Dakar Rally 2009 in Argentina and Chile
The favourites for the Dakar victory raced MAN rally trucks. The offroad adventure ran from 3rd to 18th January, 2009. Several works teams rely on MAN service trucks.
The course
The 30th Dakar Rally followed a course that, for the first time, did not run through the African desert but through mountainous South America. The course followed a 9,500-kilometre long route through southern Argentina, across the Andes to Chile, where it took a path through the north back to Buenos Aires.
80 MAN trucks in action
MAN was supplying by far the largest number of competition trucks and all-wheel service trucks at the Dakar 2009. 30 MAN trucks were in the running for the title, either as race trucks or fast support trucks. Another 50 all-wheel trucks were being used by the teams to transport their equipment from stage to stage.
You would like to know what a typical MAN race truck looks like? Here you get more information:
MAN TGS Racetruck
MAN TGS Racetruck
Our hot favourites
Franz Echter, technician in the MAN test department, was no longer driving as a fast serviceman: he was racing one of the two MAN rally team's competition trucks, just like in 2006. His truck had start number 507 and drove to the 5th rank in the truck category.
One of the hot favourites for the overall title in the truck category was Hans Stacey. He was driving the second of the MAN rally team's competition trucks, with start number 500. Stacey has a huge amount of experience under all kinds of rally conditions. If you want to win a desert rally like the Dakar 2007 in its original form, you need a high degree of sand expertise.
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