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On January 2 the start of the 38th Dakar Rally will be given in Buenos-Aires. By the morning of 31 December “KAMAZ-master” team, flying to the race in groups, reached the capital of Argentina. All the day was spent in technical and maintenance preparatory works, as the next morning our sportsmen were expected to pass administrative and technical checks. The checks are obligatory before the race. Sportsmen have to go through a number of all tests and other procedures, from taking photos of contestants and assembly of navigation tracking tools, to checks of race vehicles conformity to the race technical regulations – more than ten stages in general.
Precompetition bivouac of Dakar is crowded with contestants. In total 354 vehicles from 60 countries will start, including 55 sport trucks. Before the contestants, making a circuit, finish in Argentinean Rosario, they will have to overcome more than 9000 km of the route, including 5000 km of special stages.
The main rivals of Russian “KAMAZ-master” team - IVECO, MAN, RENAULT, GINAF, TATRA, МАЗ, LIAZ - don’t keep their ambitions secret and are ready to “fight” for a place on the podium of a famous rally-raid.
The team of Gerard de Rooy performs 5 trucks this year: 3 (!) of them are conventional Iveco Torpedo and two are Iveco Trakker cabover trucks. The Netherlandish team became even stronger, Ales Loprais from Czechia joined them. The new pilot Federico Villagra from Argentina also will be a strong rival, due
The leader of Veka MAN Truck Peter Versluis calls his team a “Dream Team”. Taking into consideration that the winner of Dakar 2007 Hans Stacey strengthened it and vehicles had a serious modification, the ambitious Netherlander is not far from the mark.
Every year Czech pilot Martin Kolomý makes a good progress. His team Tatra Buggyra Racing will definitely intend to win a prize in the truck category. According to the common opinion of specialists the team has all needed for the victory: excellent financing, experienced drivers, coordinated team and excellent vehicles with engines by Buggyra professionals. In August the Czechs introduced their new Tatra Phoenix, specially produced for Dakar Rally 2016. The new truck will be driven by experienced Jaroslav Walter, which is going to become a “brother”of Fat Boy driven by Martin Kolomy.
A surprise can be expected from Netherlander Martin Van Den Brink on Reno, who astonished all rally-raid spectators in October by taking the first position on Olibia Rally, Morocco, and got ahead more famous rivals, like Gerard de Rooy, Ales Loprais, and others.
The crew of Johannes Lammers, the experienced Netherlandish racer, ex-pilot of Formula-1, will perform on Dakar Rally 2016 from GINAF RALLY POWER team. It is interesting, that brothers Van Ginkel, permanent members of the team, explained their non-participation in Dakar 2016 by criticizing the current rally route and told about their intention to concentrate on training for other rallies of the forthcoming season, particularly for Silk Way Rally.
Due to previous years, each Dakar brings new names, nobody can be ignored. Only the names of Sergey Vyazovich from MAZ-SPORT and assistance of Alexander and Vladimir Vasilevskie count for a lot! There is also Artur Ardavichus on TATRA, Martin Masik on LIAZ and other talented drivers in the truck category list, who are willing to demonstrate an interesting “fight”.
The leader of “KAMAZ-master”team, Vladimir Chagin, commented the forthcoming Dakar and also paid attention to the growing rivalry in the truck category: “Contestants are well prepared technically. Also members of the teams are stronger. The route peculiarity gives additional challenges – Bolivian high-mountain areas, fast Argentinean roads in WRC style will not allow anyone to relax even for a second. Every year truck category attracts more and more spectators. It would be difficult to make people interested without an intrigue in the rally. It is gratifying that the rally organizers show rivalry in T4 category more often in their TV-reports now.”
Russian spectators will be able to follow the rally in the news reports of Russian Federal channels: The First channel, Russia 1, Russia 24, NTV, The 5th channel, Ren TV, RBK and others.
Match TV will be a daily broadcaster of TV-diaries from Dakar 2016. Also daily programs will go on air on Eurosport channel from 2 till 16 January.
To sum it up, On 31 December by 14:00 local time sport trucks of “KAMAZ-master” successfully passed technical checks and were left in the closed park. Access to the trucks is limited up to the rally start. Administrative checks for team members have also been passed. On 2 January there will be the starting podium in Buenos-Aires. That day caravan of vehicles will start in the capital of Argentina to Rosario for prologue 11km long.
