Dakar: X-raid BMW stage one report

Way Off To Dakar
Bright sun and applause.

Bright sun and the applause from an enthusiastic crowd of nearly 200,000 people around the circuit in Barcelona accompanied the start of the 2005 Telefonica-Dakar Rally today.

463 competitors, 100 of which were cars, started with a prologue, a 6 kilometre long special stage on a very soft sand track. Before starting the super special on the beach of Castelldefels the competitors left the Placa de Espanya for a 27km liaison. The 27th Dakar promises to be a spectacular and sandy one. Sand indeed for the 6 kilometres of the course designed by the organisation with the help of quite a few bulldozers to make the show even more spectacular. The two X-raid BMW X5 teams, Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah / Alain Guehennec and Jose Luis Monterde / Rafael Tornabell, finished the first special stage without any problems. They now hold onto 11th (Al Attiyah) and 24th place (Monterde).

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