 His first buggy, the Porsche-powered Schlesser Original, debuted in 1992 in the Baja Portugal 1000, which Schlesser won outright, beating the works Citroën cars with a two-wheel drive vehicle and without a navigator by his side.He went on to several 2WD class and overall wins the following years, before taking the overall victory in the 1999 and 2000 editions of the Dakar (respectively, Granada-Dakar and Paris-Dakar-Cairo).In the 2001 Dakar he was near victory but penalised one hour for unsportsmanlike conduct after illegally blocking his closest competitor both at the start and during the penultimate stage.