Dakar 2004: Tanaka Yuki(田中友紀，編號130)

160公分，53公斤，31歲，日本東京人，本次達卡唯一抵達第九站終點的女性車手。達卡拉力賽第九站後，已經超過半數以上的職業或私人參賽的男性車手們陣亡退場。兩則後續新聞。From Gen Kenai:

Riding along was also a small woman with a great potential. Yuki Tanaka is the only woman on a motorbike who has made it so far. The 31-year-old Japanese woman participates for the first time at the Dakar rally. For the giant task she chose a KTM and also booked the support-package with the manufacturer from Mattighofen. If you watch Yuki, you can’t help but marvel about her. The woman is 1.60 meter tall, weighs 53 kg and just loves the challenge. For example, she took on the task to cross the desert on a KTM 660 Rally. “I like the desert and I love motorbikes," explains Yuki, who looks scarred and bruised from her crashes. “I suppose that has got to do with my job as a journalist for several motorcycle magazines."

田中頗活躍於日本的兩輪車雜誌界。去年舉辦的第二屆 Tour de Nippon 中，她得到總排名第三位的成績。

From Lundmark(編號006):

There are hard people, like my former colleague Göte Jonsson, shredder driver for Sveaskog timber. I have seen him bend a crowbar, OK? Then there are other tough persons, like the Japanese girl Yuki Tanaka, the only woman left in the race. She looks small and fragile, but this is just a front.

Yesterday we shared a tent and when she undressed to go to bed I saw that her arms and what I could see of her legs had a deep blue colour. Now, I don’t know what colour they usually are, but blue didn’t seem right, even if I don’t get to see lightly clad Japanese every day. I asked what bike she was riding and she answered a KTM 660 and I asked if she had crashed.

She answered: “Many, many, many times”, and then added with tears in her voice that she had missed a control point and was afraid to be disqualified. When I told her she would already have got a three hour penalty for it, she looked as if she’d won in the lottery. I was impressed by this tiny little power package, with the right will and attitude. And she must be able to ride as well, otherwise she wouldn’t have got this far, like the Swedish rider Maria Sandell who was the only female to finish here in 2002.

她的網站。田中在第九站錯過的CP2(control point 2)，因此在休兵三天後遭到大會決議，取消參賽資格。日本所有八位的參賽車手中，只剩下 Hotta(編號148，堀田修)仍在奮戰未完成的四千公里。今年的達卡拉力難度是在太高…

真女人。本次比賽另一位的 Patsy Quick(編號100)已經先行退賽。Dakar Rallye 舉辦二十六屆以來，尚未有女性摩托車主完賽。田中友紀若明後年再挑戰，很有機會成為史上第一，驚艷世人。誠心祝福田中。