Dakar riders to face speed limits in 2006
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-11 20:12

Motorcycle riders will be restricted to a top speed of 150kph in the 2006 Dakar Rally after two deaths in the endurance event this year.

 Organisers said on Wednesday that the limits, applied to trucks this year, would help improve safety and make the competition closer.

 "The Dakar is not a speed race," they said in a statement, saying the event was more a test of navigational skills and endurance for man and machine.

 Italy's Fabrizio Meoni, twice a winner of the rally, and Spanish amateur Jose Manuel Perez died this year in a race which has seen 22 competitors killed since its debut as the Paris-Dakar in 1978.

 The 2006 Dakar will start from Lisbon on December 31 and go through Guinea for the first time since 1996, organisers said.

 The rally will also visit Morocco, Mauritania and Mali before it ends in Dakar, Senegal, on January 15.

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