Ultimate Dakar racing team
Crazy Czechs want to return to hell
Normal people don’t want to go to hell. Not-so-normal people, who have experienced its “hospitality” already, prefer to stay away from it. So what can we say about those crazy Czechs whose main aim is to return to the very place where their lives almost ended less than a year ago?
On 15 April 2018, during the first stage of Morocco Desert Challenge where (as defending champions) they started first among the cars, the horror happened to Tomas Ourednicek and his co-driver David Kripal: just 150 metres from the finish line of the first stage, at 180 km/h, their Ford Ranger hit an unnoticed hole and the car went into a roll, then a second, then a third… and finally a ninth. Those 14 terrible seconds changed everything. Thank God, the crew survived and by now, after some very hard months, they both are perfectly fit for racing again. But as for their car, it needed to be rebuilt practically from scratch, since from the original car only the gearbox and the differential could be used again. Tomas and David have put on a heroic effort in the past months, trying to get the budget together for rebuilding the Ranger to be able to go back to the “hell”: to be able to take the start in the next Morocco Desert Challenge, starting on 13 April 2019.
Now the question is: can the Phoenix rise again? Tomas Ourednicek is determined, in his words they “still have the racing heart”. His motto “nikdy to nevzdam” (never give up) seems to be a cliché but looking at his racing career it becomes clear how truly he means it. It’s enough to mention the 2018 edition of Dakar Rally when he and then-rookie co-driver David Kripal brought the Ford Ranger to the finish line despite struggling with technical problems for most of the race and “dancing” on edge of withdrawal many times. Like in Bolivia, where they drove for 44 hours at once to be able to stay in the race…
But the Czech crew doesn’t think about the past now, they are only looking ahead. They have unfinished business in Morocco – and be sure that they are going to do their utmost to make up for last year’s blunder and return to the top of Morocco Desert Challenge, the second biggest desert rally in the world!