DAKAR DIARY
OUR DAKAR DIARY
We pay a visit to the Saudi desert to ask: what exactly does it take to organise and observe the world’s most brilliantly chaotic race?
WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE
PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI
You don’t exactly spectate at the Dakar. No. You drive to a point in the desert and you wait. And hope. Find somewhere high and try to spot a dust cloud. Get excited and then realise you’ve been tracking a fast-moving Land Cruiser. Again.
But when they do come... boy oh boy, are you in for a treat. Because against a backdrop of sand and scrub comes a focal point of wheeled fury. First a pinprick of colour, being buffeted and pitched around, wheels loose in the arches. Then the noise. High, savage and thrashy denotes a Hilux, a muscular bellow for the V8 buggies, a steady nasal rasp for the range extender in the electrically driven Audi.