Dakar Day 11 Report -TreasuryOne duo focussed on Cordoba finish

South African Dakar rookies Hennie de Klerk and Gerhard Schutte had another positive day as Dakar trekked from Belén to Chilecito in Argentina as they brought their homegrown Ford V8-powered TreasuryOne Amarok home 29th among the cars on Monday to move up to 30th overall and second among the 5 rookie entries of the 17 remaining in the race.

“We have three days to go to the finish — just under 1000km of racing, so anything can still happen but we are here and running,” a tired but positive Hennie de Klerk explained. “The whole point of our effort is to finish the Dakar at our first attempt and we’ve come this far so, so far so good — but it’s been a huge challenge and will remain so until we are done.”

The crew from Pretoria has worked hard to get this far, overcoming the challenge of repairing the car when they crashed in the dust of a truck on Sunday’s first part of a marathon stage and getting through to the next service point the next evening among several other ordeals, but they have had a good run overall.

“The Dakar still has a major sting in the tail,” de Klerk pointed out. “Thursday and Friday make up another marathon stage with no servicing after 480km of hard going Thursday and another 380km on Friday, before the final overnight at Cordoba. “It is important to get through without a problem and that’s the objective for the next two days.

“We would once again like to thank our family and friends and the huge number of fans who have been supporting is from the start, not to mention the TreasuryOne team here with us. “We are living the highs and lows of the Dakar together — it’s been an incredible experience so far!”

The TreasuryOne pair were reported as leading the Dakar rookie race on Wednesday after the previous rookie leaders incurred a penalty, but the penalty was overturned to drop de Klerk and Schutte back to second among the rookies. Follow the Dakar action as hit happens via TreasuryOne’s Dakar Live Blog at www.motorsportmedia.co.za every day to the finish.