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2009 Dakar Rally

by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) on Jan 14th 2009 at 10:30AM

After taking a year off thanks to security concerns, the Dakar Rally is back, and well underway, just not where you would traditionally expect the iconic off-road race to be. The 2009 edition is the 30th running of the famous long distance, endurance race that has historically run from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal, but this year finds itself on an entirely different continent, racing through Argentina and Chile.

Beginning and ending in Buenos Aires, this year's race officially got underway back on January 3rd, with 540 teams setting out to cover the 5,951 mile course. Broken down into 14 stages, ten in Argentina and four in Chile, the teams will endure long days in the hot desert sun pushing themselves and their machines to the limits. The final 140 mile stage is scheduled to take place on Saturday, bringing the epic race to a close for another year. Whether or not it returns to its roots in Europe and Africa in 2010 remains to be seen.

Check out this amazing gallery of photos from the race. They give a little insight into danger and intensity of a long distance rally like this one, in which racers use motorcycles, quad runners, trucks, and cars to cross the rugged and demanding terrain.

Gallery: 2009 Dakar Rally

Filed under: South America, Argentina, Chile

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Bill Jan 14th 2009 11:21AM

Also, some great photos here --

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/the_2009_dakar_rally.html

Willy Jan 14th 2009 11:33AM

I like the fact that it's been moved. I hope it switches locations each year. Very cool.

Kraig Jan 14th 2009 11:38AM

Moving it around certainly opens it up to a lot of new possibilities, and from what I can tell, it seems like it has been very well received in South America. More than 500,000 people turned out on the first day to watch the race get underway in Buenos Aires.