The fallout from the disastrous leg ending in El Mreiti yesterday hasn't stopped, but Hubert Auriol, the man behind the event, is a genius at putting a good face on toxic waste sites. This morning's first press release was a masterpiece: "Yesterday's stage is what makes the Dakar a legendary race."

If this kind of spin control had come from anyone but Auriol, you might ask, "Oh, yeah? What do you know?" In fact, Auriol does know, and in a way that few do. He competed in sixteen consecutive Paris-Dakar rallies, starting on bikes and taking third overall in the first P-D in 1979. He won in 1981 and 1983 and finished second in 1984. In 1987, leading on the next to last day, he broke both ankles during a stage, finished the day anyway, and decided that he really belonged in the car class. He won there in 1992. No one has ever worked both sides of the street so successfully or for so long. Auriol eventually retired from competition to mastermind the event following the death of rally founder Thierry Sabine and four others in a helicopter crash during the '86 rally.

The truth is that yesterday's conditions are nothing new to this awesome rally. In 1979 one rider alone was able to complete a stage in the allotted time. In 1983 a terrible sandstorm almost swept the field away. Two years later another storm stopped the rally in its tracks. In 1994 only a couple of Mitsubishi cars were able to cross a section of dunes; every other competitor in the event abandoned the effort. In just the first week of this event we have seen one stage terminated because of mud and another one shortened because of outraged olive grove farmers. Mid-way through today's 478 km stage the event was effectively halted because of an administrative error, and that wasn't even the worst thing that was in store for the contestants.

Part of me believes that the organizers almost welcome these kinds of catastrophes, which do lend a sort of dark cachet to an already desperately difficult event. Adversity on such a cosmic scale gives the contest an aura that no other kid on the block can claim. Auriol and his staff might even secretly be hoping for a war to erupt. If so, they ran across the next best thing tonight.

This was the second marathon day, an easterly ride to Taoudenni, where no service or parts would be available. That, as it turned out, was pretty much an academic issue anyway, since many of the service vehicles were still stuck in the dunes en route to El Mreiti. The stage would comprise 100% of the day. It was labelled "The Thousand and One Dunes," as if the riders hadn't seen enough dunes yesterday. One-third of the way into the stage they would leave Mauritania and cross into Mali.

It is one of the five poorest countries on earth. One adult in ten can read, putting in on par with residents of the San Fernando Valley. If you are born a sextuplet, one of you won't see your first birthday. The northern half of the country is the Sahara, nothing else. Like Mauritania, there are no roads up there, just camel tracks leading south to Timbuktu. Three hundred years ago 100,000 people lived in that fabled city; today maybe 20,000 do. It went into permanent decline when people figured out that the rottenest boat circling west Africa was better than the best camel hoofing it through the dunes. The red-hot trade item was salt. Africans craved it and, in the midst of the world's largest desert, couldn't find it. They traded for it, even up and pound for pound, with gold. Who knew?

As the day unwound, the familiar pattern was repeated. Endless dunes were crested and the boys in front yesterday continued to be the boys in front today. Until the third and final checkpoint, 269 km into the stage, it was for most riders just another day at the office. But at that juncture a planned 15-minute "neutralization period" was mishandled. Auriol froze the standings then and there. I'm not sure how the contestants greeted the news that the stage had been interrupted, saving them from riding at 9/10ths over the remaining 209 km, but if I'd been breaking myself and my bike to bits for more than a week, I'd probably have tried to buy Auriol a beer.

The top ten riders for the stage to that point were Meoni, Sala, Sotelo, Peterhansel, Deacon, Sainct, Jimmink, Marques, Roma, and Haydon, a little over six minutes separating 1st from 10th. Gallardo and Cox were 14th and 15th, some twelve minutes off Meoni's time. Because of the attenuated stage, the terrible dispersion of times seen yesterday was gone, to the probable relief of everyone except overall leader Stephane Peterhansel.

Joan Roma's ninth place finish on the stage is deceptive. His engine croaked just before the overnight bivouac in Taoudenni. Even if he could have the motor worked on tonight, his KTM service truck is bogged down and has not yet reached El Mreiti. No one in the field has put more pressure on Peterhansel than has the determined Spaniard. He was a mere 49 seconds behind the Frenchman last night, but it may already be over for him. If so, Peterhansel now has nearly an eleven minute lead.

Even worse news was in store for BMW fans. Four-time Paris-Dakar winner and the star of the Schalber F650 team, Edi Orioli, is out, the victim of a blown motor at noon today. The favorite son of Udine, Italy was in his twelfth rally. It is the first that he will not finish.

That should have been enough for one day, but more was to come. Koen Wauters and Jurgen Damen in a Toyota and Tonio Lattanzi and Bruno Cubin in another were wobbling the last seven miles into Taoudenni at 10:25 p.m. tonight. Suddenly they were attacked by a gang of bandits. The Toyotas managed to escape into town. The Malian army hustled out to the scene but found nothing. Five minutes before midnight three more cars were struck, but they too were able to evade the robbers. Still later two Tata trucks were hit and one of them was stolen. You have to be thinking here that the guys still stuck in the dunes 300 miles to the west must finally be feeling pretty lucky. Which leaves me with just two questions. If I'm a Malian crook:

1. What sort of vehicle should I use to attack other vehicles that were specifically designed to leave me so far behind that I won't catch up with my prey until next September? and

2. Even if I do run my victim to earth, what are the possibilities of selling the truck I've stolen, given that there has never been anything quite like it on the market within a radius of ten thousand miles?

 1	PETERHANSEL	YAM	FR	0:00:00
 2	ROMA		KTM	ES	0:04:58
 3	MEONI		KTM	IT	0:10:45
 4	SAINCT		KTM	FR	0:17:04
 5	SOTELO		CAG	ES	0:49:36
 6	HAYDON		KTM	AU	1:00:35
 7	COX		KTM	AF	1:14:30
 8	DEACON		KTM	GB	1:39:54
 9	SALA		KTM	IT	1:46:13
10	MARQUES		KTM	PO	2:17:30
11	JIMMINK		KTM	HO	2:17:49
12	VON ZITZEWIT	KTM	AL	2:19:35
13	BERNARD		KTM	FR	2:50:02
14	CASTERA		YAM	FR	2:59:25
15	GALLARDO	BMW	ES	3:20:55

© 1998 Iron Butt Association, Chicago, Illinois

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