Hino, the leading Japanese truck manufacturer, has submitted two entries through Team Sugawara for the 2011 Dakar Rally, to take place in Argentina and Chile from January 1-16. This marks the 20th consecutive year that Hino has taken part in this epic long distance rally-raid, which was staged previously in Africa and will be run for the third time in South America next year.
The two Hino 500’s will be aiming for high placings in the overall truck category as well as looking for yet another victory in the Challenge section for trucks with an engine capacity below 10 litres. In celebration of the 20th anniversary entry the trucks are liveried in the make-up colours of actors in the famous, traditional Japanese Kabuki theatre.
The trucks’ six-cylinder intercooled turbocharged engines of 7 961cm3 produce 260 horsepower at 2 700r/min and are capable of propelling the 7 000kg trucks to a top speed of 170km/h. They each carry 650litres of fuel.
Each truck will again be driven by a Sugawara, one by father Yoshimasa (69) who will be competing in his record-breaking 28th consecutive Dakar Rally, and the second Hino by his son, Teruhito (39), who competed in his first Dakar as a navigator in 1999.
Yoshimasa, who holds the record for the most consecutive Dakar finishes (20), is also the only Japanese to have competed on all four types of vehicle in the Dakar – motorcycle, quad, car and truck – and has six second place finishes in the truck category to his credit.
Yoshimasa will have a new Dakar co-driver in 2011, being Hiroyuki Sugiura, who had his first experience of navigating a Hino racing truck in the recent Rally of Mongolia. Teruhito has a very experienced co-driver in Seiichi Suzuki, who has competed in 15 Dakar rallies.
Although the trucks have been entered in the name of Hino Team Sugawara since 2006 they enjoy extensive assistance from the Hino head office in terms of research and development and manufacturing facilities.
Speaking at the media conference in Tokyo to announce the historic 20th entry in the 2011 Dakar Rally the chairman of Hino Motors Limited, Shoji Kondo, said the reason that his company continued to support participation in this world famous endurance event was because of the many challenges it offered, not only in terms of vehicle technology, but also in regard to the demands it makes on the crews and support team.
The company’s senior managing director Tsunehiko Fujii said that he expected the Hino 500 trucks to be even more competitive in the 2011 race as they had benefited from considerable development over their predecessors in terms of engine performance, improved braking systems and weight reduction.
The Hino trucks have displayed exceptional reliability in the Dakar Rally over the years with usually a 100% result in terms of the ratio between starters and finishers.
The best performance was in 1997 when the three Hino trucks took first, second and third positions overall in the Dakar-Agades-Dakar Rally. This total dominance has never been equalled in this gruelling long-distance event that continues to attract more and more interest worldwide as one of the ultimate challenges of men and machine.
– Credit: Quickpic.