The twelfth stage of Rally Dakar brought another medal result for the Buggyra ZM Racing truck team. Martin Šoltys guided his Buggyra Invictus special to third place and became the fastest Czech driver in the truck category today. Karel Poslední, driving the Tatra Buggyra EVO3, finished 11th in the stage, which ended in Yanbu.

Martin Šoltys praised an almost perfect race day. “We had a great ride, no problems at all, and we went through the dunes without any issues. Vlasta (Miksch) was excellent as a navigator. If only there hadn’t been so much dust and overtaking had been possible, it would have been even better,” said the experienced driver.

However, today’s stage offered more than just desert. “There was a lot of vegetation on the route, a huge number of trees. I broke the right front window, but from what I saw during the neutralization, the others were much worse off. Almost everyone at the front had broken windows. I tried to avoid the worst sections so I wouldn’t destroy the truck,” explained the Buggyra Invictus driver.

His co-driver, Vlastimil Miksch, pointed out the traps of the closing phase of the famous rally. “The closer we get to the finish, the harder it feels. But we collected all the waypoints. One was hidden again, but we found it on a flat plain in about a minute. We didn’t lose any time and reached the finish,” he said.

Šoltys’s onboard mechanic, Tomáš Šikola, confirmed that the penultimate stage of the Dakar Rally was extremely demanding. “Today was brutal. At the start there were loads of rocks, but we got through without any punctures. Then came the dunes. We really took a beating in the white sand. We have a broken window, and there were also quite a lot of trees. Those 311 kilometers offered everything the Dakar is about,” he said.

According to Karel Poslední, it was the toughest stage of the Dakar so far. “Today was a terrible stage. It kept changing – rocks, then dunes with really big climbs, then lots of trees and more rocks. We had two flat tires. Before the finish we inflated one of them, so we had to slow down. We’re happy we managed to finish today,” said the driver of the Tatra Buggyra EVO3 truck.

Navigator Petr Schweiner also appreciated the atmosphere inside the cab of truck number 615. “I overshot one waypoint once, but I found it immediately, so the guys praised me. I’m glad I showed that I can handle crisis situations,” he said.

Onboard mechanic Filip Škrobánek went through real hell on the stage. “It was a brutal pounding. I took a hit to the ribs. I thought we would stop and not continue. I had to take two Brufen. Then we were driving so fast that we almost tore the roof off the truck,” he added with a smile.

The Dakar Rally will conclude tomorrow with the final stage, starting and finishing in Yanbu, featuring a short 108-kilometer special stage.

Source: Buggyra Racing