FROM DOWN UNDER TO DAKAR
The Dakar Rally may well have remained beyond our horizons had not Hans Tholstrup and Tom Snooks devised the Wynn’s Sydney to Darwin Safari in 1985, creating a generation of hard-core Australian cross-country racers.
Among many others, Dakar champions Gaston Rahier, Cyril Neveu and Edi Orioli all travelled Down Under to contest the Wynn’s Safari but were found wanting, so we naively believed our outback was just as tough as anything in Africa. When South Australian Andy Haydon won the 1997 Australian Safari his reward was a ticket to Paris and an entry to Dakar. Now we’d show those French a thing or two.
Not Quite. Stéphane Peterhansel won his sixth Dakar but, as Andy Haydon recalls, “Fabrizio Meoni and I scored KTM’s first Dakar podiums. Aussie Andy Coaker came third in Malle Moto (unassisted) and Simon Pavey finished top 50. It was the first time any Australian had competed so it was a great result.”
What Haydon fails to mention is that, unlike Meoni’s KTM 640, his bike was a superseded kick-start model. Or that he won two of the longest competitive stages in Dakar history, 680km and 745km, both across the Western Sahara Desert. These pioneering efforts were truly inspiring and Australia has been represented in Dakar every year since.
After four consecutive wins in the Australian Safari, Andy Caldecott headed to Dakar, only to break an ankle in Morocco. Together with his close mate Dave Schwarz, he returned in 2005 to ride a KTM 660 built by
