Motorcycle journalist Alastair Walker packed his tent and joined the 2001 Paris-Dakar rally press plane. Follow his adventure as he sleeps rough on desert airstrips, goes slightly mad on anti-malaria drugs, almost freezes to death in the Atlas mountains, and argues with heavily armed men over the price of water. This is a look behind the scenes of one of the great car, truck and motorcycle races. It featured BMW vs KTM in a bitter war of attrition to the flag; crashes, dubious rule changes, landmines, thieves and gunfire in the night. The 2001 Dakar was a dangerous event, for both riders and crew. Walker takes you alongside Brit enduro racer John Deacon and offers the reader a unique insight into how this crazy circus travelled across North West Africa, as riders challenged the searing heat and dust of the Sahara.