Dakar 2017: Truck Category Recap

The truck category of the Dakar is said to have started off as pit crews racing against each other to get to the next stage. Each having to weigh more than 7,700lbs, these trucks have had their own category since 1980 and in the early years, often had twin engines with more than 1000 horsepower. An, unfortunately, death in 1988 caused the Truck category to not be run in 1989 and the class as a whole to be reevaluated.

For 2017, the race had some serious contenders. Gerard de Rooy was looking to repeat his 2016 victory with his Iveco truck but fell short. De Rooy started strong, winning the first two stages but that’s when Dimitry Sotnikov and Eduard Nikolaev, fellow Kamaz drivers, began their attack.

The Kamaz team grabbed five stage wins through the race and had at least one truck in the top three near the end. The team’s efforts netted them an extremely strong presence, both in daily stage runs as well as the general standings for a full six days.

De Rooy ended up taking the third-place podium spot for Iveco, forty-one minutes behind Nikolaev. Sotnikova trailed the leader by a short eighteen minutes for a solid second-place finish. This is Nikolaev’s second Dakar win, a repeat of his 2013 victory and made amends for his seventh-place finish in the 2016 race.

Kamaz took three of the top-five finishes this year. This marks the thirteenth win for the manufacturer in the history of the Dakar Rally and puts them back on top after last year’s defeat. Kamaz is easily the winningest truck in Dakar.