South Africa’s Hennie de Klerk and Johann Smalberger managed to finish this year’s Moroccan Sahara Rally last Saturday after a roller-coaster ride through the 3 000 km, eight-day race across the Sahara Desert. They brought their Treasury One Amarok home in 23rd place overall. The pairing held the event’s fifth place overall at one stage, but a broken differential and shock absorber saw them incur almost 24 hours in time penalties.
They were towed in and nursed the bakkie for the rest of the event, setting the sixth quickest time on the event’s final special stage. “On reflection, we ran well every day and if you deduct our time penalty, we would have finished in the top five,” said De Klerk. “We have now raced the deserts of South America and Africa so now our next stop will be Asia,” he added.
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