You might think it’s a self-evident question. I’ll ask it anyway. Where in the world is this year’s Dakar Rally being staged?

If you’re not a motorsport enthusiast, a reasonable knowledge of geography should point you to Africa. If motorsport is your thing, mere mention of “The Dakar” will probably conjure images of a motley assortment of vehicles bashing Saharan dunes en route to the capital city of Senegal.

So there we have it. The answer must be, at least in part, Senegal. Only it isn’t. Five years ago, the rally decamped to South America. The 2014 edition of The Dakar will take place in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia.

The race has literally come a long way since its inauguration in 1979, and yet, even though its name is now geographically erroneous, its fundamentals have remained constant. It was, and is, a genuine test of endurance and survival. With justification, it calls itself “the toughest race in the world,” pushing vehicles and drivers to the limit. And it is still as controversial as ever, with critics pointing to its environmental impact, to its perceived disregard of the welfare of people living along the route and to the ever-mounting death toll of participants and bystanders.

Thierry Sabine, the race’s founder, joined the gloomy roll call when he was killed in a helicopter crash during the 1986 edition. He had conceived the idea of an annual rally across the Sahara when he got lost in the Libyan desert while competing, on a motorbike, in a one-off race from Abidjan to Nice in 1978. Stranded in the wilderness, he was struck by the beauty of the dunes, and he recognized, firsthand, the immense off-road challenge they presented. The following year, the first Paris-Dakar Rally was held, attracting a mix of amateur and professional competitors in cars, trucks and on motorbikes.

Paris never entirely welcomed the race, which is strange, given that a horde of cars, trucks and motorbikes jostling for position at breakneck speed is the daily norm on the streets of that city. In later years, the starting point was shifted to other locations in France, as well as to Spain and Portugal. The finishing line was usually in Dakar, until, in 2008, direct threats were made against the race by an Al-Qaeda affiliate. That year’s rally was canceled at the last minute. The Dakar’s entire future was in doubt.

The organizers searched the world for a region that could provide similar terrain and remoteness. They found it in Argentina, where the race was welcomed by a half-million spectators in Buenos Aires. On Jan. 3, 2009, the crowds lined the streets, sending off 217 motorbikes, 25 quad bikes, 177 cars and 81 trucks on their 6,000-mile, two-week odyssey across desert and over mountains.

This month, the 35th running of the rally will begin in the Argentinean city of Rosario before heading north into Bolivia, where man and machine will have to cope with the perilously thin air of high altitude. The surviving competitors will then wend their way down the coast of Chile, reaching the port of Valparaíso on Jan. 18.

Amateurs and professionals will race head to head, with the daily ups and downs followed by a huge global television audience. There will be accidents along the way, perhaps even deaths. This is not a sanitized sport in which safety overrides all else. Raw danger is part of the romance.

For thrill-seekers, Thierry Sabine’s original slogan is still the most eloquent expression of what The Dakar represents: “A challenge for those who go, a dream for those who stay behind.”