Dakar Day 10 Report – TreasuryOne duo keeps on trucking

They may have had their challenges over the past few days, but South African Dakar rookies Hennie de Klerk and Gerhard Schutte and the TreasuryOne Amarok enjoyed a positive Day 10 from Salta and Belén in Argentina on Tuesday to wind up 31st on the day as they moved up to a provisional 28th overall. They were the only rookie crew to have arrived at Belén at the time of writing, although that remains provisional. 17 rookie entries started the car event.

“Dakar has been a rollercoaster!” driver Hennie de Klerk admitted. “Not only has it been a different result for us every day, but it is most emotionally challenging too! “We are ten days into Dakar and we have had extreme highs and lows of every sort — from the beach starts to the 5000m peaks of the Andes, but that’s not all — it can go from ecstasy to agony at the blink of an eye — we were so excited to be the leading rookies halfway through the first day of the marathon stage and the next minute we were fighting for survival!

“But we are learning that’s just how Dakar is — for everyone — from all the competing crews to the service teams and all the families and fans across the world, so we are very serious when we say a big thank you to all our fans, friends and family back home every day — you guys really do make such a difference to what is proving an epic and extreme test – thank you all!”

Tuesday’s stage was much in the vein of the rest of the race for the TreasuryOne team, starting off well before more challenges later on and then the elation of the finish. “We are learning to deal with the emotional pressure — we have broken it down to mini targets,” de Klerk concluded. “First it was to reach the rest day, then to get through the marathon stage — which proved quite a challenge!

“Now its waypoint by waypoint, day by day down to Cordoba, but there is a hell of a lot of racing still to go on this Dakar rollercoaster — 2400km in all, which is almost as much of a full season of cross country racing back home and it’s only done once we stand on that finisher’s podium. “For now the most important thing is that we are still on track, but it’s still day by day to Cordoba…”

Wednesday’s 280km 11th racing stage between Belén and Chilecito along the Andean escarpment via Fiambalá could be a punishing day in the soft sand if it is anything near as hot as Tuesday’s 43C conditions — once again proving that Dakar will never be done until that fat lady sings.