'Sunshine' takes Paris-Dakar rally

Jutta Kleinschmidt during this year's Paris-Dakar rally

In this story: A motoring career Fire and ice RELATED STORIES, SITES

By CNN.com Europe writer Paul Sussman

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Her fellow rally drivers call Jutta Kleinschmidt "Sunshine" on account of her permanent smile.

Now, after her ground-breaking win in the Paris-Dakar rally -- she's the first woman to take the title -- the nickname appears even more appropriate, with pictures showing Kleinschmidt grinning atop the winner's podium.

GALLERY Images from the Paris-Dakar rally

"It's fantastic," she says. "Incredible -- I can hardly believe it."

Born the second of four sisters on August 29, 1962, in Cologne, Germany, Kleinschmidt developed an early fascination for cars and engines.

"I've always had a penchant for four-wheel drives," she says on her personal Web site, jutta-kleinschmidt.de.

After school she studied physics at Kempten Technical College, where her degree thesis, "The Development and Implementation of a Test System for Air-Conditioning in Cars," provided a curious foreshadowing of her subsequent involvement in the world of desert rallying.

In 1987 Kleinschmidt took up a job in BMW's science and research department in Munich.

The same year, she also took her first steps into the male-dominated world of rallying when she followed the 6,658-mile (10,715 kms) Paris-Dakar rally on a BMW motorbike as a spectator.

"I must have been the only spectator to have followed the entire rally so closely," she says. "It was quite an adventure. After that I knew I definitely wanted to take part in a desert rally myself."

She got the opportunity the following year when she rode a motorbike in the Pharoah Rally in Egypt, her first major desert rallying event.

"In those early days I didn't have a proper garage," her Web site explains. "So I had to do all my bike maintenance in my own apartment. It got to the point where I had bike parts vying for space with baking trays on my kitchen sideboard."

Kleinschmidt took part in her first Paris-Dakar rally in 1992, placing 23rd overall in the motorbike class and first in the women's category.

Kleinschmidt's victory, with co-driver Andreas Schulz, marks the pinnacle of her career

In the same year, convinced that driving was her life, she quit her job at BMW and turned professional, devoting herself to rallying full time.

Since then she has participated in races around the world, from the searing deserts of North Africa to the icy wastes of the Arctic Circle.

"Fire and ice is probably a suitable slogan for my career," she says. "I get as much of a thrill racing on ice as I do on sand."

The Paris-Dakar, however, the toughest long-distance rally in the world, remained her greatest challenge.

She first took part as a driver in 1995 as a member of the Mitsubushi team. The following year she was the first woman to win a stage of the rally, and in 1999 she and co-driver Tina Thorner placed 3rd overall.

Her victory in this year's race, with German co-driver Andreas Schulz, marks the pinnacle of her career.

"To be the first woman to win the Dakar is not the most important thing for me," she says. "Above all I am a driver."

With so much of her energy devoted to rallying, Kleinschmidt has little time for other pursuits. She now lives in Monaco, where, according to her site, she enjoys cooking, socialising and grocery shopping.

Kleinschmidt is single and once dated French rally-driver Jean-Louis Schlesser, a two-time winner of the Paris-Dakar and third overall in this year's race.

"I don't have much spare time," she says. "The little I do have I like to use to relax."

Queen of the desert
January 21, 2001
Spectators killed in car rally crash
September 3, 2000

Jutta Kleinschmidt
Paris-Dakar Rally

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