I saw that Carlos Sainz just won the the Dakar Rally and I don’t understand it. I watched a video and it said that there is no map they have to find the finish line wherever it may be? Is that true? I am trying to read the Wiki page on rallying but I am still not fully understanding what it is. Previously, I thought that rallying was just driving on very unsafe roads as fast as you could.
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There are many forms of rallying. Typically a rally is a motorsports that relies on a combination of distance/time/endurance. A rally consists of a starting point and a destination usually broken down into stages. Some rallies take place over days and dozens of stages and some local ones might just be one day and a few stages.
The Paris/Dakar rally is the most famous endurance rally. It is broken down into various classes that allow motorbikes, cars and trucks of various sizes. Competitors are given instructions for each stage (when to start, where to start, what is the end point, maybe a certain maximum time allowed). It can be free form in a sense that the competitors figure out their own routes stage by stage. These stages can be long, dangerous and brutal – and is why it is an endurance rally. Speed is sometimes secondary to just taking care of the vehicle such that it can finish.
Other rallies are more prescribed. The competitors must follow certain (much shorter) routes and each competitor is allowed on this stages at staggered start times one at a time. The time it take to finish is the main part of the competition. This is the form of the World Rally Championship races.
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