Jordi Arcarons

Date of birth: 06/06/1962
Birthplace: Vic – Catalunya – Spain
Hometown: Barcelona – Catalunya – Spain
Nacionality: Spanish

To talk about Jordi Arcarons and to talk about the Dakar is nearly the same. Jordi has taken part in a total of 16 editions of the renowned African event. If we add to it his work as Repsol KTM Team Manager in another six editions, we could say that Arcarons has lived nearly half of his life among dunes, desserts and under the African sky. Born in Vic in 1962, he made his competitive debut at 17 and, since then, he has never left competition, both when he was a rider o later as Manager of the Repsol KTM Team.

With an enviable track record and experience during his more than twenty years in competition, Arcarons had his first contact with Africa and the Dakar in 1985, when, in his first try, he won the 500cc class of the Paris-Dakar. His passion for this African event had just started. Since then, Arcarons gathered several raid and enduro titles, both national and international. He fought year after year to take the first step of the podium in the legendary Paris-Dakar event. The result of his persistence: four second places in the toughest race in the world and a total of 29 stage victories.

In 2001 he achieved his last runner-up position of the African race, where he won one of the stages. The next year he took part in the Dakar for the last time, finishing in seventh place and also winning one of the stages. On the podium of that edition he announced everyone that he was to retire. A year later, 2003, Arcarons returned to Africa, but at the wheel of a BMW X5. His car experience at the Dakar was brief; finally Arcarons as a rider was gone, but in his place arrived Arcarons as Team Manager, with renewed expectations and energy. He gave balance, experience and knowledge enough to the Repsol KTM Team to achieve a long-awaited victory of a Spanish rider in the Dakar in 2004 together with Nani Roma.

His project to help Nani Roma become a champion had culminated and, looking for new challenges, his pupil took the leap to the four wheels in 2005. But Jordi Arcarons had not focused all his efforts and lessons to just one man. He had made an important training work, as in the case of Isidre Esteve and Marc Coma, to face the new challenge to take the victory in the toughest rally in the world. For the 2005 edition and, as always, thinking about the future, the team signed a new enduro star, Jordi Durán. The young rider’s accident was a hard blow that interrupted his learning process, but the team continued. They took the second position with Marc Coma, and Isidre Esteve finished just outside the podium, in an edition marred by the sad passing of Fabrizio Meoni and José Manuel Pérez “El Carni”.

After the Dakar, the 2005 season continued brilliantly for the Repsol team managed by Arcarons, and good results kept arriving. Isidre won the Moroccan Rally ORPI and the Baja España Aragón, while Coma took the victory in Sardinia, Argentina and Egypt and was second in Morocco and Dubai, which allowed him to take the title of the Raids World Championship, becoming the first and only Spanish rider that has achieved this feat up to now.

In his third year as Manager of the Repsol KTM Team, Jordi Arcarons faced in 2006 the new challenge to take one of his riders to the top position of the Dakar and keep bringing up new stars. In that case, it was Jordi Viladoms. The hard and efficient work, his experience and Coma’s capabilities allowed them to face the Dakar with the security and coolness of someone who know he is well prepared for a big test. A combination that ended with a new victory of a Spanish rider in the most difficult and famous round in the world of raids. This fantastic result was also confirmed with a new title in the Raids World Championship for Marc Coma and the fifth position for Viladoms who, in his first Dakar had an excellent race until he crashed only a hundred kilometres before reaching the Senegal capital.

A new Raids World Championship in 2007 gave proof of the strength of the project started by Arcarons. It was also just about to gave a new victory to Coma in the Dakar, as he dominated the race until three days before the end he had to retire due to a crash. For the 2008 Lisboa Dakar 2008, the plan was repeated and Arcarons led a team formed by Coma, Viladoms and Gerard Farrés, another young Catalan rider that joined the Repsol KTM Team during the year, making his debut with an outstanding performance at the Dubai Rally, where he was fourth.

Nevertheless, the Dakar organizers were forced to cancel the event the day before it started due to the growing terrorist threat in Africa. A hard blow for all that magical continent’s lovers, that opened a confusing future. The new destination of the Dakar in 2009 was known soon: Argentina and Chile. The work at the Repsol KTM Team did not stop. During the season, Jordi Arcarons kept leading Coma, Viladoms and Farrés, both in the Dakar Series and in the Raids World Championship, with an eye always on the new challenge that would start and finish in Buenos Aires. The new Dakar adventure in South America finished with Marc Coma’s victory, escorted by his two team mates, which confirmed the excellent strategy devised by Jordi Arcarons as leader of the Repsol KTM Team.

With Coma’s extraordinary progression and after the 2010 edition of the Dakar, marked by the controversial penalty given to the Repsol rider, Arcarons decided to face a new challenge, following the philosophy that had made him keep his link to the competition when he finished his career as a rider: “To put all my experience at the service of the younger riders to help them win the hardest African race”. There are things that never change and Jordi Arcarons’ firm words every time he is asked about his aims in an event such as the Dakar made him cross the path of the several times Trial World Champion: Laia Sanz.

With his experience and will to teach, Arcarons trained the Repsol rider all the 2010 year, showing her the secrets to navigate the dessert, how to interpret a roadbook and how to read the dunes and the clues that the participants find in an event like the Dakar. Not only that, but he also decided to entry the event in which he had already participated 16 times to support the Catalan rider and advise her “from inside”.

When he announced his retirement, Arcarons said to the media that it was time to help the young Spanish riders to win the African race and he fulfilled his promise. The next  year we were able to enjoy Nani Roma’s victory and this feat in the national motorcycling world was followed by a second position in the Dakar 2005 for Marc Coma, victories in 2006 and 2009, and three titles for Coma as Rallyes Cross Country FIM World Champion. After these achievements, and with the same philosophy, he face a new and great challenge at 48: to compete in the Dakar as support rider of the great rider that is Laia Sanz. The result: the final victory for Laia in the females category -39th overall-, and the master, covering the back of his pupil, classified in the final 41st. position.