Major Off Road Rally Raids Around The World

Off Road Rally raid, also known as Cross Country Rallying is a long distance, multi day off-road race. Where contestants may have to travel over 900 kilometers per day, over rough terrain, the event can take anywhere from 3 to 15 days to complete. Each race usually has different class of vehicles, which can include Moto Class, Cars Class, and Trucks.

The Moto Class consists of three groups, unmodified production motorcycles, Super production bikes, and Quads. This is then further subdivided between engine cc. Common bikes include those made by KTM, Yamaha, and BMW. The Car class consists of vehicles, which weigh less than 3,500 Kgs. This division is further divided into three groups consisting of Improved Cross Country Vehicles, Cross Country Series Production Vehicles and Open Class Vehicles. This class presently dominated by Mitsubishi Pajero, Volkswagen Touareg, the Bowler Wild Cat and Nissan Navara. The Truck classes consists of any vehicle over 3,500 Kgs, and are divided into two groups, T4.1 and T4.2. T4.1 trucks cover production trucks, while T4.2 Trucks cover modified trucks.

The most famous of rally raid has to be the Dakar Rally, previously known as "The Paris - Dakar Rally". This annual rally raid started in 1978 from Paris to Dakar, Senegal. The race followed different routes throughout its history. Since 2009 the rally has taken place in South America. With over 80% of its participants as amateurs, no other rally raid has a larger following. The terrain traversed is much tougher than the terrain experienced in normal rally's, and the vehicles used are real off-road vehicles, than simply redesigned normal vehicles. The competitions special sections consists of crossing mud, dunes, rocks, camel grass, among many other types of environments.

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The Raid De Himalaya, is considered to the world's highest rally. Started in 1999, it starts from Shimla to Srinager in India. This 6 Day event consists of 4 days of driving across the mountainous regions of north India. With cold temperatures, and twisty turns around the landscape, the Raid De Himalaya, is considered to one of the most difficult challenges among the rally raid races around the world. This rally is more of an endurance test, than a test of speed. The X-Treme race consists of a rated difficulty of 9 out of 10 among the various rally raids.

The Rallye Aiche des Gazelles du Maroc is raid rally that is unique in the sense that it allows only female drivers to compete. Held in the deserted parts of Southern Morocco, starting from Meknes and finishing in Essaouria, this rally has three categories namely, Quad/Motorbike, 4WD/Truck and Crossover. Using only a compass and a map, contestants have to negotiate a total of 2,500 kilometers of terrain consisting of stony plains, West Saharan desert, and dried out riverbeds. The contest is not of speed, but the winner is judged by the least travelled distance between way points, in a given amount of time.

Rally Raids are known and followed throughout the world for the amount of rough handling and stress that has to be endured by both driver and vehicle. Rally Raids are a true, un-biased and peaceful testing grounds for each generation of Off-Road Vehicles created by its manufactures. With a surprising fact that has proven itself over the years is that the best civilian off-road vehicles, have been rally winners.




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