Quote :

By decision of the sporting officials, the five trucks of Dutch manufactor DAF have not been cleared to start the 28th edition of the Dakar. The crews concerned are: those of: Hans Bekx (502), Gerard De Rooy (n° 504), Jan De Rooy (n° 506), Marcel Van Vliet (n° 523) and Hugo Duisters (n° 529).

According to the officials technical report the competitors of these vehicles don't have the proper documents.

For these reasons, a jury of officials has decided after speaking to the competitors that based on a part of article 25.4 of the rule book as well as the whole of article 25P1 « every vehicle that is not in conformity can't be cleared to start the rally. (decision of the jury of sporting officials) ». Article 25P2 B must also be taken into consideration. This decision was announced to the competitors at 15h20 and they now have an hour to appeal.

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I expected a competition, but now Kamaz seems to need just to drive carefully. I have different feelings: of course, there won't be such tension among trucks. But anyway Kamaz will be ignored, be there DAF or no. Media like dakar.com, racing-live.com, make it look like it is DAF that wins each year.

[my excusements, the coverage is good, no more complains about ignorance. ]