an off-camber, descending radius hairpin corner with a 100 meter drop on the outside into a spiked rock quarry. Miss that instruction and you might as well have begun the day in a helicopter.

This began the section of the rally where Stephane Peterhansel was expected to start kicking ass and taking names, but instead it was Finn Kari Tiainen on a KTM who was leading at the third checkpoint into the stage, ahead of Peterhansel, Roma, and Sala by more than a minute, and five minutes ahead of Sainct and Marques. Tiainen's first three days had been unspectacular, but he had been moving up in the standings each day. Besides, his countrymen had owned European car rallying for at least 2,000 years, so maybe he could hold off Peterhansel, if anyone could.

He couldn't, but he wasn't alone. At the end of the day Peterhansel was back where his legion of fans would place him forever, in first place on the stage and in first overall. He not only recovered the minute he'd lost to Tiainen half-way through the first stage but ended up beating the Finn by an additional minute. He now leads fellow Frenchman Raymond Sainct in the overall standings by 2:24 minutes.

It was another good day for the KTMs, taking eight of the top ten spots on the stage and twelve of the top fifteen spots overall, that last position held by Frenchman Thierry Magnaldi, the survivor of a crash yesterday that did more damage to his bike than to the rider. The BMW crowd was cheered by news that the heretofore somnolent Edi Orioli had awakened, took tenth place for the stage, and moved ahead of teammate Oscar Gallardo in the overall standings.

But it wasn't just the strange-talking Europeans who did well on the first Africa leg. South Africa's Alfie Cox, a Dakar rookie, also had an exceptional run to move into sixth overall. His worst problem, he said, was trying to hold himself back. Calling Cox a "rookie" is really not descriptive of his talents; he has won the "Roof of Africa" off-road rally eight times. Australia's Andy Haydon moved into eighth place, and England's John Deacon continued to quietly climb up in the overall standings.

	1	PETERHANSEL	YAM	FR	0:00:00
	2	SAINCT		KTM	FR      0:02:24
	3	TIAINEN		KTM	FI      0:02:52
	4	ROMA		KTM	ES	0:05:53
	5	PEREZ		KTM	FR	0:07:10
	6	COX		KTM	AF	0:07:36
	7	SALA		KTM	IT	0:08:27
	8	HAYDON		KTM	AU	0:09:35
	9	ARCARONS	KTM	ES	0:10:09
       10	MEONI		KTM	IT	0:10:33
       11	KATRINAK	KTM	SL	0:11:31
       12	ORIOLI		BMW	IT	0:13:55
       13	GALLARDO	BMW	ES	0:14:35
       14	DEACON		KTM	GB	0:15:09
       15	MAGNALDI	KTM	FR	0:15:37

Bob Higdon

© 1998 Iron Butt Association, Chicago, Illinois

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