The Dakar Rally sure beats the ever loving crap out of man and machine. While the treachery of racing thousands of miles across hellacious desert landscapes presents some obvious obstacles, sometimes the trouble is a bit more subtle. The year that this video was made Tim Coronel tackled the Dakar solo but he found rough patches in a number of stages, like Stage 9 that traversed a loop coming and going from Belen in Argentina’s northwest corner.
That sparsely populated part of the world forced racers to contend with all manner of terrain, but Coronel found the dunes to be a particular challenge. After wandering around trying to find what passes for a road and nearly eating the side of a truck, Coronel elects to forgo previous competitor’s ruts and let the buggy do what it’s best at: Drive over and through everything. Coronel’s mowing service rids the high desert of some head-high brush and while some foliage to the helmet is unpleasant for the driver, his Suzuki-powered doesn’t miss a beat.
