The Dakar Rally is the biggest and longest motorsport event in the world and requires the management of a gargantuan logistics armada through six countries and two continents.
In Lisbon on anuary 6, 525 teams start the 7 915 kilometre marathon trek to Dakar situated on the Atlantic coast of Africa. 
525 participants take the start in Lisbon as competitors: 250 motorbikes, 187 cars and 88 trucks.
6 countries are crossed by the Rally Armada on the journey from Lisbon to Dakar: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali and the Senegal.
15 stages are to be driven from 6 to 21 January.
16 days are required by the participants of this famous desert marathon to race from Lisbon to Dakar.
23 overall victories in cross-country rallying are accredited to Michel Périn. The Frenchman is the most successful co-driver in this discipline.
580 hours of TV coverage about the 2006 Dakar were broadcast in 178 countries.
690 journalists were accredited in 2006.
775 kilometres is the length of the longest stage from Ouarzazate to Tan Tan in Morocco. 325 of these are against the clock, 450 are liaison stage kilometres.
7 915 kilometres is the length covered by the 2007 Dakar Rally route.
13 000 drivers and co-drivers have participated in the Dakar Rally since 1979.

the last of the great rallies remaining active.

There is the Kenya Safari...

but dakar is ultimate

Kenyan Safari has its own charm definitely but the DAKAR is in a league of its own !!!

Hats of to all the ppl involved in that event ....

Mitsubishi has entered four cars and the team’s contracted four drivers in the 2007 Dakar Rally, as the Japanese manufacturer bids to become the first team in history to win seven successive Dakar rallies and clinch a record-breaking 12 overall victories in 25 years. Mitsubishi entered the event for the first time in 1983.
TEAMS ARE
1. Stéphane Peterhansel (F)/Jean-Paul Cottret (F) Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution
2. Hiroshi Masuoka (J)/Pascal Maimon (F) Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution
3. Luc Alphand (F)/Gilles Picard (F) Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution
4. Joan Roma (E)/Lucas Cruz Senra (E) Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution

And Moosa.. who are you navigating for???

i am interested in special stage rally with pace notes.....if i get opportunity wherever ill go, now i am trying in middle east

[quote="imscmotorsport"]i am interested in special stage rally with pace notes.....if i get opportunity wherever ill go, now i am trying in middle east

with whom lohit urs?

no, in middle east rally most of the co-drivers from abroad.

Volkswagen Team
1. Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz,
2. Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford,
3. Carlos Sainz/Michel Périn
4. Ari Vatanen/Fabrizia Pons

Dakar Rally organisers have cancelled two stages in Timbuktu after receiving safety warnings from local officials. Mali's government have advised against competing in an area covered by stages 10 and 11, which were to run between Nema in Mauritania, and Timbuktu.

The 10th stage will now become a loop stage from Nema, while the 11th stage also stays within Mauritania from Nema to Ayoun-el-Atrous.

The rally starts on 6 January in Lisbon and runs for two weeks.

The route has been devised, drawn and pinpointed. It is now time to examine and to set out precisely in the roadbook the route which the rally’s co-pilots and pilots will use in January. This meticulous work is carried out every year in October by a team of desert, and, in particular, endurance rally specialists. A total of four cars (one of which is for the support route), a truck and a motorcycle are needed for reconnaissance.

The group comprises ten people. One opening car, with Francois and David, is responsible for finding through routes and testing the trails. One or two kilometres behind, it is in the second car, with Claude behind the wheel and Jacky with pen in hand, that all the necessary information is copied down. As for Pierre, Patrick and Georges, they look after supplies from the lorry, while Stéphane and Paul take care of reconnaissance of the support route. Depending on needs, Etienne, the Dakar boss, invites himself along in one of the two leading cars.

The group is in constant contact with one another by walkie-talkie in order to be able to warn of any eventual dangers or small technical incidents. On average, every stage requires two days of fieldwork. It’s off for one month of adventure.



For more information visit http://www.dakar.com/indexus.html

An editorial in L'Osservatore Romano titled "Paris-Dakar: The Bloody Race of Irresponsibility", slammed the race a day after South African motorcycle rider Elmer Symons died during the fourth stage in the Morocco desert.

"The Paris-Dakar, a race which many classify as a sporting event, in reality has very little to do with healthy competition," the editorial said.

"The trail of blood which grows longer from year to year on the route of the race instead underscores the undeniable component of violence that lies behind every attempt to export Western models to human environments and ecosystems that have little to do with the West," it said.

The Vatican newspaper said the race and its sponsors betrayed a "cynicism" that ignores local realities. It called the wrecks of cars, trucks and motorcycles abandoned in the desert "rusty monuments to irresponsibility".

The two-week race, which no longer starts from Paris, has claimed 49 lives in its 29-year-existence, 24 of them competitors.

WHAT NEXT!!!!!!!

new date for chandigarh rally announced?