The KTM LC4 660R that Nani Roma rode to victory at the 2004 Paris–Dakar Rally is back home after a “quick check-up”. However, Roma noted the biggest takeaway from his baby’s return is a sheet of paper inside the seat bag that contained the ASO’s briefing for Stage 7.

Stage 7 was the longest of the race up to that point (second longest overall) with 701 kilometers in Selective Sections sandwiched by road sections of 345 and nine kilos. The leg started in the Moroccan city of Tan-Tan before crossing the border into Mauritania, finishing in Atar.

Roma had won Stage 6, so he was the first bike on the course for January 7’s action.

“I started the special stage at 7:00 and arrived in Atar at 17:00… the support crews arrived at 19:00,” Roma recalled. “So we were all lying down waiting at the Atar airport!! Those were really tough days! but wonderful moments!!”

Gioele Meoni, whose father Fabrizio finished the 2004 Dakar in sixth overall, quipped about Roma’s story: “Times have changed, right?”

The stage for bikes was won by defending champion Richard Sainct, who was dealing with an arm injury. Jean Brucy was second, finishing seven minutes back, followed by Cyril Despres, Alfie Cox, and Roma. Roma was 12:19 behind Sainct.

“Nobody now really understands the really long Dakar stages back then,” Annie Seel commented. While the rider-turned-navigator didn’t run the 2004 Dakar, she was a bike regular during the decade.

Isidre Esteve had entered Stage 7 as the overall bike leader but crashed out, so Despres inherited the top spot. Roma won the next day to take the lead. Although Despres would claim two more stage victories, mechanical issues knocked him out of overall contention.

Roma won Stages 6 and 8 en route to beating Sainct for his maiden Dakar victory by 12:38.

With a Dakar bike title finally under his belt after years of misfortune, Roma made the switch to driving in 2005. In 2014, ten years after his two-wheeled triumph, he won the overall in a Mini. Roma is among a small company of racers who’ve won Dakar on both a motorcycle and in a car alongside Hubert Auriol and Stéphane Peterhansel.

2026 will be Roma’s 29th Dakar and third with Ford. He won a stage at the 2025 edition but didn’t have a chance for the overall due to an early engine failure.

Featured image credit: DPPI