Date of birth: 6/6/1962Place of birth: Vic, (Barcelona), SpainPlace of residence: Vic, (Barcelona)1980: Competition debut in Motocross1986: Spanish Enduro Champion over-125 cc Gold Medal World Enduro Championship1987: Spanish Raid Champion 4-strokes1988: Spanish Enduro Champion over-125 cc Spanish Raid Champion 4-strokes Gold Medal World Enduro Championship Winner of the Paris-Dakar 500cc class1989: Spanish Enduro Champion 125cc Spanish Raid Champion 4-strokes1990: 2nd overall (3 stage victories) Raid des Pharaons 7th overall (2 stage victories) Paris-Dakar1991: Overall winner Baja Aragón 5th overall (2 stage victories) Paris-Dakar1992: Spanish Raid Champion 3rd overall (1 stage victories) Rally Paris-Le Cap1993: 4th Rally Tunisia Winner of the Atlas Rally 2nd Raid des Pharaons 3rd overall (6 stage victories) Paris-Dakar1994: 3rd Rally Tunisia Winner of the Atlas Rally 2nd overall (5 stage victories) Paris-Dakar1995: 3rd Rally Tunisia 2nd Paris-Moscow-Beijing (5 stage victories) 2nd overall (2 stage victories) Granada-Dakar1996: 2nd (3 stage victories) Granada-Dakar Winner of the Master Rally (Paris-Moscow-Ulaan Bator)1997: Participation in the Dakar-Dakar (1 stage victory) 3rd Master Rally (Paris-Samarkanda-Moscow) Winner of the Challenge Desert UAE Rally (Dubai)1998: 6th Paris-Dakar (1 stage victory) 3rd Rally Tunisia Participation in the Spanish Jet-ski Raid Championship1999: 4th Granada-Dakar (1 stage victory) 2000: Participation in the Paris-Dakar (1 stage victory) 4th Rally of Egypt2001: 2nd Rally Paris-Dakar. (1 stage victory)2002: 7th Rally Paris-Dakar. (1 stage victory)2003: Participation in the Paris-Dakar, car class, with a BMW X52004: Winner of the Paris-Dakar as Team Manager with Nani Roma2005: Runner-up of the Barcelona-Dakar as Team Manager with Marc Coma Cross Country Rally World Champion as Team Manager with Marc Coma2006: Winner of the Lisbon Dakar Rally as Team Manager with Marc Coma Cross Country Rally World Champion as Team Manager with Marc Coma for the second time in a row Speaking about Jordi Arcarons and speaking about the Dakar is almost the same thing. Jordi has raced the Dakar 16 times and if we add his performance as Team Manager of the Repsol KTM team in the last three editions driving a T5 race assistance car, we could say that Arcarons has spent almost half of his life surrounded by dunes, desert and under the African sky. Born in Vic, in 1962, he debuted in competition at the age of 17 and he has never quitted it since then, neither during his time as a rider nor later as Manager of the Repsol KTM team. With an enviable sports career and experience gathered after more than twenty years competing, Arcarons had his first contact with Africa and the Dakar in 1985, when he took the victory of the 500cc class in the Paris-Dakar. His passion for this African race had just begun. Since then, Arcarons achieved and gathered titles in enduro races and raids, on a national and international level, fighting year after year to get on the highest step of the podium in the legendary Paris-Dakar event. The result of his perseverance: four times runner-up in the hardest race of the world and a total of 29 stage victories. The last time he was runner-up of the African race was in 2001, where he won one stage. The following year was his last participation in the Paris –Dakar, finishing seventh, also winning one of the legs. On the podium of that edition he announced his retirement. One year later, in 2003, Arcarons went back to Africa but on a BMW X5. His participation in the Dakar car category was brief and finally Arcarons the rider and driver was gone, but back came Team Manager Arcarons with renewed excitement and energy, providing the Repsol KTM Team with the necessary balance, experience and knowledge to achieve the longed-for victory of a Spanish rider in the Dakar 2004 together with Nani Roma. His project of turning Nani Roma into a champion had finished, and in the search for new challenges, his pupil made the jump to the four wheels. But Jordi Arcarons had not focussed his efforts and teaching on only one man. He had done a very important base job, training other riders, such as Isidre Esteve and Marc Coma, to face again the challenge of winning the hardest rally of the world. For the 2005 rally and always thinking about the future, a new young promise was included in the team, Jordi Durán. The accident suffered by the young rider was a strong blow that curbed his learning process but the team moved on. They took the second place with Marc Coma, and Isidre Esteve almost got on the podium, in a year that was marked by the sad decease of Fabrizio Meoni and José Manuel Pérez El Carni. After the Dakar, the 2005 season continued well for the Repsol team lead by Arcarons, and the results came. Isidre won at the ORPI Rally in Morocco and the Baja España Aragón, while Coma did the same in the rallies of Sardinia, Argentina and Egypt. He was second in Morocco and Dubai and he finally took the World Raid Championship, thus becoming the first and only Spaniard ever to achieve it. In his third year managing the Repsol KTM Team, Jordi Arcarons face the new challenge of taking one of his riders to the top of the 2006 Dakar. Hard and disciplined work, his experience and Coma’s talent allowed him to face the past edition of the Dakar with the sureness and clam of those who know that they are well prepared for a big challenge, a combination that finally resulted in a further victory of a Spanish rider in the most relevant and difficult race of the world of raids. When Jordi Arcarons announced his retirement, he told the attending press people that the time had come to help young Spanish riders to win the African race, and he kept his promise. The following year we were able to enjoy Nani Roma’s victory and that milestone in the world of Spanish motorcycling was followed by Marc Coma’s second place, the victory in 2006 and two FIM Cross Country Rally World Cup titles. But the successful and solid combination Arcarons-Coma is only the tip of the iceberg, a small hint of what is really behind those big stars: a team united by passion and the commitment, which Arcarons has known very well how to foster, to strengthen and to consolidate. There are things that never change, such as the firm words of Jordi Arcarons every time tou ask him for his aims as Team Manager of the Repsol KTM Team: putting my whole experience at the service of the youngest, to let them win this hard African race more than once.
