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Daf leads half-way

18th January 1986
Page 6
Page 6, 18th January 1986 — Daf leads half-way
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in dash to Dakar

DATELINE NIAMEY...JANUARY 13...ALLAN WINN REPORTS FROM NIGER

AT THE half-way stage in the gruelling Paris-Dakar Rally, Dars twin-engined Turbo Twin was leading the truck class and was 16th overall.

The 128 survivors from the initial 335 starters crawled into Niamey, the dusty capital city of the Republic of Niger, on Sunday night, 12 days after leaving Paris. Many more vehicles which have been damaged or have broken down in the run through Algeria and Niger have since struggled in. but out of time to continue.

Of the 72 starters in the truck class, fewer than half survived the run to Niamey. Almost three hours behind the Daf on overall time (but only three minutes slower through the last special stage) was the French-entered Mercedes-Benz 1936 driven by Groine. Half an hour behind in third place was the MAN driven by Bernau.

Dar driver Jan de Rooy says the last three days' drive into Niamey were the most difficult so far. Two of those days were spent in country new to the rally, near the provincial town of Zinder.

De Rooy says it was all deep sand, with drops of 5Orn

over some of the dunes. He says the maximum safe speed on this section was 70km/h, far below the TurboTwin's theoretical top speed of almost 200km/h. So far the Tubo-Twin has stood up well; not even the pads of the massive disc brakes have needed to he changed.

While he was obviously happy with his results, de Rooy reckons that the stages through Mauretania (where the rally headed on Tuesday after a rest day on Monday) will be much tougher.

British presence — thin at the start of the rally — had dwindled by Monday, but

rally driver Russell Brookes, in an MAN, was still 24th in the truck class.

Eighteenth among the trucks at Niamey was the privately-entered Volvo C303 crewed by Volvo employees Hasse Henriksson and Borje Rosval.They report surviving some hell-raising experiences.

They were suffering from too little power from their three-litre petrol engine — something which obviously did not afflict overall rally leader Rene Merge, whose four-wheel-drive Porsche 959 did 211km in only 57 minutes on Sunday. The rally ends in Dakar next Wednesday.


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