MKR reaching for golden hattrick in Morocco

5.10.2017

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The OiLibya Rally has started, with a truck from the Czech MKR Technology team among hot candidates for victory again. This would be the team’s third win here, as the Renault Trucks specials by Mario Kress had not found a match in the two previous years of the rally. After a year-long break the Dutch pilot Martin van den Brink has set his eyes on gold.

            In their last two starts the crew of the special from Židovice celebrated a win each time. While van den Brink dominated in the Morocco rally in 2015, last year’s triumph was swept by his fellow countryman Gert Huzink, who debuted here as a pilot of the Czech team. “Two years ago we recorded our first historical win in a distance rally with Martin here. We could say that the OiLibya rally is a matter of the heart for us. Since then we have achieved repeated success and, above all, we have evolved and moved forward a great deal. Of course, there have been some tough bumps on that road. That comes with the territory. We’re constantly learning and working on becoming better, and so even this time the Morocco rally is mainly an excellent test of the technology for us. Success in the ranking would be icing on the cake. We never go anywhere just ‘to take part’,” smiled Mario Kress, chief constructor of MKR Technology.

            Morocco will see a single truck with Martin van den Brink’s crew. Much against the tradition though they will be racing in the Renault Trucks K 520 special. “Their usual Renault CBH 385 will be testing in the French Alps next week, where we want to focus on optimizing turbo regulation. Dakar will take place in high altitudes, and so we need to get ready for that,” explained Mario Kress why van den Brink’s crew changed places.

            Organized under the high patronage of King Mohammed VI, the rally consists of five stages. Specials are about to start on Friday and the winner will be announced on Tuesday. In total, the crews will have to tackle two and half thousand kilometres, out of which two thousand will be timed. The race opened with a super special, including twelve timed kilometres, on Thursday, which has determined the starting order for stage one on Friday. The truck constructed at the MKR Technology centre will be starting from the front of the field. In the prologue he was beaten only by Argentina’s Villagra by seven seconds. “We got lost in the dust behind one of the cars. It a while before Martin had a chance to overtake it. Now we’re looking forward to the first stage already,” commented Daniel Kozlovský, the crew mechanic from Roudnice.

            Stage one from Fés to Erfoud stretches over four hundred and sixty kilometres. The timed special is only one hundred kilometres shorter.

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