Dakar 2023 reveals the route. The race will start this year!

The organizers of the largest marathon race in the world have unveiled the preliminary route of the race. This time it will run from the west coast to the east and the start has been postponed to this year’s New Year’s Eve. And although it is necessary to mention that this year’s competition also had its preliminary route, but the final one looked different in the end, so there is a clear intention that the organizers finally want to send competitors to the fourth largest sandy desert in the world. And why finally? It was supposed to go there this year, ie on Dakar 2022, but in the end it came to an end. According to behind-the-scenes information, this was mainly due to the dramatic increase in crews in the Dakar Classic competition, when the organizers were not sure if they could handle all the security of the race.

Rub al-Khali (Pustá končina) is a huge challenge for both race participants and competition organizers. The desert with an area of ​​650,000 square kilometers is larger than the territory of France. Just for comparison – the Czechia has 78,871 square kilometers. The area is characterized by sand dunes with a height of up to 250 meters, which promises dramatic experiences. The competition would not have to mind that the fourth year of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia will once again remain a race in only one country. Rub al-Khali is also a challenge for the organizers, who of course guarantee the safety of the competitors and accompanying teams, and the accompanying teams seem to have been the main reason why there was no competition here last year. In the end, there were more than 4,000 people in the bivouac and the organizers would not be able to provide the necessary logistics in an area where there are only a few roads, where signal coverage from mobile operators is not ensured and where it is far away.

The organizers promise that the Dakar 2023 will have a lot of expeditionary character. It will run from the Red Sea to the sands of the Arabian Gulf in Dammam, the start of the race is scheduled for December 31, 2022, the last stage will take place on January 15, 2023, part of the competition is again one day off and the so-called marathon stage without assistance. First, the competitors will expect mountainous areas in the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia, and at the end, a three-day pilgrimage through the ocean of dunes in the Desert. Competitors and their entourage will probably meet at the end of the competition a difficult move across the country back, but this will be clarified. The competitors will ride fourteen racing days and a prologue, the lengths of the individual sharp stages are overwhelmingly approaching 450 kilometers. According to the organizers, the so-called connecting routes will be shorter and the destinations of the individual stages will be closer to the bivouacs. The racers are preparing almost 5,000 sharp kilometers and the Dakar 2023 should be the longest since 2014.

The desert area had the opportunity to experience the desert area at the marathon bivouac in 2020, but the next Dakar rally should lead much deeper, thanks to communication and help from neighboring Oman. The bivouac will stand in extreme conditions in the eastern part of the country and a marathon stage will take place in Pustá končina.

Preparations for the next year basically start right after the previous one is completed. David Castera, the director of the competition, explained this in one of the interviews. “At the beginning, we plan the competition only on satellite images. Then we explore the area by air or car. The route of the sharp competition is then started by two cars, which plan the exact itinerary of the race, in which the necessary infrastructure and routes for the associated Dakar Classic competition are solved. We have airports arranged six months in advance, we know exactly where the bivouacs will be, and the route is 90 percent certain. Of course, that may still change, but the basis is set. Only a few days before the competitors, the cars of the organizers are still driving along the race route, so that we know that nothing has changed fundamentally, that the route is passable and that the itineraries fit. Everything is planned with the government of Saudi Arabia, with the police and soldiers, at the same time we are preparing to secure the plant, which is provided by hundreds of people on the spot, but also in Europe. “

The upcoming Dakar will be run in the same way as the year 2022 according to digital roadbooks, but this time it will be given to all participants in the competition, including motorcycles and buggies. A fundamental novelty is the use of two or more possible itineraries for more or less long sections. “Just like in a school where teachers give two different tasks to neighboring students to avoid copying, we want to prevent competitors from simply copying blindly, so there will be at least two versions of roadbooks and they will be given to competitors at random,” he explains. David Castera adds: “Those who just follow their predecessors without thinking risk missing passage points and get penalized for it.”

And because the next day of the competition was started so that the winner of the previous day started first, which placed extreme demands on navigation and some competitors voluntarily gave up the victory in the stage to increase their chances until the next day, the stage winners will receive special time bonuses.

Even in the coming year, there will be no shortage of historic cars and trucks in the Dakar Classic competition, but a new category for slower cars will be added, and especially a separate Iconic Clasic Club class for original Dakar specials. The number of competitors will be a maximum of 150.

At Dakar 2023, a large group of Czech racers is preparing again, there will be Martin Prokop in the car category, as well as Martin Macík and Aleš Loprais behind the wheel of trucks. Of course, Martin Michek, our most successful biker, also wants to ride, and Ondřej Klymčiv, who will ride the Škoda again, is also planning his third participation in the Classic category. The newcomers will then be a purely women’s crew in the category of small buggies, where both daughters of Martin Koloc are to start.

The organizers have not yet commented on the start of the Russian Kamaz in the category of trucks that could be excluded from the competition due to the Russian attack on Ukraine. This would dramatically increase the chances of Czech crews.

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