“I should be ok with the driving”

Like many in the Dakar Classic, for Daniel Schatz it is a dream come true. For 8 years he was an army off-road instructor and has recently set up his own company Offroad Technik Schatz for prestigious clients including Land Rover, Porsche and Red Bull Austria. A meeting with Jorg Sands who has entered 3 G-Wagons and 2 trucks in the Dakar Classic saw him recruited to drive one of the trucks, emulating his father who drove for De Rooy on the 2005 Dakar. Like Daniel’s father, his co-driver Goerg Gattinger also has ancient history with the Dakar. In 1985 and ’86 he drove a G-Wagon rapid assistance 4x4 for the factory BMW motorcycle team and then in 87/88 drove a truck on the Dakar for the Thierry Sabine Organisation. He has also demonstrated military trucks all over the world including Pakistan, India and the Middle East and acted as location scout for press launches. Now an ‘actively’ retired grandfather, he still works on press launches, as well as looking after his horses and menagerie animals.

Daniel Schatz: “I think with my background I should be ok with the driving but I don’t know much about regularity rallies. I spend a lot of time driving for my work and I’ve found a guy on YouTube who reads the 2022 Dakar Classic regulations out in German. So now instead of listening to music I listen to that. I just need to check for any changes between the 2022 regs and those of 2023!”