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 The Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), sponsor of the Dakar Rally, held a press conference on November 22nd to announce the outline of the 28th Dakar, known as the “Euromihoes Dakar 2006” after the Portuguese lotto company. As already announced, this year’s event will start from Portugal for the first time in the history of the Paris-Dakar Rally, leaving from the capital Lisbon on December 31. Reaching Dakar, capital of Senegal, on January 15, it will take 16 days (including one rest day) and cover a total of 9,043 kms, of which 4,813 kms will be competition stages (“Special Stages,” or “SS”). The seven countries on the route are Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, and Senegal. For the rest day on January 8, Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott has been chosen. The bivouacs used are places the rally has visited, and the route connecting them will be the same as that used in the past; however, the course set by newly appointed course directors Stéphane Le Bail (four-wheel class) and David Castera (motorcycles) will likely be different from what has previously been seen in the past.
  One major reason for this is further use restrictions on the Global Positioning System (GPS) provided by the sponsors. Until 2005, points known as “way points,” comprised of latitude and longitude, were indicated as the pivotal points on the course, and the navigators kept to the correct course by plotting these with a grid map-type road map. This year, however, the position of the way points will not be shown until crews approach within a radius of three kms. Accordingly, the GPS will generally show absolute bearings only, and the navigators will have to check trip counters (odometers) and their bearings while referring to the grid maps. When they approach within three kms of a checkpoint or other waypoint, the GPS will show the distance and bearing to their objective. Winding back the technology to the time of the early 90’s when commercial GPS was not yet in existence will test the crews’ navigational abilities and resources.
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Another difference on the competition front is the introduction of a 150-km/hour speed limit for motorcycles following the application of such a limit on camions in 2005. This will be enforced not by the installation of a hardware limiter, but by random checks of speed data recorded by GPS, and penalties will be imposed on those exceeding the limit. While GPS can record an accurate ground speed, speedometers, which are based on wheel speed, are less accurate in offroad conditions where the rate of wheel slippage, and hence error, increases with speed. Accordingly, in 2005 the navigators had one eye on the GPS speed data when instructing their drivers not to exceed the speed limit on camions. In addition to the limit applying to motorcycles from this year, the sponsors are also considering speed regulations for four-wheel vehicles as well. Similarly, a 50-km speed limit will continue to be monitored by GPS when vehicles pass through villages and other populated areas. In recent years, the popularity of the Dakar Rally has been growing, and this year, too, it has attracted a large number of entrants to the extent that acceptance was closed by the middle of June. In the motorcycle class, there will be 240 machines, 187 vehicles in the four-wheel class, and 80 camions, bringing the total to 507 vehicles, the second highest number since the 10th Dakar Rally in 1988 when 602 vehicles entered. In the four-wheel class, a powerful lineup has been assembled. Alongside Nissan, such giants as Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, and BMW will fiercely fight it out over a highly punishing course.
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