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CN: Malcolm, wh at we re you doing in
Afr ica in t he f irst place?
M al c olm : T he South Afri can KTM
importer as ked me to ride and b ough t
my plan e ticket. lIis name is ltalo
Lupi n i. I kn ew h im th rough Pe te
Basso n, a Sou th Af rican wh o was o ver
her e last year. Africa isn 't a pla ce yo u're
likely to be just dropping by.
CN : I'd hea rd of the Rallye before but
though t it was called the " To p of the
World" or someth ing else w rong like
th at, and t hat it was very rugged.
Malcolm : It 's ac tual ly the "Star Roof
o f Africa Rall ye " - sponsored by the
b ig ges t n e w s p a per in Africa, the
J oh annesburg Star. When I won, it was
o n th e front page o f every newsp aper in
Af rica . You see , o th er pap er s bring in
th ese rallye car team s from Euro pe and
sponsor t he m as th eir team. It co sts
maybe $2 0-3 0, 0 00 to b ring in th e ca r
and driv ers. The Rand 0 a ily Mail gave
me $ 750 in ex pe nse mo ney so I was
th eir rider. But all th e em phasis is o n
th e cars - until a fter the first day when
it lo oked like a motorcycle wo uld win .
T hey call it a " Ra llye, " but it's re ally a
r a ce, you kn ow. Pe opl e d on 't
unde rsta nd abo ut these European-sty le
rail yes. T hose speci ally prepared rallye
cars are go ing 13 5 mph d own dirt roads.
CN : What kind of p reparati o n did you
have ?
Malcolm: There was o nly a wee k and a
hal f no t ice to get to J ohannesburg and I
was righ t in the middle of prep aring my
Six Days bi ke. So it was up until
mid nigh t some ni ghts to get the lIusky
. finished so it could b e shipped to the
Six Days. When I go t to Johan nesburg,
we op en ed up a crate, took out the
KTM - it was a Gelandesport model put it b ack together, timed it, ch an ged
to higher gear ing and put a b igger gas
ta n k on it. You kn ow, th ey're all crazy
over there. They run 10 and 12 gallon
gas tanks on their bikes. Did you ever
try to ride a bike with a 10 gallo n tank?
You can 't do it . You can' t get the front
end light ove r rough stuff. They thought
I was cra zy, though , with one of my
tan ks: o nly about 3. 5 gallo ns or so, but
a 10 gallon tank wi th gas in it weighs
43
