My psychopathic friend Greg Frazier, currently lost somewhere in Brazil, likes to say that when you run with the big dogs, if you're not in front the view is always the same. On the Paris-Dakar rally, that view, butt-ugly to begin with, is even nastier when the dog in front is throwing a cubic mile of sand in your face. The natural tendency of hard-core endurance riders, therefore, is to get in front of the pack and stay there. It tends to put the other mutts in their place. It also adds, as overall leader Peterhansel said yesterday, a little "pressure" to the bubbling pot.

The downside risk of being in front as you're hustling through the middle of the Moroccan desert at 90 km/hr is that there aren't a lot of nice, friendly tracks to follow. Suddenly the pressure that you were putting on the other dogs is now a leash around your own neck. The top three riders at the end of Day #4 --- Stephane Peterhansel, Raymond Sainct, and Kari Tiainen --- found that out today when they made one of the most serious mistakes a rider on this event can make: they got lost.

Peterhansel and Tianen had been riding together in front through most of the 344 km stage. At the final checkpoint, with still some 70 km left in the stage, Peterhansel paused briefly to change a gear lever. Tianen forged ahead. Peterhansel began running him down. Near the end of the stage Tiainen noticed a faint track bearing off to the right, but the main route obviously seemed to go to the left. He went left. Peterhansel followed. Sainct eventually followed them. Wave bye-bye.

Something about the route bothered Fabrizio Meoni when he arrived there a few minutes later. It didn't seem to correspond with his route book, but he could clearly see that the riders ahead of him had gone to the left. He went left as well, but he wasn't a bit happy about it. The next route instruction also didn't seem to match. He stopped, took a compass reading, and found that it didn't correspond with what he'd been expecting. For situations such as this the organizers do not suggest that global positioning satellite units be carried by all contestants; they require them. Unfortunately for the uncertain rider, a GPS unit will not point you in the right direction. It will merely tell you where you are, and whether you are in a state of being completely lost or perfectly found now has become a matter solely of theoretical interest.

I can think of a lot of people I wouldn't want to be, but being Fabrizio Meoni at that moment would have to rank close to the top of the list, perhaps just below the slot occupied by Bill Clinton's priest. In front of him are the hot tire tracks of the finest off-road motorcyclists in the world. To the right somewhere is what he thinks is the correct course. The expression "having the courage of your convictions" can't even begin to approach what must have been going through Meoni's mind as the incessant clock ticked in his head. His whole day, if not the rally itself, was hanging in the balance. Being a big dog, he barked, then headed right. For all he knew, he was aiming straight for the spot on the map labelled "Here dragons be."

Spaniard Joan Roma, who'd earlier led the rally and yesterday stood in fourth place, was watching Meoni's agony. When the Italian headed off to the right across a literally trackless desert, Roma muttered a "Que barbaridad!" to himself and followed. Because Roma had the courage of Meoni's convictions, he is once again the rally's leader, though Meoni had the fastest time through the day's stage.

Peterhansel and the other off-course excursionists came to the stage finish about twenty minutes later, the miscue having moved France's golden retriever from first to eighth overall and more than eleven minutes behind Roma, the new dog on the top of the snarling, dusty pile.

The six BMWs that began the event are still running, and that's more than six of the 173 starters can say. Gallardo and Orioli each had another fine day, and Andrea Mayer's F650 moved up more than twenty places to 53rd overall. Depending upon which source you believe, she is either running in the super-production or the experimental class. If I've offended her by misstating her status, I'll apologize. Judging by her press photo, I'd prefer to deliver the apology in person. Privateers Raymond Loiseaux (145th on an R100PD) and Luc Fernandez (158th on an R80G/S) are hanging in, though barely. They are more than five hours behind Roma and sagging badly. It will only get worse. They're not even one-third of the way through. Woof.

	1	ROMA		KTM	ES	0:00:00
	2	MEONI		KTM	IT	0:01:33
	3	ARCARONS	KTM	ES	0:09:09
	4	KATRINAK	KTM	SL	0:10:01
	5	MAGNALDI	KTM	FR	0:10:14
	6	GALLARDO	BMW	ES	0:10:28
	7	COX		KTM	AF	0:11:06
	8	PETERHANSEL	YAM	FR	0:11:11
	9	SAINCT		KTM	FR	0:11:58
       10	TIAINEN		KTM	FI	0:13:19
       11	ORIOLI		BMW	IT	0:14:21
       12	PEREZ		KTM	FR	0:14:29
       13	DEACON		KTM	GB	0:21:29
       14	SALA		KTM	IT	0:24:17
       15	HAYDON		KTM	AU	0:30:34

© 1998 Iron Butt Association, Chicago, Illinois

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