“Everyone in my village is born with the Dakar bug!

Ronald Van Loon and codriver Erik Lemmen will fulfil a lifetime ambition when they make their Dakar debut in 2023, in a Red-Lined VK50 run by Oase Motorsport.

R.v.L.: “I'm really excited. I’ve followed the Dakar since I was a child because Gerard de Rooy lives a few streets away. So everyone in my village is born with the Dakar bug! I’ve done FIA events before, but this is the next level. The Dakar is the toughest of all and it's already been the toughest just in terms of preparation.
“Erik has been my navigator for six years or so. We don't need a lot of words and are both quite technical. He's very smart, really a genius, so together we can solve a lot of problems. I think we make a good team and it feels like ‘home’ whenever I’m driving next to him.
“I attended last year’s Dakar just to look around, as a trainee I call it. The first surprise was how cold it is in the evenings! Everybody tells me the goal for your first Dakar is just to finish and not to have any positions in my head. I’ve even put a sticker on the dashboard to remind me; ‘When I finish’.”


E.L.: “I’ve always watched the Dakar, especially with all the Dutch drivers in the trucks, and first met Ronald when I started doing some electronics work for a rally team. Things got more serious, I moved into the navigation side and we began competing in desert rallies. The ultimate goal was always to compete in the Dakar, so it's kind of a childhood dream.
“Out of the car Ronald and I are very different characters. Ronald is an entrepreneur and I'm a very technical guy. Completely different skills. But we have very good relationship. Zero arguments. We are both very focused on what we are doing, Ronald on driving, me on navigating. Together we know the whole car, which is a slightly newer version of what we have been using in the Morocco desert challenge since 2019.
“The first time you compete in the Dakar, the main goal is just to finish and get experience. So the main goals are to learn the event, have decent mid-field finishes in every stage and make no errors.”