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Should we have written it?

In our article about “The Road of the Rally Caravan,” we confidently described how nowadays you can easily bring standard trucks along for support. Today, we were cruelly proven wrong.

The entrance to the first bivouac in Mauritania turned out to be an unexpectedly challenging soft sand obstacle. Several support trucks got stuck, and others didn’t even dare to attempt it. The Rainbow Truck Team was the first to arrive with a heavy combination and, consequently, the first to fall victim. Even the support van got stuck but was quickly rescued by a pickup truck. In the bivouac, reinforcements were called in for sturdier assistance.

A MAN Cat 4×4 bravely drove out like a German rescue service to help the stranded four-axle truck. After trying to pull it forward and backward without success, it became clear that an even bigger rescue truck was needed. Enter the Mercedes 6×6, which thankfully managed to get the job done. Meanwhile, a dozen vehicles from various teams remained parked on the asphalt road, forming an alternative bivouac after consulting with the organization.

What if we hadn’t written that earlier article? Would this still have happened? Is this perhaps the spirit of Thierry Sabine, dissatisfied with how easy things have become in modern rallying? Could this be punishment for straying too far from the original Paris-Dakar concept he envisioned? Who’s to say? One thing is certain: we’ll keep collecting, writing, and publishing these stories. Why not? It’s what we do best.