TH E N
NE,
I
I
[vY
P
I
c was a
wild
week of racing
in the 28th
ledition of the Dakar
Rally
-
a week that
saw
defending champion C),,ril
Despres
injured and seemintly out of contention;
a
week that saw Marc Coma take
over as the
overall leader ofthe event:
a week that saw
American
Andy
Grider
pull out of the race
due to
iniury:
a
w€ek that saw a desperate
Despres suddenly put himself back into
contention; a week that saw American
Chris Blais steadily climb up the overall
standings;
and a week that saw Dakar
tragedy once atain. with the death of
Australian Andy Caldecott on Monday,
.lanuary
9
(see
separate news story).
It all began with Despres
(ashing
his
Gauloises KTM on Thursday,
,anuary
5, the
Fren.hman who was leading the overall
standings at the time sufferin8 a dislocated
left collarbone in the fall.
That
stage
-
staSe
fNe
-
was won by fiM's Carlo De Gavardo,
and it looked as though the defending
race
champion was all but
finished. Although
Despres wa5 able to continue,
with
some
3200 miles remaining,
it
didn't
look
good
when
it
came to the
Frenchman actually
contending.
Repsol fiM's De Gawardo won aSain a day
later.
passing
Gauloises KTH'5
lsidre
Esteve
in
the
overall standings and
gaininS ground
on
the overall leader of the event, De Gavardo's
tearnmate Marc Coma, But Despres was
falling even funher out of contention after
los-
ing
over 30
minutes to De Gayardo in stage
six, and Coma's
position
looked even
stronSer, as De Gavardo was now in the
per-
fect position to help his teemmate,
Stage six also saw the end of the road for
KTM Red Bull'sAndy Grider. as the Southern
Califomian was forced out of the rally alter
crashing and suffering iniury Grider's team-
mate Chris Blais.
however,
ended stage six
in
l3th and was l2th overall at the time. Blais'
hopes would improve, and bylanuary
t he'd
climH to sixlh overallafter
finishing ninth in
Monday's
grim
ninth
stage.
And that ninth
stage
also saw the retum
of
Despres, the Frenchman winninS
the
stage
and climbinS back
into contention-
Wirh victory
on
January
9, Despres sat sec-
ond overall - 22
minutes and 47 seconds
behind Coma. ltays Giovanni
Sala, mean-
while, had moved
up to third overall.
Despres' second
stag€ victory of this
year's l.elly came between Nouakchott and
Kiffa, and he beat Coma by more than four
minutes.
Portuguese
privateer
Helder
Rodrigues was third, seven minutes behind
Despres.
l'4eanwhile, Esteve suffeaed iniury
in ltage nine and the rest of his rally was
also seemintly in
jeopardy,
while De
Gavardo was also set back by a
one-hour
time
penalty
from stage eight, where
it was
deemed that he'd broken the speed
limit of
99 mph on the
run from Atar to
Nouakcho(, dropping
him lrom third over-
all to lifth,
Although
Despres' latest victory revived
his hopes and marked a return to con-
tention
for the Frenchman, that
tood
news
was
marred by Caldecon's death, as
the
Dakar Rally
