All three MKR trucks started the 6th stage of Dakar

12.1.2018

6th stage of Rally Dakar took place in a very strange atmosphere. Truck driven by Martin van den Brink, which had stayed in the dunes the day before and had not made the start of fifth stage, was allowed to start. So all three north-bohemian trucks designed by MKR Technology finished this stage. Janus van Kasteren finished in top 10.

            During the sixth test all the trucks left Peru and got to Bolivia. On 760 kilometres going from Arequipa to La Paz they had 313 km of timed special section. For the first time this year the drivers were not going through dune fields and you could see it on the finish ranking - gaps were only in minutes. Villagra from Argentina with Iveco won the stage ahead of Czech driver Martin Kolomý. Renault Trucks drivers lost only marginally - ninth van Kasteren from Mammoet Rallysport lost quarter an hour on the winner, Gerd Huzink was another eight minutes back

            Dutch-Czech crew with driver van den Brink and on-board technician Kozlovský from Roudnice nad Labem was left in a very strange situation. Surprisingly they appeared on the start list of 6th stage. They successfully finished this stage on tenth place with a roughly ten-minute loss. But their result disappeared in the same surprising way. “Honestly, we are now waiting what would happen. We perforated our oil tank and we have not made it in time out of the dunes to get to the start line of the fifth stage. But the truck was of capable of continuing, so was the team, so we were happy we could start the sixth stage. We expected a massive penalty and of course we had no intentions to interfere with the overall standings, but we would be very happy, if it was possible, to have success in individual stages and test the truck as much as possible. But now we are all waiting what the organizers will allow us,“  Mario Kress, project of MKR Adventure project, is describing current situation in Bolivia.

            In overall standings, Russian Nikolaev with Kamaz is still in the lead and his gap over second Villagra is more than fifty minutes. Gerd Huzink is in eleventh position the highest placed MKR Technology truck, Janus van Kasteren is sixteenth.

            Once in Bolivia, teams have much deserved day off. They will spend it in La Paz and from here they will start their final week of Dakar. 671kilometre stage number seven to Uyuni is ready. Teams first have to tackle three-hundred kilometres long transfer and then there is 370km long special section. This time it will be an extreme of different nature. The entire stage is over 3700m of altitude and the teams will climb some two hundred metres more. “It will be a big test of both machinery and our bodies. There is substantially less oxygen at this altitude, so it will not be very pleasant. But we will cope with that. It will be same for everyone,” remarked Mario Kress from MKR Technology