.'DlnBt~ Fabrizio Meoni's KTM Lea 950 Rally
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14
WE PUT A ROAD-RACE VETERAN ON THE DAKAR CHAMP'S V-TWIN DESERT RACER.
By ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOS BY HERWIG PEUKER
MICHAEL ALSCHNER
But KTM's insistence that I ride the
&
nviting the likes of someone like
myself, whose skills in sand have
hitherto extended only to building a
better sandcastle on the beach at
Southend or St. Tropez, to duel with
the desert aboard Fabrizio Meoni's
Dakar Rally-winning works KTM 950
Rally racer, is the off-road equivalent
of asking someone who's never ridden on slick tires to pedal Valentino's
factory Honda GP bike around Jerez
or Suzuka. It's another world.
I
44
JULY 24, 2002'
cue
I
e
style with which it had triumphed in
prototype of its LCa V-twin-engined
desert sled, as a window on the Austrian firm's future world of multicylinder motorcycles for street use
powered by the same engine, meant
journeying to its southern Tunisian
test base in Douz. Here, the road traversing the Sahara runs out, and
there's a thousand miles of sand
dunes to cross before you see another stretch of tarmac.
In fact, I was joining KTM's works
rally team the week after it won the
Dakar earlier in the year. Spaniard
Joan Roma won in Tunisia in his first
race aboard the LCa-powered factory
racer, after Italian teammate Fabrizio
Meoni, who was victorious on the 950
Rally's previous two outings, fell and
tore a shoulder ligament. Tough for
Meoni - but at least it meant that by
the time I came to ride his bike in the
sands south of Douz, it had already
had a bit of practice at tipping over.
Tunisia Rally in the same dominant
n
e
_
:IS
After my first two-hour stint aboard
the KTM - during which I discovered
that: a) rally racers need to be incred-
ibly strong and possessed with
remarkable stamina, and b) they're
also today's most complete motorcyclists in any form of two-wheeled
competition - I did begin to get some
appreciation of KTM's R&D achievements with the LCa. I also confirmed
that falling off in the sand is so much
more comfortable than it is on the
hard stuff at Assen or Monza. I mean,
the whole Sahara Desert is one big
runoff area full of kitty litter, isn't it?
PROUD PAPA
The father of the LCa engine,
Claus Holweg, may take some pride
