Motorsport: Deaths put Dakar safety under scrutiny

DAKAR - In the early morning before the final stage of the 2005 Dakar rally, the motorbike riders knelt on the beach and faced the Atlantic Ocean, holding a simple banner with the words "Ciao Fabrizio".

Fabrizio Meoni of Italy, twice winner of the rally, was one of two motorcyclists killed in this year's 17-day event -- reviving questions about whether the famous race can be made safer and whether it should even take place at all.

A French member of parliament has written to his prime minister to demand the race be outlawed, arguing you cannot encourage road safety at home while allowing drivers and motorcyclists to roar around Africa at dangerously high speeds.

Austrian motorcycle manufacturer KTM, which has provided machines for many top riders including Meoni, has called for talks with the rally organisers to improve safety and says its continued participation will depend on the outcome.

Yet the competitors who completed the course of some 9000 km from Barcelona through Spain, Morocco, the deep dunes and sandstorms of Mauritania and then on to Mali and Senegal, seem to have few qualms about coming back next year.

While saddened by the deaths of Meoni and Spanish amateur Jose Manuel Perez, they say danger is part of the Dakar.

"It's always very sad to hear a competitor has died but this race is a trial and no one forces us to face this trial," said Mitsubishi driver Stephane Peterhansel, who won his second straight Dakar in the car event this year.

"We know we're coming here to have emotions, to get an adrenalin rush but we also know there's a large element of risk, particularly on the motorbikes," said the Frenchman, who took the bike title six times before switching to cars.

Cyril Despres, the French rider who won the bike event this year, has lost two close friends to rallying in just a few months -- Meoni and Richard Sainct, a three-times Dakar winner killed in the Pharaohs Rally in Egypt in September.

"All the riders who are here are in love with rallying above all, in love with the desert, in love with competing," he said.

"That's why I've done 25 rallies in four years and I want to continue," the KTM rider added. "Richard loved it, Fabrizio loved it and we love it more than anything."

Veteran Finnish driver Ari Vatanen, a four-times Dakar winner, said organisers should always be looking to improve safety but dismissed the idea of a ban.

"You might as well stop any human activity," declared Vatanen, who is also a member of the European parliament. "Man has to always discover new things, has to risk things, has to jump into the unknown."

The risk of death has always gone hand in hand with the event, which began life in December 1978 as the Paris-Dakar rally but no longer starts from the French capital. Twenty-two competitors have died over the years.

Some critics say it has become more dangerous in recent years as organisers have forced the riders and drivers to stick to a narrowly defined route -- meaning they cannot win through navigation skills and must compete mainly on speed.

Ironically, the route limits were imposed for safety reasons -- to stop competitors getting lost in the vast Sahara Desert.

Race organisational director Etienne Lavigne said it may be time to look at introducing different rules for professionals and amateurs -- giving more freedom to the well equipped and experienced while keeping more restrictions on amateurs.

"It's very difficult to compromise between all these requirements of professionals and gentlemen, or amateurs," he said.

- REUTERS