Dakar Rally: Solo Marathon Stage Survival Guide

Martin Prokop already tried this once, once in America. When crossing the dune, he was too vertical and went over the nose. Since then, he has ridden thousands of kilometers in the sand and is one of the most experienced drivers in the starting field. Nevertheless, the beginning of the second marathon stage did not go well for him, he went down into a hole behind a dune that was three meters high. “It was a bit on the side, a bit on the roof and it was there for a relatively long time,” he said at the finish.

And when the car is on the roof, it’s not good for the engine at all. Simply put, the oil drains into the top of the engine and when it gets into the combustion chamber, the starter may not turn the engine. “It depends on the design of the particular engine, whether it has classic lubrication or lubrication with a dry sump, when the oil is in an external container and the pumps pull it… We still don’t know what happened and why the car couldn’t be started,” says Ivan Matoušek, team engineer, with a distance. “Maybe the guys will tell us when they get there, or we’ll know it on the starter. But it’s great that they fixed it.”

But all this happened later. The first thing you have to do in such a situation is to turn off the engine and try to get the car on its wheels as soon as possible. Even at the beginning of the Dakar, Viktor Chytka wanted to move the rope from the side of the car to the rear, because he was afraid that a situation would arise where he would not be able to reach it. So immediately out of the car, for the flexible rope, which together with the shovel and the exit plates is a mandatory equipment of every car, click it in the eye and hope. “You wave at the cars driving by and hope that someone will stop you, as we have already stopped many times,” says Martin Prokop. “We were unlucky that no one followed us for a long time, then the factories and finally Denis Krotov with another Raptor stopped by us, who put in the work and tried for a long time to get us on our bikes.”

When it worked, the first damage didn’t seem so bad. Broken carbons, damaged mask. “But it went smoothly, there wasn’t even a broken window,” says navigator Viktor Chytka. “Normally you’d leave it there for twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes, but the starter went out and the car wouldn’t start.”

And just at that moment it was clear that it was bad. Because the only way to try to start the engine (despite knowing you can damage it) is to pull the car apart. And in the dunes, only a truck will help you if it has the strength and its crew has the desire and time.

Of course, the rest of the team, which is on the way to the next bivouac, has no information. They only see the timer and the map, just like the fans. He doesn’t know if it’s a technical problem, if they fell in, or if something worse happened. Everyone hypnotizes the arrow on the map, scrolls through social networks, looking for the slightest indication of what is happening. First it’s just uncertainty, followed by apprehension and then fear.

The crew have their mobile phones sealed and are not allowed to use them during the race. He may have a satellite phone, but he can only make calls outside the cabin. “These are the rules,” reveals Qurin Müller, team manager, behind the scenes. “First they have to call race management via Iritrack, and they will then allow them to use the phones to communicate with the team.” But when the crew tries to intercept another car to help them, they don’t even think about making a phone call. You struggle with circumstances, with time, trying not to panic, while desperately perceiving the passing of time.

The phone comes to an end when you finally find out that the car is not moving anymore. “The worst sound you can hear in Dakar is the ringing of a satellite phone,” said Müller before the start. “That’s clearly a problem.”

When he rang the bell, the two team trucks and two escort cars had long been standing in the dust by the highway. “They went to the shed, they’re fine, the car is relatively OK, but it won’t start.” You don’t know anything for the first ten minutes. In the desert, there is often no signal for mobile phones, and you hear every third word through a satellite phone. It has a signal for a while, then silence again.

It is important to note that any outside help is prohibited during the race. Even if the locals came, saying that they would throw the car on its wheels, or that they would stretch it, there are huge penalties for that. And you can’t hide from prying eyes in the desert – you never know when the lens of a random fan will capture you, or when the organizer’s helicopter will arrive.

The team can’t do anything, the competitors have to figure it out themselves. “We waited for maybe three hours because racing trucks passed us from a distance and we waved at Martin and Marťas took the trouble to get us out and mainly we started the engine on the rope behind him,” Martin Prokop told TV Nova at the finish line.

Knowing that the eight-cylinder engine of their car must not go out on the way to the finish line, they drove the first half of the stage to the marathon bivouac. And there they managed to fix the starter.

The team couldn’t do anything yet. Just wait. The mechanics advised over the phone remotely what to remove, where to reach and what they will probably need for it. “The car has the basic tools, something is always added to the marathon stage. We are happy that the guys managed it,” reported Qurin Müller around midnight.

The car was given permission by the FIA commissioners to start the tenth stage despite the fact that the front fenders, mask, hood were missing… As is usual here in Saudi Arabia, most of the parts were brought to the bivouac by local enthusiastic fans. The mechanics began to repair what they could. Carbon plates, riveter, cutter, pliers and black glue in a tube that will hold almost everything. “We will put the car in the car until the next race, now we drive what we can and what can be used. Fortunately, we only needed a few parts for the Ford,” admits Ivan Matoušek with regard to the costs.

When Sid, Martin and Viktor showed up at the finish line, all the mechanics pounced on it and set to work on the repairs, then rigged the car with the repaired bonnets. Today, the entire Dakar caravan will move seven hundred kilometers further, they got up early in the morning. And even though everyone already knows that a decent overall result is in the dust, they secretly hope that there might be another attack on the podium. Not only Martin and Viktor, but also their entire team would deserve it for their tireless commitment.