Wires and cables spill like entrails from its belly, connecting up satellite dishes and generators and even a makeshift studio, complete with potted plants, set up on the tarmac for live interviews with the drivers, which will be pumped out to the four corners of the world.
Way beyond the bustling, hi-tech centre of this instant city, a suburban sprawl of less privileged competitors stretches to the far corners of the airstrip. At its shadeless limits, where the tarmac runs out and the rubble begins, a tent, a Union Jack and an old Range Rover, with a row of white socks drying on its bonnet, mark the headquarters of the only British interest left in the Rally. The tent is shared by Dave Hammond, a short and amiable motorbike rider, and his two mechanics. Dave is what’s known as a privateer, someone who has entered the race ‘for the romance of the event’, without the backing of any of the big teams. Not for him the Mitsubishi millions. His fuel tank bears the name of Webb’s Garages of Cirencester.
And bears it proudly. Fifty-two bikes have already dropped out and Dave is lying twenty-first of the 115 still left. He’s optimistic. At this stage of the rally the pressure is on the big boys and they begin to make mistakes. Dave reckons that if he doesn’t do anything silly he’ll pick up places at the expense of those being forced to take risks.
I ask him if he has any sense of where he is. He shakes his head and laughs.
‘I just know we’re going south, because it’s getting hotter and hotter.’
The Dakar Rally, it seems, is really nothing to do with seeing the world. It’s about machines and drivers. Where you are is less important than how fast you got there and whether you still have a vehicle that can get you out. Someone tells me of a first-time American competitor, thrown off his bike five days ago in Morocco, who’d asked plaintively, ‘Is there much more sand out there?’
Day Twenty-Five
ATAR
You have to be up at sparrow-fart to catch the Rally. The first riders on this time-trial stage, a loop starting and ending in Atar, have left the airport by eight o’clock, and it’s been a long and tricky drive to find a position along the course ahead of them. Once again, the first sign of activity is aerial. A muttering and thudding fills the valley and seconds later a silver helicopter streaks in over sand and stone tracks it has taken us an hour to negotiate. It circles gracefully, picks a spot and swoops to earth, disgorging a camera crew at the point where the piste is marked by a low but nasty run of bumps. A few locals have gathered to watch. They crouch on their haunches, arms resting on knees, looking more bemused than expectant. A donkey watches impassively from a nearby clump of tamarisk trees. A few yards further on, a group of village women are standing up against a flimsy fence, holding a sign on which is written ‘Go, Johnny Go!’, believed to be a reference to the presence of the veteran Gallic rocker Johnny Hallyday in one of the cars.
More helicopters appear. Some land in a scatter of sand, others hover briefly before sweeping away in search of the next good vantage point. Then the first of the bikes comes into sight around the base of a sand dune, swaying and skidding past at speeds of around 60 miles per hour, sending up a fine plume of red sand as its rider, standing, arms and legs braced, works furiously at throttle and brake to get a grip on this treacherous surface.
One of the bikes hits a submerged stone and careers off course, flinging its rider to the ground. He remounts and roars by. We check the number. Somehow it had to be. 126. Dave Hammond, Great Britain.
Before the cars come through we move on to a better vantage point overlooking the village of Tougadh. Because it’s up in the hills, the buildings of Tougadh are sturdier than most I’ve seen in the Mauritanian Sahara, a mix of rectangular houses and circular huts, most of them resting on a skilfully cut dry-stone base and topped with mud and thatch. The village lies across a rising slope, with the head of the valley at one end and a thick grove of date palms at the other. There is no movement amongst the huts. A figure lies asleep outside one of the houses, head resting in the crook of an arm.
Then comes a distant hum, like the sound of a swarm of bees. Moments later the sound changes from swarming bee to angry hornet and a thin line of dust can be seen snaking through the palms. Swinging wildly on the sandy track, the lead car bursts out of the trees and into the village. Compared with the motorbikes, whose riders could at least be seen grappling with their machines, it’s disappointingly anonymous. A red box driven by two Lego men. Compelled by Rally regulations to observe a speed limit whilst passing through a village, it croaks and barks through the gears with rather bad grace as it climbs between the houses and over the hill. A young man from the village clambers up, waving vigorously at us. For a moment I think this must be the first Mauritanian to show any excitement about the race, but it turns out he wants to sell us some of his dates.
For the next two hours the sixty-five cars left in the race snarl by, hauling the message of McDonald’s and Microsoft, PlayStation and Gauloises through the sleepy, unappreciative village. After the cars come the trucks and an armada of support vehicles, until all that’s left is a Toyota Land Cruiser containing three journalists covering the rally. They seem in no great hurry and are opening up the daily ration kits issued to them by the organisers. David Park, from the New York Times, is impressed.
‘What have we got today? Pate de volaille. There’s sausage, cheese, two biscuits, one for the pate, one for the cheese. Petit Napoleon.’ He shakes his head in awe and admiration. ‘It’s so … French!’
A line of village children stand watching Park and his friends as if they’ve come from Mars. They might as well have done. In almost every material respect they are different from the inhabitants of Tougadh. Well-fed, prosperous, highly mobile, technologically sophisticated, multinational. Everything this part of Africa is not. Park hands out most of the content of his ration bag to the children. His smile is broad, theirs are tentative. Then his Toyota fires into life, the palm thatch fence sways in the slipstream and the last of the Rally is gone, possibly until next year, probably for ever. A little way up the hill, a man still lies asleep with his head in the crook of an arm.
All the competitors, apart from a few stragglers, are back at the airport by mid-afternoon. Minor injuries are nursed, positions checked. Stories and rumours spread through the camp. One car somersaulted over a dune, but when the co-driver managed to struggle back to lay a helmet on the dune as a warning sign the next car flew right over him. Alfie Cox, one of the top bikers, won the stage, despite riding the last 200 miles without water after a fall had severed his supply. Leading the six trucks left in the race is the Russian team, admired by one English journalist less for their driving than their spectacular devotion to the hard stuff.
‘Anything’ll do. They finished off the windscreen washer fluid last night.’
And Dave Hammond is still in the race. Despite two falls, he completed the 250-mile course in just over four hours and has moved up to eighteenth place. He and his mechanics are cleaning the bike meticulously.
After they’ve finished they’ll gather with other riders to watch video footage of their day’s performance.
There’s a strong family feeling at work here. At heart, the Dakar Rally is about fraternity - bands of brothers united by common language, enthusiasms and ambitions. I admire their mad bravery, but we don’t have much in common. Mauritania excites me much more than motorsport.