Hino, the leading Japanese truck manufacturer, faces its toughest ever challenge in its quest for honours in the 2011 Dakar Rally which will mark the company’s 20th consecutive entry in this world-renowned endurance rally-raid.
The event, which starts in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 01 January, will follow a route of 9,500km in 2011, made up of 13 stages and 5,000km of the total distance will comprise racing stages before retraining to the finish in Buenos Aires on 13 January after traversing terrain in both Argentina and Chile.
The number of trucks entered for the event has jumped by more than 30% since last year, going from 52 to 68 entries. The total field for the 2011 Dakar Rally is 430 vehicles, which is a 20% improvement on the 2010 figure of 362 vehicles. The field includes people from 51 nationalities (up from 40 in 2010) and there are 13 women in the field.
The two, Japanese-crewed Hino 500 trucks’ have the objectives of not only winning the under 10-litre engine capacity class once again, but also finishing as high as possible overall. (Hino’s finished first, second and third in the 1997 Dakar-Agades-Dakar Rally in 1997 and are the only manufacturer to have taken a clean sweep of the podium placing in the truck category).
The field for the 2011 event will include the highest number of so-called ultra-high power “monster trucks” with 25 of these 800+ horsepower machines entered, so Hino will have to put up a real David-slays-Goliath performance to finish high up in the overall finishing order.
The Czech Republic’s Tatra company has built a 1,000 horsepower machine to challenge the recent superiority of the Russian Kamaz entries. Next year’s race also marks the return to the Dakar of the MAN factory team from Germany, winners of the 2007 event, with two trucks entered under the banner of Veka Man with a Mission.
Other “monster trucks” in the field are GINAF (Dutch-built specialist trucks based on DAF components), Iveco and Liaz.
Hino is expecting a strong challenge to its superiority in the under 10-litre class from the Dutch Finstral Rally Team with a Mercedes-Benz Axor. Its 7,2-litre in-line six-cylinder turbo diesel engine produces 500-horsepower and has a high top speed, whereas the 8-litre “Little Monsters” from Hino have less power but have superior performance over rough terrain.
Two South Africans are in the field, Anthony Taylor and Juan Mohr, who will be crewing a 107-litre MAN L2000 4×4 as the service support crew for Team Overdrive, a Belgian team that consists of four South African-built Nissan Navaras. Former Dakar motorcycle star, Alfie Cox, of South Africa will be driving one of these vehicles. (Taylor drivers a Hilux for the factory Castrol Toyota motor sport team and won the last event of the season, the Magalies 400 recently).
– Credit: Quickpic.