Dakar 2004. Stage 1

Snow plays leading role at the Dakar 2004 start
Low temperatures join the riders during the first day
Intense snowfall over the central massif in France and the city of Clermont Ferrand marked the development of the first day at the Dakar 2004. The official start was given this morning but the weather conditions, very adverse during the prologue stage, lead the race organisation to authorise all motorbike riders to load their machines into the assistance trucks without having to make the liaison routes on the road, as initially planned.The prologue stage had a length of 1.5 km on compacted sand but none of the Repsol KTM riders has been able to ride under adequate conditions. The snow started to fall when Isidre Esteve, fourth fastest, was taking the start and his teammates Marc Coma and Joan Roma took things with a lot of calm considering the extremely muddy conditions of the road. The stage finished without any special news and the participants are now on the highway heading towards Narbonne, today’s final destination and venue of the 25 km special stage, which is going to be held tomorrow.Isidre Esteve: ‘The Italian Graziani, who won the stage today, found the track in good conditions. It began to snow when I took the start. This fourth position is good, but it has no real importance. What we really needed was to start the race after such a long waiting time ‘.Marc Coma: ‘There was a lot of mud and it was very easy to end up on the ground. Given the circumstances, I decided to be careful and wait until tomorrow’s special’.Joan Roma: ‘I already found a lot of mud the first time I used the brakes and there is no reason to take any risks in a 1.5 km special. We’ll have time enough to take risks once in the desert’. Classification1 Mateo Graziani (KTM) 2 Cyril Despres (KTM) 3 Richard Sainct (KTM)4 Isidre Esteve (Repsol KTM) 5 David Fretigne (Yamaha) Today’s stageClermont-Ferrand – Narbonne. Special: 1.5 Km. Liaison: 395 Km. Total: 396.5 Km And tomorrow&Narbonne – Castellón. Liaison: 6 Km. Special: 25 km. Liaison: 500 Km. Total: 531 Km.