Tragedy! Van den Brink’s truck ends up in flames on the Dakar
5.1.2016
We have received some really bad news from South America. The Dakar Rally drama has reached the ultimate extreme. During stage two Martin van den Brink’s truck literally burnt down. As a result, the world’s toughest rally has finished prematurely for the Dutch Mammoet Rallysport crew driving a truck built by MKR Technology. Details of the tragedy are being determined. Fortunately, the crew remained unharmed.
Undoubtedly, the 38th Dakar Rally will not be an easy one to forget for the MKR Technology and Mammoet Rallysport teams. The race had not even started properly, yet for the crew no. 509 things are over. Almost as if this year’s Dakar was somehow cursed. After the prologue had to be cancelled due to an accident of a car which drove off the track and hit the spectators and stage one had to be neutralised due to heavy rain, the dramatic development peaked during stage two. The crews were supposed to tackle eight hundred kilometres of the track from Villa Carlos Paz to Termaes de Rio Hondo. Special section was planned for five hundred and ten kilometres, but the organizers decided to cut it short for safety reasons. Bursting with excitement, the crews finally started, yet fans of the Dutch pilot, who started on tenth place, had to wait a long wait for any information from the track. Van den Brink did not come up in the on-line feed, though he reportedly passed the third of the nine special sections on a solid eighth place. Suddenly, shocking news came in that the truck went up in flames due to causes which are yet to be clarified. “So far we only know that no one was injured and the guys escaped without a scratch, though we don’t know the details. Anyway, the Dakar is over for us. It’s a real tragedy, a whole year of hard work went out of the window in a second. But I guess that’s just how Dakar is,“ commented the MKR Technology executive manager Klára Kress, almost wordless.
Martin van den Brink, who managed to win the OiLibya Rally, a “rehearsal” for the Dakar, was the leader of the Dutch Mammoet Rallyspor team. His colleague Pascal de Baar finished the stage on eighteenth place with an eighteen-and-half minute gap. The stage was overruled by their fellow Dutch Hans Stacey. We are going to bring you detailed information on Dakar’s stage two later.
Results – 2nd Stage: 1. Stacey (Ned) 4:18:18, 2. Verluis (Ned) +0:48, 3. De Rooy (Ned) +1:51, 4. Kolomý (CZE) +2:39, 5. Villagra (Arg) +2:44, 15. Vrátný (CZE) +16:38, 18. de Baar (Ned) +18:34, 20. Ardavichus (Kaz) +21:00, 34. Huzink (Ned) +45:50, DNF van den Brink (Ned).
