04 February 2008 - 20H15
Central Europe to host Dakar Series
Hungary and Romania will in April become first-time hosts of the next Dakar Series, originally scheduled for 2009, the organiser of the Dakar Rally announced Monday just a month after the Europe to Africa race was cancelled for the first time ever.
The Central Europe Rally will take place from April 20 to 26 and was hastily organised to allow those who would have taken part in the Dakar Rally a chance to compete, said Etienne Lavigne, director of the Amaury Sport Organisation, the organiser of the Dakar Rally.
"The race was urgently organised... with the aim of offering Dakar Rally participants a chance to compete and to provide visibility for their sponsors at a big international competition," Lavigne told a press conference in Budapest.
The 3,000-kilometre (1,864-mile) rally will start in Budapest and head eastwards to the northern Romanian city of Sovata, before looping back to Hungary and finishing in the western town of Balatonfured, on the shores of Lake Balaton.
The rally includes some 1,500 kilometres of special competition stages, Lavigne said.
The Dakar Series was originally planned for 2009 but was brought forward after the 2008 Dakar Rally was canceled last month following the murder of four French tourists in Mauritania on December 24 of last year.
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