Dakar 2008

08. January 2008„Tough s**t!“ that’s the only comment Heinz-Werner Lenz will hiss at the moment whenever someone mentions the capital of Senegal, but only a moment later he will again go into raptures, because he had the chance to witness the spectacle and the enthusiasm of the people in Lisbon, where the truck racer was going to participate in the Dakar Rally for the first time. There he also met Fabien Calvet, who is not only senior technician for the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, but organizes the acceptance tests for the trucks at the Dakar Rally, too. And two more people engaged in truck racing – MAN’s head technician, Artur Klein, and Dakar veteran Jo Adua – were ready to hit the road for the long race through the desert. Whereas Calvet, Klein, and particularly Adua had already experienced the Rally atmosphere before, everything would have been completely new for Lenz. All the worse was the disappointment of the entrepreneur from Plaidt when he learnt that the Rally was cancelled.
Lenz was confident that, because of the high level of media response, he could have found partners and sponsors for the upcoming European Truck Championship by participating with his Mercedes truck with the competition number 671. He would get over his own financial loss, said Lenz who repeatedly won the European Truck Racing Championship, but for some teams this cancellation would bring about their financial ruin, because most of the sponsor contracts stipulate that payments will only be made after the start of the Rally. And so Lenz has also misgivings about the future prospect of the “Dakar”. Although he understands the decision of the organizers, because it was said that there were threads concerning the fuel depots set up for the Rally, he does not comprehend why there were not made any alternate plans beforehand.
For that matter we have to endorse Lenz’ statement, but it would not have been enough just to avoid Mauritania; after all, the assassins of the French tourists – this attack was said to be the cause for the warning from the French Foreign Office which led to the cancellation of the event – on Christmas Eve fled to Senegal, the arrival point of the Rally. Moreover, it’s a known fact for quite a long time that Islamist terror organisations declared the entire Maghreb area a focal point for new activities, even though especially the tourist countries Morocco and Tunisia were generally spared as yet. If the organizers had directed their attention to those problems beforehand, many people would not have suffered these enormous financial losses, and, above all, the terrorists would not have had such a triumphant public platform.