We have a nomenclature problem, these organizers and I. Since Day #1 I have been hoping that they would recognize the error of their ways and eventually conform to my method. They haven't; worse, they show no signs of doing so. They are apparently more doctrinaire and rigid than I am. I didn't think that was possible.

What I call a "stage" --- a section of the day's course whose optimum time for traversal is zero seconds, thereby turning it into a red-eyed, flat-out race --- they call a "special." I call it a stage because that's what pro car rallyists in the U.S. call it, and, since it is the only part of the day upon which the overall time is based, it is invariably the only item of drama during the day. Correct me if I'm wrong, but drama happens on a stage.

What I would call something "special," for example, might be a car coming over a beach dune at an unseemly speed, becoming airborne, failing to achieve escape velocity, and plopping down into the Atlantic ocean with saltwater lapping up against the car's windows. That happened today to Jean-Louis Schlesser today during the second of two . . . er, specials on the leg from Boutilimit to Saint-Louis. I hasten to add for our geographically-challenged readers that the Saint-Louis referred to here is the city in Senegal on the west coast of Africa, not the equally dismal city in the United States, which is spelled without a hyphen.

You can hardly blame Schlesser's enthusiasm in the moments that preceded his unscheduled bath. He had won the first . . . um, special of the day, a 166-km stretch that ran south and west from Boutilimit toward the ocean. What he needed to do on the second . . . ah, special was to finish high enough so that his combined time for the two . . . hmm, specials would be less than that of all of the Mitisubishis who have dominated the car class even more handily than Peterhansel has subdued his fellow bikers. That would give him a win for today's . . . oh, stage. For Schlesser, that would be no mean accomplishment, inasmuch as Mitsubishi has won every single stage of this rally.

The car had stalled. Waves lapped over the hood. Ten seconds ago Schlesser was making 180 km/hr along the beach; now he was being carried off toward St. Louis, the one in Missouri, at maybe 1.2 knots. Miraculously he managed to restart the car, head it back to the beach from whence he had begun this bizarre detour, and eventually cross the finish line in tenth place. It wasn't good enough. Mitsubishi won again.

Nothing quite so dramatic occurred in the bike class today, though there you might get an argument from South Africa's Alfie Cox. He, alone among the day-to-day leaders, had not won even one . . . let's see, special, "and I didn't want to be left out." He is not pressing his nose against the window any longer, taking the first . . . ach, special, and a virgin no more. In the second, he said that his bike kept cutting out in fifth gear, forcing him to run the length of the beach in fourth. It wasn't quite enough, but at least he wasn't sopping wet at the finish. Gerard Jimmink had run steadily over both sections, winning the second and taking third in the first, and thus took home first place in the day's . . . yow, stage.

Stephane Peterhansel, cruising on automatic pilot all day, lost another meaningless minute overall to Fabrizio Meoni, the only rider with even a laughable chance of roping in the leader. One man who is certain not to catch Peterhansel absent a nuclear attack is the terminally-optimistic Raymond Loiseaux, whose R100PD now stands more than two days behind his fellow countryman with just one day to go. The entry fee for the Paris-Dakar starts at about $7,200; Loiseaux is one rider who is obviously determined to get his franc's worth.

Even little children in Senegalese villages have known for a week that Peterhansel is on the edge of making history in this rally. Tomorrow he will take his sixth win, breaking his current tie with Cyril Neveu. But when the microphones began to swarm around him at the end of the day, he simply said, "I haven't won yet. Tomorrow I could hit a donkey on the road and it would be over." He's right, in a cosmological sense, because Hubert Auriol bombed out on the next-to-last day eleven years ago.

But it won't happen to Peterhansel. He has a mere 247 kilometers yet to ride before he pulls up at the edge of Lake Rose tomorrow in Dakar. I'm betting that there won't be any donkeys on his front fender. If there are, that will indeed be something special.

	1	PETERHANSEL	YAM	FR	  0:00:00
	2	MEONI		KTM	IT	  0:32:27
	3	HAYDON		KTM	AU	  1:17:12
	4	COX		KTM	AF	  2:15:57
	5	JIMMINK		KTM	HO	  3:19:15
	6	ARCARONS	KTM	ES	  5:00:54
	7	VON ZITZEWIT	KTM	AL	  5:34:46
	8	DEACON		KTM	GB	  5:47:20
	9	MAYER		KTM	AL	  7:58:11
       10	ZLOCH		KTM	RT	  9:01:53
       11	VERHOEF		KTM	HO	  9:28:38
       12	DE GAVARDO	KTM	CH	 11:07:49
       13	KRAUSE		KTM	US	 11:15:32
       14	LE BLANC	HON	FR	 11:26:42
       15	SCHILCHER	KTM	AL	 11:34:56

© 1998 Iron Butt Association, Chicago, Illinois

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