1999 Dakar Rally also known as the 1999 Paris-Dakar Rally was the 21st running of the Dakar Rally event. The race began on 1 January 1999 with 1998 winner, Jean-Pierre Fontenay, being the favourites to win the race. After the fifth stage, the overall rally leader was German driver, Jutta Kleinschmidt, who, in the 1998 rally, was the first woman to ever win a stage of the rally. The event was marked by a robbery on the 12th stage of the rally between Nema and Tichit in Mauritania of fifty competitors by armed men in which vehicles, money and petrol were stolen. Rally co-ordinators decided to continue with the race. The rally was won by French driver, Jean-Louis Schlesser. The motorcycle title was won by Richard Sainct, also a Frenchman.
Famous quotes containing the word rally:
“The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the the land,
In England there shall be dear bread—in Ireland, sword and brand;
And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand,
So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand,
Of the fine old English Tory days;
Hail to the coming time!”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)