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The Kamaz truck won the Dakar Rally for the sixth time. As the company's motto goes, "no roads, no problem"

The Kamaz truck won the Dakar Rally for the sixth time. As the company's motto goes,
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Isidre Esteve Pujol enters a town during the 13th stage of the 2005 rally. Pujol's Team Repsol-Red Bull KTM was finally fourth, just 22 seconds behind a podium. Pic - G. Soldano Image 2 of 22 from The world's most dangerous sporting event. Think trucks are slow and cumbersome and can't hack it when the going gets tough. This one isn't. It's a Kamaz and it has won its class six times! Image 4 of 22 from The world's most dangerous sporting event.
Meoni's death might ultimately save others. Pic - G. Soldano When motor racing beganin 1985, average speeds for the road races were in the vicinity of 24 kmh. The original events were more reliability events. Image 7 of 22 from The world's most dangerous sporting event. Witness the different attitude and rapid evolution that had occured in just a few years. These were the first real racing cars. An actual picture taken at the imfamous Paris - Madrid race of 1903. At the wheel is Marcel Renault, brother of the founder of
The start-line in 1903 - The Renault team. Cyril Despres won hist first Dakar Rally this week, riding a Gauloises-sponsored KTM. Pic - G. Soldano The Kamaz truck won the Dakar Rally for the sixth time. As the company's motto goes, GPS has assisted enormously in reducing the number of people who get lost during the rally, sometimes for days at a time. Please note, with ten victories, the pictured Mitsubishi teams finished one-two and did not get lost.
It's a lot easier to keep things under control when you have a chopper Mayer's Mitsubishi zips past the locals. Sala's KTM during a river crossing. Pic - G. Soldano Roma at full noise in the Mitsubishi
In the final result, Frenchmen Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret drove a Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution to victory in 52hours 31minutes and 39 seconds, just minutes ahead of countrymen and teammates Luc Alphand and Gilles Picard in another Image 18 of 22 from The world's most dangerous sporting event. The master of his craft - six times bike winner and now twice car winner, Peterhansel is at the top of his sport. Luc Alphand at speed in the desert.
The Mitsubishi team celebrates at the finish. The Kamaz team celebrates at the finish. Pic - G. Soldano
Article Summary
January 17, 2005 It's the world's most dangerous legally-sanctioned sporting event. Every time the event is run, on average, two competitors and an unknown number of spectators die. The size of a small city, the Dakar Rally streaks for 16 days and 9000 kilometres across several countries and time zones at frightening speeds. One of the most significant events in the history of motorsport, it has direct lineage to the first auto race and all the famous city-to-city races which were banned between 50 and 100 years ago due to the carnage. So why is it still running?

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