The truck from North Bohemia sweeps a second win in a row
20.4.2016
The MKR Technology team truck has achieved a second consecutive victory in the Moroccan Libya Rally. The pilot Martin van den Brink brought it to the finish line of stage five in the fastest time. As a result, the crew including a Roudnice crew mechanic moves up to the winners’ podium of the overall ranking two days before the rally’s end.
“We can safely say that this has been the best stage so far this year. The technology works well, problems avoided us this time and Martin really enjoyed driving through the terrain as the very first pilot of all. Perhaps a bit too much for my taste but that’s a subjective feeling of a passenger. I suppose that the pilot behind the steering wheel sees it differently. Some of the jumps were really too long for me,” confessed Daniel Kozlovský, the crew mechanic going in the truck number 501.
According to most of the crews the three hundred and thirty kilometre distance from Mhamid to Merzouga was the most beautiful so far. Martin van den Brink‘s North Bohemia-born truck overtook all cars and cleared the way for the competitors. This brought a few breath-taking moments. “The sun was standing high and we had a hard time recognizing the differences between the dunes. We made about three five-metre jumps. I think we wouldn’t have had much trouble jumping over another truck. In contrast, at the end we ran over a broken dune, which was followed by a steep downhill. Fortunately, we ended up on the wheels and not the roof like others, who had to give up the race afterwards,“ described Kozlovský the treacherousness of driving in sand dunes.
The Židovice special made it to the finish after nearly five hours by a ten-minute margin to the second Bouwens from Belgium. In the general ranking the Dutch-Czech crew is on third place, losing an hour and fifteen minutes on the leading pilot Bouwens. The penultimate stage will take place on the five hundred kilometres between Merzouga and Matarka.
