RUST magazine: RUST#40

Chris Evans
I
hadn’t been on a rally since the
2017 Dakar so I was reasonably
excited as I set off for the Rallye
du Maroc back in early October.
The last round of the FIM world
championship, it had been bought
earlier in the year by David Castera, ex-
Sporting Director of the Dakar, ex-codriver
for Cyril Despres with Peugeot,
the last man to win the Gilles Lalay
Classic (just ahead of Despres), exwater
carrier for Peterhansel when he
was riding for Yamaha and, as leaked
out during the race, future co-driver
for Peterhansel on next year’s Dakar. A
man with a reasonably chunky CV. A
man that it has always been a pleasure
to work for.
In the good old days, you could
work for everyone and there was a
time when I was employed by five
or six different rallies in the same
year. Unfortunately, that all changed
when the Dakar started demanding
exclusivity. I suppose that is
understandable in certain situations.
When I was Dakar correspondent
they asked me to stop representing
other events so I reluctantly complied.
I could understand there might be
a conflict of interest. But a year ago
when they objected to me working
on the Silkway Rally as press officer
it was time to push back. There was
no conflict of interest and in the
term freelance there’s the word ‘free’.
It was possibly not the most astute
move I have ever made financially but
knowing that they’d never accept me
working for Castera and knowing of
his plans to buy the Rallye du Maroc I
thought it was a good moment to bow
out semi-graciously.
At the organisers meeting in Fes it
quickly became apparent I wasn’t the
only one who had decided to vote with
their feet. There were a number of ex-
ASO full time employees who taken
time off from their new jobs to work for
Castera, plus a whole raft of volunteers
who knew that working on the Rallye
du Maroc would mean they wouldn’t
w
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