This is the art of driving in the sands of Dakar: “Each one has a color and helps you understand them”

“This year it will be more difficult whether it rains or not. The sands will be a difficulty, but that is the Dakar. I am sure that the competitors will find the course difficult”warned MD David Castera, director of Dakar, about the complexity that this year the competitors of the most difficult race in the world will find themselves in front of their eyes starting from stage 5. Dakar 2024 joins the dreaded ‘Empty Quarter’, the largest desert of sand in the world, with a total area of ​​about 65,000 square km and can have all kinds of dunes, even some giants that can reach 300 meters high.

This desert stretches further Saudi Arabia, to Yemen, Oman and the United Arab Emirates and it is known for its extreme conditions, with maximum temperatures that throughout the year can reach up to 55 degrees, and at night drop to 0.

At almost 1,000 km long and 500 km wide, it is the famous one ‘Rub ‘al Khali’, meaning ’empty room’, because it is empty. Sands, sands and more sands. The perfect setting for a Dakar adventure to be as authentic as possible. In 2023, there were high hopes for the race to enter this territory, but in the end, drivers were left wanting more. And this year they have a triple portion. A first stage to whet your appetite held yesterday, Wednesday, of 118 km and the long-awaited 48-hour stage (stage 6), the crown jewel of this Dakar, which will take place this Thursday and Friday, with 572 km of the special to be completed in those two days.

For this reason, specialized Dakarians such as Pont Grup motorcycle riders, Javi Vega, without help, and the man from Salamanca Lorenzo Santolinowho is out of the race as he had to retire due to mechanical problems with his motorcycle, They explain to MD the hidden keys to driving in the sands, the main protagonists of this edition of Dakar 2024which could be absolutely decisive in the fight for this crown.

The 48-hour period will be held in the ‘Empty Quarter’

Last year, the dune stages in ‘Empty Quarter’ were too short. Stage 11, 275 km, and stage 12, 183. That’s all done in the ‘Empty Quarter’. It was an appetizer, and a year later, the director of Dakar recorded and created a main course for this desert. After this stage on Wednesday, entering the ‘Empty Quarter’, there will be two marathon days called the ’48-hour time trial’. To put the drivers in the ‘Empty Quarter’, David Castera invented this special with 7 or 8 bivouacs spread across the route to stop the race at 4:00 pm on the first day of that 48-hour day and direct them to the camp. they are closer, thus preventing them from sleeping in the desert before tackling the remaining kilometers on the second day. In total, over those two days, competitors will complete a total of 600 km on the dunes, nearly double last year’s ‘Empty Quarter’.

Driving over the sands and their colors as a great track

Driving through the dunes requires a different approach than other terrain, a specific one, and tackling them on a motorcycle or doing it in a car or truck is completely different. On motorcycles, the rider can turn around and have a wider view of everything. By car, visibility is greatly reduced. Furthermore, on a motorcycle, its lower weight allows for a wider range of routes, including straighter routes to climb high dunes.

Side by Sides, whether T3 or T4, can replicate similar lines on motorcycles. But with a car, the difficulty is greater because of the weight and the risk of getting stuck is enormous. 4×4, like the highest category (T1+) is easier to climb. On the other hand, two-wheel drive vehicles like the Laia Sanz (4×2) suffer more in this type of terrain and must deal with climbing the dunes by having more momentum, maintaining speed across the dune to not stop.

And to all this we have to add navigation and the complexity of choosing the most suitable path. Javi Vega thought about all this for MD weeks ago, before the Dakar during the visit of the Pont Grup pilots to the editorial office of MD, the pilots

“For me the dunes are like skiing. Like off-piste. Like snow. In the end, each one has a color, depending on how the sun hits it, depending on how soft it is, harder… it’s not that you have time to look at the color, it will come to you and you will see. which one seems softer and if you go here or there,” he highlights. That is, it clarifies that apart from driving in dangerous terrain at high speed and having to follow the instructions of the roadbook, the pilots still have time to understand the dunes by their colors. It’s incredible. And in that field, the pilots who always live in the dunes, like Nasser Al-Attiyah, is making a difference.

“The natives of the dunes understand them just because of the color. I understand, you can see a little, but not at the level they have. A Nasser, who grew up in the desert, I think is very clear about where It should happen, Santolino commented. “Nasser smelled it,” confirmed Vega, highlighting the different lines this terrain can find among drivers of many levels.

“On the sands there is a lot of difference between the lines of the professional drivers and the more remote ones. The pro riders take a straighter line to not lose the ‘CAP’, so you don’t derail too much km , and perhaps a more novice would find an easier spot or dune to climb without stopping to see the line in the direction “it’s going,” he commented.

“It’s nice to drive because you can drive anywhere you want. In difficult terrain, there is usually always a better move and you have to go that way. On the dunes you have the option to go through more open terrain, move as you like, try new trajectories and it gives you a sense of freedom and scenery… in racing not so much, but the practice shows you see the vastness of the sands and it’s amazing” said the man from Salamanca.

But all that glitters is not gold. Despite the beauty of the landscape and the speed of the race that is reduced by climbing the dunes, the stress of the pilot is highest because any dune, the one you don’t expect, can deceive your eyes and cut off. “The dangerous thing on a motorcycle is trying to cross the dunes quickly. If you go at a moderate speed you can go around them and the most that can happen to you is that you don’t reach the top and you have to turn, try find another step, but the risk is trying to keep a high speedwhere your vision and your interpretation can deceive you, and in a place where you have to brake a lot, you think you don’t have to brake and jump…”, warned Santolino.

Sands and more sands: How do I stay on track?

Another key to sand dunes is the direction to follow. Since there are only kilometers of sand and sand, no clear references such as mountains, trees or canyons, many pilots use the trick of following a course by looking at the clouds, for example. And since there are many routes, there is a risk of deviating from the direction indicated in the roadbook, something for which the pilot, especially one who has to open a track, must be attentive.

“Normally you have a CAP (marked course). The navigation that the motorcycle tells you. If you ever go off course, you have to have the ability to know how much you’ve gone off course and how long you’ve gone off course and then get the calculator and try to straighten it out,” Santolino explained about it.

“But above all, the one who opens the track must be very attentive. Because the beautiful thing about the dunes is that the trace is there. So, those who are behind, can play a little more and look for an easier lateral path. .. because You know that if you go to the right, when you go back to the left you will move forward until you see traces. Or maybe you meet a pilot facing you, which gives you doubt to say: ‘ one of the two is wrong.’ “.

Of course, the pilots who left and could follow the tracks could not be completely trusted. Like cheating on an exam, as Vega says, you have to check that everything is correct: “Even if there are clues, you always have to verify and keep the updated roadbook because there are times when there are clues, but there are others. times you don’t see it.”

For all this, it is understandable what could happen in stage 6 of 48 hours and the reason why, for example, Carlos Sainz, Peterhansel and Loeb were forced to start from the back. All of them could get more minutes compared to Al-Attiyah, who is leading the way. Little understood then is the excessive risk taken by the Qatari in wanting to win stage 5 despite the fact that it meant having to open a track in stage 6, with no tracks to follow.