Dakar 2003. Report

Interview with Joan Roma
‘I’m sure I’ll be soon thinking about next season, enduro, raids & And shortly I’ll be back here, in the Dakar’.
 He’s lying on a stretcher with the serum on his left forearm in the Sarir field hospital, just about to be taken to the hospital in Cairo, where he’ll have a magnetic resonance. After that, at 1.15 a.m. on Monday he has a reservation on an Iberia flight departing from Cairo, arriving at 4.00 a.m. in Barcelona. But the organisation is trying to get an earlier flight. It won’t be confirmed until tonight. Roma feels much better than yesterday, he can even get up on the stretcher to have something to eat and can easily move the bandaged hand, where he had the fracture of the head of the ulna. How do you feel?I’m longing to get home, because being here is crazy. I want to go to some place where I don’t hear anything about the Dakar for some days. Especially today, after seeing what happened to Meoni and what I could have done. We’ve been bored on slow tracks, taking care of the bikes and the tyres, and now that we have reached the part where I could have done a good job, I’m here…I want to go home.  And where does it physically hurt?I feel much better than yesterday, because what is been hurting and worrying me a lot was the back. Today I feel the consequences of the crash: my arms, my neck, my back are hurting… It’s normal but this doesn’t worry me much, it happens when you fall off the bike What would you change of what you did in this Dakar?(Laughter) That corner, that damned corner where I crashed. Now I would take it in a different way. No, I wouldn’t do anything different, because I think I was doing a good race and the facts are showing it: the strategy is to go with the leading group, where I was and go day by day. I was doing everything very good, taking care of the mousse so that it wouldn’t break, taking care of the bike & but these things happen: on a track full of stones you get one and if 99 times of 100 nothing happens, this time it did. I got that stone and here I am. Maybe it was a mistake, I don’t know but such is the ground and that’s how it happened. But I wouldn’t change anything, I was having fun on the bike. What I would change are Isidre’s (Esteve) engines, not letting them break, because it’s been a shame for him.  Isn’t it demoralising to fight every year for victory and see how in the last moment something happens?Yes. The truth is that it is very difficult to recover. When I was lying on the floor after the crash and the doctors were taking care of me I thought if it was really worth it. Because if the bike breaks it’s bad luck. But once you suffer a crash like this &It’s different. The advantage is that we forget bad things very quickly and I’m sure that I’ll be soon thinking about next season, enduro, raids… And shortly I’ll be back here, in the Dakar. The problem is that every year you are a bit more exhausted and it is hard because this race is very hard to prepare. It’s several months of working and stuff and then something like this happens. But such is the Dakar.  Do you know when you’ll be able to be back on a bike?No, they haven’t told me anything yet. They have to make some further exams and they haven’t told me anything about the arm either. I don’t know whether it is serious or only a small fracture. But I’m not worried about it because I can move my hand without problems. I even have strength. I think that I soon will be able to ride again. And if not, I’ll take a rest, because last year has been very heavy and I’m not in a hurry. Which are your plans for this year?I’m going to participate in the Raid World Championship, because the twins are already scoring. And I’ll also do the Spanish Enduro Championship, some rounds of the World Championship and, well, I won’t have much time left to do more What advise would you give Marc Coma for the rest of the rally?He has to take things very easy, because things are happening every day. Now he’s tenth and he can improve. If he manages to finish he’ll be even higher. The problem is that if he finishes among the top five, next year they’ll expect something better and that can mean a lot more pressure. That’s the problem. The good thing is to finish fifteenth in your first or second year. Being fifteenth is O.K. But considering everything that is happening in this race, with us fast ones pulling out, maybe Marc manages to finish among the top five if nothing happens to him. Look at Brucy who is fourth… and he is a second man! This is good and it’s great, but it’s hard with regard to next year. If he finishes among the top five this year and doesn’t next year, they’ll say that he’s a failure. We live in a country where it is impossible to move backwards. And that would be additional pressure because it’s clear that Marc doesn’t have the rhythm yet, he doesn’t know how to navigate, he doesn’t know anything, because he is still learning. He’s doing a very good race, he’s doing what he has to do, but he isn’t ready yet because he doesn’t know how to read the road book and how to work with the GPS. He’s learning and he’ll have to continue learning next year. I wouldn’t like him experiencing what happened to me: the first year, without knowing anything, I took the lead. And from the next year on I started with the pressure of having to be in the front with almost no experience for such a hard race like this.