The Dakar Starts This Weekend with MKR Technology Trucks
2.1.2016
Here it comes! The world’s toughest rally, the renowned Dakar, has started! More than two weeks of toil and sweat starts with Saturday’s festive prologue. On Sunday the crews will be challenged for the first time in stage one. Members of the north-Bohemia based MKR technology team are good to go and waiting for the race to start in South America.
“All of us set off to South America together on 27 December, so that there would be enough time and space to test the technology that spent more than one month alone on the sea. We wanted to be sure that everything was 100% ready. Renault’s hospitality and service area in Argentina has been an immense benefit for us. Thanks to the fact that everything has been going great, we even had the opportunity to ring in the New Year together, though in a very decent manner this time,“ summed up MKR Technology’s boss Mario Kress the run-up to the start.
As part of the MKR Adventure project the Czech team prepared a pair of Renault Trucks racing specials for the Dutch Mammoet Rallysport team. Truck number 509 will be piloted by Martin van den Brink, who achieved a historic result with the machine in autumn, dominating in the OiLibya Rally. The second special, number 529, will be manned by his colleague Pascal de Baar. In addition, Kress’s team constructed engines for three Bonver Dakar Project’s trucks to be steered by Tomáš Vrátný (513), Arthur Ardavichus (515) and the handicapped racer Albert Llovera (512). Newly with a powertrain from Židovice there will be the Netherlands‘ Gert Huzink on Tatra number 524 starting in the race. Similar to last year the crews are going to support each other throughout the whole event. “The Dakar is not just about top-class technology, which, I dare say, is much better in our case than the last year’s, but also about team support, and above all, a huge portion of luck. However, I insist on saying that in terms of development, we’re still half-way through. Thinking about the podium would be far too bold, despite the successes we’ve recorded so far. Our goal is the elite first ten, and any of the highest ranks would be a cherry on top. Well, impossible is nothing,“ commented the excited Mario Kress before the next Dakar Rally.
The team travelled to Buenos Aires from Prague via Amsterdam. After picking up the technology at the port, they moved to the first bivouac in Rosario, where the whole event is about to wrap up on 16 January. Technical handovers took place on the New Year’s Eve and the New Year’s Day. Saturday’s 11-kilometre prologue, taking the crews from Buenos Aires to Rosario, will establish the starting order for Sunday. The opening stage stretches over 662 km, out of which 258 km is a special section. “The festive prologue is an extraordinary event. There was about a million people in the streets. It’s really quite impossible to describe. We’re all enjoying it immensely because we know there are two weeks of extremely hard work and sleep deprivation ahead of us. I hope that on 16 January we’ll have a reason to cheer after the thirteen stages are over,“ added the experienced mechanic Daniel Kozlovský, who competed as Arthur Ardavichus’ crew mechanic in last year’s rally. This time he and his colleagues form the main support team. Also travelling from Roudnice to South America with Mario Kress and Kozlovský was the Lovosice based electrical engineer Bedřich Frieser and mechanics Michal Procházka, Michal Růžička, Petr Král and Jakub Hřava.
In the 38th Dakar Rally the crews are going to tackle more than nine thousand kilometres in total, including almost four and a half thousand kilometres of special sections. The event starts in Buenos Aires and finishes in Rosario.
