INTERNATIONAL motorcycle champion and former British Endurance Team captain John Deacon has joined the BMW factory team for the 2000 Paris-Dakar-Cairo Rally in January 2000.
He will ride one of two BMW R1150 GS/RR making their debut in the race. Deacon, 36, finished sixth in the 1999 Dakar and 8th the year before.
John is the first ever British stage winner of the Paris Dakar and is seeded 5th this year. He will be partnered by 30-year-old Jimmy Lewis from the USA, who finished 4th in the 1997 Dakar.
The other four members of the BMW Motorcycle Team Enduro are the same ones who rode to victory in January this year.
Rally-winning French rider Richard Sainct and his fellow-countryman Jean Brucy (20th), Spanish rider Oscar Gallardo (9th), and German rider Andrea Mayer from Kaufbeuren (32nd and winner of the Ladies' Cup), will compete on F 650 RR single-cylinder machines.
Under the guidance of Berthold Hauser, BMW's Motorcycle Sports Director, and team capitan Richard Schalber, the whole team is determined to win again next year.
As a warm up event, the entire BMW Motorcycle Team Enduro were riding in this year's UAE Desert Challenge in Dubai staged last week.
Story date: Wednesday 10 November
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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