Born November 6, 1959 in North Carolina, Chuck Stearns is the son of an engineer who works at Boeing. He is only 8 years old when he gets on an off-road motorcycle for the first time. In 1978, he started two-wheels racing and in less than a year he was recognized as one of the best desert racing specialists. In this discipline, very popular in the States, Chuck won twenty-eight victories in four years.
In 1982 Yamaha USA hires him after his performance in the Baja 1000. A French woman, Marie Do becomes his manager and allows him to try his luck in the Old Continent. In 1984 he entered the team with Yamaha and Sonauto and with the IT490 he won the Montesblancos Baja Spain with Serge Bacou. In 1985 he joined the Gauloises Yamaha Dakar team of Jean-Claude Olivier and Serge Bacou on the Yamaha XT660 Ténéré. His first participation in the most difficult rally in the world is dazzling, winning 6 stages – no one did better than him in that edition – and finished 6th overall.
Talented, tough and very charismatic, Chuck has a bright sporting future waiting for him. After a brief experience in the United States where he contracted pneumonia, he returned to France to prepare for the Enduro du Touquet in February and the Rally of Tunisia in March. But without knowing it, Chuck is already seriously ill.
His mother will tell: “In 1983, Chuck had a motorcycle accident and had to undergo a blood transfusion. Blood that unfortunately will be infected with the HIV virus. In the early 1980s, nobody knew much about this horrible disease." His last race after the Paris-Dakar was the Tunisia Rally in March 1985 where he had to withdraw and was urgently repatriated with an airlift to Paris.
On October 6, 1985, one month before his 26th birthday, the very loud “Desert boy” dies.
Via : parisdakar.it
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