DAKAR 2014 Going and Jumping to Seaside

Scheduled by organisers for Tuesday was a 495-km-long route from the Chile interior to the Pacific Ocean coastline, mostly along the track of a timed section. In the final section, just before the stage Finish, crews had to go down huge dunes, which was worth seeing. Then we decided against rating the drivers' performance by times, but for by the length of individual jumps: No doubt the winner was an American driver, Robby Gordon in his Hummer, whose jumps might have been 20m in length. It was a pity about Martin Kolomý's absence in the race as he had been showing even crazier jumps in the previous years, what is more in truck.

We livened up the today's departure by taking photos of the Tatra 815 Buggyra and one of the world's biggest lorries, Komatsu - Martin Kolomý's truck looked like a small model by comparison. Surprisingly, this spontaneous activity attracted a lot of viewers, which gives an evidence of Martin's enormous popularity he won during the race.

Running mostly along the coast, first through lovely scenery of a rocky massif bordered by blue skies, but not varied further on, the route from the inland was now a sort of boring one. After arriving at the Bivouac we first headed for the dune the crews had been going down to get to the today's stage Finish. "While taking photos I recalled one famous sentence - popular among Czechs - from and old, nearly legendary, Czech film, where one of the leading characters says: 'I'm good at jumping, I love jumping' and fails while doing so, but unlike him some of the drivers here didn't, but truly fulfilled this sentence. Flying through the air were both cars and trucks whose drivers were enjoying it," says Miroslav Forman from the journalists' accompanying car of the TATRA Buggyra Racing Team, who has taken the photos of those breathtaking jumps on dunes ...

After this show, later on in the Bivouac, now situated right on the coast among sand dunes, Martin Kolomý felt regret about not going through that section: "It's a pity we couldn't enjoy ourselves going down this dune too, we were looking forward to this moment, and I think that we amused spectators by our jumps last years. I'm sure will be able to enjoy it next year, unless organisers leave out this section." Following in Martin's words, also Jaroslav Waltr, another Czech pilot who is not going on in this race, says: "I was like a bull in a china shop last year, but enormously enjoying it; this year I can just watch my rivals." But, as if it was typical of them, Czech drivers, it would not take long, and one word would lead to another..., in result we might see a duel of the two crews, now not within the Dakar Rally.

For more information search for www.buggyra.com,
(from Chile Miroslav Forman).