Rally over for antique shop owner

Patsy Quick crashed out of the race on stage seven in Mauritania

A woman antique shop owner taking part in the Dakar Rally for the third year running is out of the race after a huge crash damaged her bike.

Patsy Quick, 38, from Heathfield, East Sussex, has failed to finish the gruelling race on each of her attempts.

Her rally came to an end after a crash in the desert in Mauritania after which she and her co-driver spent two nights in the Sahara.

They were rescued by armed Mauritanian soldiers who took them to an army camp.

'Surreal and scary'

The crash left Mrs Quick uninjured but badly shaken and her service rider Clive Town said the crash was one of the biggest he had ever seen.

Her bike lost a lot of fuel and though she could continue after 400km it stopped.

As they tried to trace the problem, she and Mr Town were caught in a sandstorm and had to spend the night sleeping in the dunes.

Despite setting off flares to alert race organisers to their position they were not found.

Patsy Quick can usually be found working in her Sussex antique shop

But they were later woken by the soldier, armed with machine guns.

On her own website, Mrs Quick said: "It was a surreal and scary moment at first, we did not know if we were being kidnapped or what was going on because no one spoke English, but once we realised they were sent their to help it was fine."

They and their bikes were taken to an army camp, where they were fed and spent the night in a tent, before being taken to a race camp, spending another night in the desert on the way.

Mrs Quick and Mr Town were due to make their way home via Paris in the next few days.

The race, this year running from the Spanish city of Barcelona to Dakar in Senegal, is due to finish on Sunday.

Two motorcyclists have died during this year's rally - two-time winner Fabrizio Meoni from Italy and Spain's Jose Manuel Perez.