The 2017 Dakar Rally was held in South America in January this year, starting in Paraguay and ending in Argentina. Here’s a short video clip with highlights of the truck racing class. As you watch, remember that these beasts started out as highway trucks, designed to haul freight. Humongous rebuilds later, at a cost sometimes measured in millions of dollars, they’re capable of speeds exceeding 100 mph across all terrain.
I strongly recommend watching this in full-screen mode. It’s pretty spectacular.
Big beasts indeed!
Peter
That was awesome. Kinda weird to have such a race with trucks, but hey, why not?
My first thought was "why is the Paris to Dakar Rally taking place in South America?"
The answer is evidently terrorism threat.
But whatever happened to them using tweaked Land Rovers and the like? The trucks are a bit much.
> Kinda weird to have such a race with trucks
As I understand it, the Dakar race always required that the pit/repair crews setup in the wilds (and sometimes go out to where the race cars broke down), naturally the crews that were better able to move rapidly from one pit area to the next gained an edge for their team, and the trucks become more and more racers themselves.
I hadn't realized that they were now a racing division in and off themselves (I wonder if the trucks are still required to be the pit crew and carry all the parts/supplies, there were a number of different truck sizes shown), but it makes sense that the competition would keep escalating until the 'support' vehicles became an attraction in and of themselves.
David Lang
OK. I must have been the only one to get to watch a video about container gardening, eh?
@anon, that was the advertisement before the video
Trucks have been racing in the Dakar rally since the 1980's. There is an iconic – although short – video of Jan de Rooy in his Truck pulling alongside Ari Vatanen at 200 km/h in 1988 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_y8MwqrPa4