TreasuryOne Motorsport crew Hennie de Klerk and Gerhard Schutte enjoyed a consistent day in the office to bring the TreasuryOne Amarok home 36th on the day to pick up two positions on day 4 of the Dakar. The Dakar rookies overcame their Tuesday challenges to sit 32nd overall Wednesday evening, following Wednesday’s run down from from San Juan de Marcona to Arequipa in Peru.
Perhaps most significantly though, the TreasuryOne duo now sits a close second overall in what is turning out to be an epic battle in the rookie standings, just ten minutes behind leading debutantes, Poles Vaculíc and Plechaty in a Ford F150.
“Today was much better,” driver Hennie de Klerk admitted. “We did not get stuck once, but we had two flat tyres in the dunes. “It happens when you run such low pressures to be sure to keep traction in the soft sand of the dunes and you have to turn quickly. “Today was all about consolidation after yesterday’s disastrous stage, so I made sure we had a relatively clean run.
“Special thanks to our team as always — the lads worked hard overnight to ready the TreasuryOne Amarok for today’s stage after the challenges of Tuesday and as always, a huge word of thanks to all our fans — knowing that there is so much support back home not only makes us so proud to fly the South African flag, but it makes us double determined to get through to the finish!”
The Dakar leaves Peru and the desert on Thursday and heads into the mountains with a break along the way to cross the border to Bolivia on the shores of Lake Titicaca en route to La Paz, where Dakar takes its traditional rest day on Friday.