South African Hilux Second in Stage Five of Dakar Rally

A South African-built Hilux came second yesterday, just 44 seconds behind the winner, in Stage Five of the Dakar… currently taking place in South America.

Spanish rally racer Nani Roma was in the driver’s seat, with Spanish co-driver Haro Bravo Alex, for what is touted as the toughest and greatest rally in the world, pitting about 50 nationalities against each other in some of the world’s most stunning deserts…all united by one core value – “competition and help go hand in hand”.

South African racing and rally driver, Giniel De Villiers, and Dirk Von Zitzewitz from Germany – who together won the Dakar in 2009 – struggled yesterday with navigational issues and finished almost half an hour behind in 10th place.

SA Rallying has reported that: “This year’s Dakar clearly has a lot more bite than in recent years.” De Villiers said that in Stage 4 they drove over some of the softest sand dunes ever.

“It seems the new route director, Mark Coma, is dedicated to upholding the Dakar’s reputation as the toughest motor race on the planet,” says SA Rallying.

Stage 5 took place in Bolivia, with racers travelling a distance of 692 km, peaking over 4,400m.

The race is known as one of the greatest sporting challenges because it is both a motor race and an orienteering challenge; and is a mix of some of the world’s greatest rally drivers against amateur races who are fulfilling a long held dream. They come from everywhere… in cars, trucks, motorbikes and quad bikes.

This year the Dakar route added Paraguay as the 29th country in its history. The rally will end in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

De Villiers/Von Zitzewitz are now in eighth place and Roma/Bravo in fourth.

Today’s racing begins at 14:14 SA time.

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