[Watch] When the Dakar Rally was exclusively held in Africa

The world famous Dakar Rally started out as the Paris-Dakar rally in 1978. In the past, the race would start in Paris, France and end in Dakar, Senegal in a span of 16 days. The stretch was considered one of the deadliest and longest route.

The rally came to being after a French motorcycle racer, Thierry Sabine, got lost in the Tenere Desert in 1977 Abidjan-Nice Race, exposing him to a whole new route that would test the world’s best racers.

The route remained the same until 2008 when the rally was cancelled due to insecurity in Mauritania. Since then the rally has been held in South America, with the 2019 rally set to exclusively take place in Peru.

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There are efforts by the organising team to bring back to Africa with Algeria, Angola and Namibia being the top countries under consideration.

But before all this, in 1997, the rally, for the first time ever was held exclusively in Africa.

The route took riders from Dakar  to Agadez, Niger and back to Dakar.

Dakar Rally Map 1997. Photo: Advrider

Winner in 1997 of the Dakar, Japan’s Kenjiro Shinozuka (Nissan – n.201). Photo: Xtdev