Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

a day's rest in .Agad ez, Niger. Peterhan sel was already hom e and dry by one o'cl ock in th e afternoon, as ton ished to find that he had beaten all the o thers, beca use he'd go tten lost after refue li ng . Not on ly did he win the day. bu t he go t far eno ug h ah ead to take th e overall lead by 10 minutes. T wo-time winner Oriol i lost five ho urs and all hope of victory with a seized gearbox. H e and Neveu were reduced to the role of fast bac k-up for th eir teammates Arcarons and Frenchman Marc Mora les. LaPorte did well to make it to Agadez two hours beh in d Peterhansel after contending with a bl o wn foam tube and a missi ng footpeg. Peterh ansel was still suffering terrib ly fro m his half-healed scaphoid injury. " It hurts everytime I jump off a du ne or ride on rocks," said the Frenchman, but he was feeling confiden t about the bike. "We have the best comprom ise between speed and reliability." . ' Agadez to Ti llia in Niger was the first part of the third two -day -rnarathon stage of the ra lly and it took the co mpetitors into dangerous territory - 300 rebellious Touaregs had been sh ot dead by the army only weeks before. H owever, the ma in news was LaPorte's spectacu lar exit from the ra lly: Position ed in 12th place o verall he too k a bend too wide and h it a mound a t 80 mph. The 34-year-old former World Champion was lucky to get away wit h a concussion and a severe shaking and was quickly taken to a hospital in Agadez and later transferred toa Paris hospital. Man of the day was De Petri, thanks to good navigation which brought him sixth overall. Peterhansel was only 14 minutes behind, however, despite bei ng dep rived of his handlebar cornpass and he increased his overall lead to half an hour ahead of the Yamahas of Magnaldi and Ita lian Carlos Mas. Friday the 12th was a very bla ck da y. The sporting competi tio n was completely overshadowed by the murder of one of th e Citroen support. truck d rivers, Charles Cabanna, as he drove in to a deserted Mal i village. T h e 34year-old's truck cab was riddled wi th bu llet s fro m wha t appeared to be soldiers, and h is team co-drivers were lucky to escape ali ve. T here was talk of stopping th e rally altoge ther, but the race con ti nued, nonetheless. The third two-day marathon was a tri um p h for Gilera and its rider, Italian Luigi Medardo. Alread y leading th e Silhouette class on th e near-standard single, he took his seco nd stage win of the rally to climb to sevent h overa ll, Peterhansel did well to hang onto the overall lead and lose o n ly 40 minutes on Arcarons, considering that he had to do the last 180 miles with a collapsed rear shock and no rear brake. In fact. there were only 37 minutes between Peterhansel, wh o was in first and Mas who was in sixth, compared to seven hours between first and sixth in the car class . De Petri crashed out of the rally with a broken collarbone on this fateful stage. The rally contin ued o n to Timbuktu in Mali, but the stage was neutralized following the murder of Cabanne. _With mu ch of the spirit knocked ou t of the event, there was .considera ble trepidation about continuing on into Mauretania, whi ch is a staunch ally of Saddam Hussein's, as the last hours ticked away befor e the United Nations deadline o n Kuwa it ran out . But carry on they did, and it was La lay's turn ' to shine with a stage win, tak ing him to second p lace overall beh ind team - mate Peterh ans el. In th e fourth and final two-day mara thon stage from Nema to Kiffa Of the 113 competitors that started the week-long rally, only 41 were able to make it to the finish line. in Mauretania , most of the leaders st uck together o n the tric ky first part, bu t th e second day belo nged to Magna ldi. H e too k o ff on his own away from the group of leaders and found the right track to the notorious Nega 'pass, finishing 12 minutes up on Peterha nsel and 20 minutes up on Lalay, who had a terrible day. First he fell in the Nega pass ' and then, within sig ht of the finish line, he nearly crashed int o a ravine which had already claimed Arcarone. " I jumped so high that my feet came onto the saddle and I hurt my thigh," Arcarone said. Despite being only 16 minutes behind Peterhansel overall , and th erefor e still well within a chance of victory, Magnaldi said that if Peterhansel had a pu ncture. he was ready to give him h is wheel. The fear of hosti lity fro m pro-Saddam supporters ha d abated, apart from some stone. throwing in a few vill ages, wh ich caused o ne rid er to fal l. It was clea r tha t o ne of the th ree Yamahas wa s goi ng to win . T he Sonauto team thought th ey had Lalay, riding for Chesterfield, covered, but he too k a cha nce o n a shortcu t aga ins t the advi ce in the road book and it pa id off. Magnaldi stuck to the road book, th en fell, and the next thing he knew he'd lost half an hour to Lal ay, wh o wa s now only 15 minutes behind Peterhansel. Now in Senegal and with on ly th e sho rt but very fast blast down th e beach to Dakar to go, Peterhansel stuck to Lalay like a leech for the 40-mil e blast, and Magnaldi foll owed his teammate. So at the fourth time of trying for Peterhansel, and the 10th for his team manager J ean-Claude Ol iv ier , th e Sonauto Yamaha finally nabbed th e win . Lalay was second a nd Magnaldi third. Arcarons won th e last sta ge but was beaten into fifth o vra ll by th e privately entered Cagiva of Morales. Forty-four-year-old Rahier came in second in the special test, fin ishi ng 13th overall. Metardo won the Sil houette cla ss for ' Gilera as predicted, and Ant onio Boluda won the Mara th on class for Hon da. / First Kawasa ki ho me was Fre nc hma n La urent Charbo nnel, winner of the Proloque class, despite ri di ng most ofthe last two-day marathon with no foo tpegs . Ano ther hero was Gil GonzaIo fro m Spain , who rode most of the last week with a dislocated collarbone, Th e 5700-miIe rally started in Chateau de Vincennes, France, and ended in Dakar, Senegal. t - ' ..... .". • ".. , "' . - . . _,, - - '" i, ,. (\ ) J t, yet sti ll finished 18th . Patrizia Schek became the first woman ri der to finish the event in ma ny years. Peterha nse1 said, "I took th ings easy for the first half and gradually built up my pace." He also said the worst .pa rt for him was the two-day marathon from Agadez to Gao when his rear shock collapsed. "Not giving in then , , , , r- ) "\ was wh at won me th e rall y," he said. t:N Results 0 / A: l. Stephane Peterhansel (Ya m ) France; 2. Gilles Lalay (Yam ) France: 3. Thierry Magnaldi (Yam ) Fran ce; 4. MarcMorales (Ca g ) Fran ce; 5. Jo rdi Arcarons ( Cag) Spain; 6. Carlos Mas (Yam ) Spain : 7. Luigino Medardc (Gi l ) ttaly; S. Edi Orio1i (Ca~ ) Italy; 9. Ro berto Manddli (G il ) Italy; 10. Antonio BoJuda (H on ) Spain. 27

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