Having ended up in a huge pit, in the middle of the dunes of the Arabian desert, the L’Aquila brothers Tito and Silvio Totani managed to rescue a Dutch crew whose truck had overturned during a phase of the Dakar.
The undertaking, which was in the dark considering that yesterday’s stage lasted well after sunset, earned the brothers particular media attention from Dutch national TV. “There would have been no way to go out without waiting for a truck to take us from outside – says Tito, the navigator – but considering that no one was passing by, my brother Silvio coordinated, I don’t know in which language, 14 people and, after the ‘side by side’ vehicle (small 4-wheel off-road vehicle, editor’s note), which had ended up in the ditch with us, helped us get our car out and managed to get the truck upright again.”
Video Dakar, Tito and Silvio Totani: ‘We did what we had to do’
The extraordinary maneuver was filmed with a mobile phone and the video has been making the rounds on the web for a few hours, while the Totanis, due to a problem with the radiator which they noticed last night upon arrival at the bivouac, decided to gamble for the wildcard and skip today’s and tomorrow’s stage – number 6 Shubaytah-Shubaitah – to be able to repair the car.
Since it was a two-day Marathon stage without any type of assistance, in fact, they would have risked remaining inside the ring in the middle of the fearsome Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert in the world, uninhabited and still largely unexplored, and of no longer being able to continue the race. “The Dutch were incredulous – he adds – because no one thought that an off-road vehicle could pick up a truck like that. It was a spontaneous initiative on our part, it was absolutely not a necessary thing, but the true spirit of the Dakar is this, we lend a hand to each other.”
The Totani crew is one of the very few Italians registered in the ‘T1 four-wheel drive’ category, with a Nissan Patrol GR Y62, 4,800 cc petrol, 6 cylinders, 320 horsepower, fitted with Braid rims, Oram shock absorbers, Toyo M/T tires Open Country. A car that had already been on board at the beginning of December to undergo the usual technical and administrative checks.
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA
