He has spent his whole life preparing for this day. He may never have another like it. But fifty years from now England's John Deacon will be telling his great-grandchildren about the day he won a stage on the Paris-Dakar rally. In the process he beat the second-place rider by fifteen minutes, far and away the greatest margin of victory in the motorcycle class of the rally this year. And the man he stuffed back into second place was the greatest rider the event may ever see, Stephane Peterhansel.

Deacon isn't the only one in orbit tonight. If a web site's home page could have an orgasm, Deacon's did today. It blinks, it flashes, and it pops, all in a shade of violent blood red. It sings out the pride of an entire nation, and for the very best of post-colonial reasons: He is the first subject of her majesty ever to have won a stage on the P-D. He may still be nearly six hours behind Peterhansel on the overall leader board, but today he did something that not even Sir Francis Drake ever accomplished.

Fifty-six riders started today's leg which ran south and west from Atar to Boutilimit. Missing were the BMW F650s of Oscar Gallardo and Andrea Mayer, victims, according to the press release, of "technical problems and exhaustion." Isabelle Jomini also did not take the start. That eliminated the last two women from the rally. Mayer had crept up to 44th overall before folding it up. At that point she was leading Jomini by almost eighteen hours. Jean Brucy, thought to be long gone (he was not listed in the overall list of finishers yesterday), apparently showed up in Atar last night. He is the last of Richard Schalber's F650 team, holding on to 37th place overall.

The reconnaissance truck that leads the field by a day reported that the final section of the course had become impassable because of recent sandstorms. As a result organizers elected to halt the scheduled 456-km stage at the second checkpoint, 290 kilometers into the stage. That news could not have been unwelcome for the riders; part of the eliminated section encompassed a mammoth wadi. Despite that, the course was expected to be fast. It wasn't. Deacon averaged under 70 km/hr (43 mph) for the day.

The problem is not just one of road, track, or dune conditions. There is an ever-present danger of becoming lost in that Saharan wasteland. In the old days the riders had to maneuver through here using nothing but maps and compasses. Keeping on course was far more important than speed. Travelling slowly would just make you late; getting lost could kill you. Margaret Thatcher's son was missing for five days on a desert rally some years ago. It can happen to anyone; it has already happened to Peterhansel this year.

The riders are now issued global positioning satellite units, but the devices are not state of the art. The units can accept no more than ten waypoints. For $350 you can go to your local electronic toy supplier tomorrow and buy a comparable device that will store 100+ waypoints. The more waypoints --- essentially the intersection of a latitude and a longitude --- you can store to begin with, the less likely you are to stray from the straight and narrow path. Ten waypoints would be great for scratching your way from your front door to the Kwiki Mart five miles down the road, but for navigating through 800 kilometers of trackless desert, they leave something to be desired, namely decent directions.

In his book "Investment Biker," Jim Rogers described the basic Saharan road map that he used in traversing the Sahara from north to south. There are no road intersections out there and no signposts. Every few kilometers there would be, or should have been, an oil drum that represented a mile marker. He would stand on the seat of his bike, scanning the horizon for the next drum. If he saw it, he headed for it. If he couldn't see anything, he would hope for the best and continue by compass readings. It was slow, dangerous work and it didn't forgive mistakes.

The riders are also issued route books, but I am given to believe that they are not as detailed as those that are customarily used in pro rallies in Europe and the U.S., where every instruction is accompanied by an elapsed mileage pre-checked to the hundredth of a mile. Without stable landmarks in the Sahara, route books become more of a general guide for living, like the Book of Proverbs, rather than a morass of sub-paragraphed fine print, like the IRS code. As a consequence, in huge stretches of the rally a gift of navigation is more critical than a heavy hand on the throttle. If you don't know where you are, having Superman's speed won't help. You'll just be loster faster, Buster.

Fabrizio Meoni, Andy Haydon, and Gerard Jimmink, riding in a pack, followed Deacon and Peterhansel to the finish line. Alfie Cox and Jordi Arcarons shuffled in twenty minutes later. The rest of the pack dribbled in. They lost just one rider. Peterhansel extended his lead by a couple of minutes. One small step toward Dakar; one giant leap for an elated Englishman.

	1	PETERHANSEL	YAM	FR	  0:00:00
	2	MEONI		KTM	IT	  0:34:24
	3	HAYDON		KTM	AU	  1:24:03
	4	COX		KTM	AF	  2:21:49
	5	JIMMINK		KTM	HO 	  3:27:00
	6	ARCARONS	KTM	ES	  4:58:46
	7	VON ZITZEWIT	KTM	AL  	  5:39:01
	8	DEACON		KTM	GB	  5:40:33
	9	MAYER		KTM	AL	  7:51:14
       10	KRAUSE		KTM	US	  8:44:01
       11	ZLOCH		KTM	RT   	  8:52:16
       12	VERHOEF		KTM	HO 	  9:04:09
       13	DE GAVARDO	KTM	CH	 10:50:45
       14	LE BLANC	HON	FR	 11:10:16
       15	ISIDRE		KTM	ES	 11:14:55

© 1998 Iron Butt Association, Chicago, Illinois

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