Dakar triumph for Ballito navigator and German racing partner

Despite having to overcome several obstacles threatening to derail a successful Dakar Rally campaign, Ballito navigator Ryan Bland and his German driving partner Daniel Schröder bit the bullet, scoring first place overall in their class, achieving one of their priority goals.

They crossed the finish line in Sunday’s final stage in 28th position overall, an improvement on their 36th placing in last year’s event – their first objective.

And on the final stage on Sunday they recorded first place overall in the T1.1 Class after facing more difficulties. Even their last stretch from Al Hofuf to Dammam along the Persian Gulf coast was not without incident.

Stage 14 in the morning kicked off just fine until their VK50 Nissan Navara 5.0L V8 hit some rocks which resulted in them losing engine oil because of damage caused, and to make matters worse they also got stuck in mud.

But the spirit of the Dakar again surfaced. A fellow racer spotted the duo and offered to help pull them some 20km, but he then almost got stuck in the mud as well.

It was decided to call in a Dakar support truck to free them, but while waiting another driver pulled up to help, only to also end up getting stuck and more trucks had to be called in.

“We really appreciated all the help. There was so much mud on our windshield that we could not see anything,” Schröder said.

Once freed, they added oil to the engine and hightailed it to the finish line just over 20km away.

Having driven more than 5 000km in nearly 61 hours, the completion of the 417km of stage 14 saw the duo and their PS Laser Racing teammates celebrate conquering the desert.

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