Lidia Ruba: “This Dakar has happened to us everything that did not happen to us in the previous one”

For the third consecutive year, Lidia Ruba from Zaragoza competed as co-pilot in the legendary Rally Dakar together with her husband and pilot Juan Morera, in the Classic category. Last year this couple won victory in one of the most demanding driving tests in the world, and this year they returned to the Rally at the controls of a historic model of the category, the Porsche 959.

In 1986, the German team decided to take its model 959 to the Dakar, something completely revolutionary compared to the rest of the vehicles, since they were all-terrain vehicles designed for the extreme conditions of the desert. Despite this, the pair formed by the French Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur came second, achieving a feat that marked a before and after in the Dakar.

For this edition Lidia and Juan rode in one of the two replicas of this Porsche 959 that were used in the test: “Both the press and Dakar colleagues have agreed that It is the most beautiful car that has been this edition. As Last year we got to know Jacky Ickx a lot. We thought it would be a very cool challenge to drive that car., especially my husband who is the one who has prepared everything in detail. The feeling of driving the car is super nice, it behaves very well in dunes and we were afraid because it was low, but it didn’t cause any problems in that regard,” Lidia declared.

This year the couple started the Dakar in style, winning the prologue on the first day of competition, so they continued to maintain their status as favorites: “We started very well by winning the prologue and we were going very well in the first stage until the car stopped due to an electrical failure, but if not like that I don’t know if we would have won but we would have been among the top three“.

This edition of the Dakar Rally has been full of problems for this couple: “This year everything has happened to us that did not happen to us the year before. We have had electrical, temperature, clutch problems and we even had a fire in stage 10 when stopping to help our companions. The engine had had bad combustion and the oil had fallen on the exhaust pipe, but luckily we emptied our fire extinguisher and that of our companions and continued, although with a lot of fear.” These situations take you to the limit and many times you have to reach out. of some improvisation to get out of trouble: “In the third stage the accelerator got stuck and the car kept picking up speed, but In the end we managed to fix it with a can of tuna that a doctor who was passing by left us, I don’t even know how we finished the stage.

This year everything has happened to us that did not happen to us the year before.

At first Lidia and Juan finished sixth in the Dakar, but after some penalties to their rivals they should appear as fifth, although this is not officially stated: “Now we appear as sixth but we will be fifth because those in front of us penalized them a lot. But they are French and sometimes penalties are applied to themThese things are not forgiven to us Spaniards, although they love us very much. I don’t know how they will leave it but deep down we know that we are fifth.”

After a crazy Dakar with many more problems than other years, Lidia seems to have enough, but she knows that her husband is hungry for more: “Whenever it ends I am left with little desire to return, I end up exhausted and I don’t feel like anything. If it were up to me we would be served, but My husband is already making plans with the mechanic to improve the coach. He is very stubborn and yes he will do it, but I don’t know if with me or someone else.” The co-pilot from Zaragoza does not contemplate a change from Classic category to more dangerous ones: “Yes we would make the change at speed but having three children you run a lot of risk“.

2024-01-26 10:57:20
#Lidia #Ruba #Dakar #happened #happen #previous