“The best Dakar is the one you finish”
B.d.G.
- Ben is the CEO of the family-owned de Groot Fresh Group, a leading international business in fruit and vegetables. His professional responsibilities demand a lot of time and investment. To do the Dakar is a way to take a breath. The moment of the year when, for two weeks, he escapes and lives another kind of adventure, before returning to his office and getting back to work harder than ever.
- After mixing media car duties with rally raids for several years, Ben completed his first Dakar in 18th place in 2022. Preparations for the 2023 event were rocked by a health scare for brother William. Ben took over William’s place in the driving seat of their new De Rooy-built Iveco truck. Technical problems, as well as physical ones, made this participation difficult. Ben had a difficult year marred by hand problems.
- Driving his own truck last year, the Dutch businessman led his team to 8th place. An exceptional result despite having gone through the classic highs and lows of the Dakar. After much treatment, his hand is finally ok. He enters a new Dakar but with a fairly simple state of mind: the happiness of being present and living this experience with his family and the people he loves. He will have with him Gobert Boogard and Ad Hofmans, already there last year.
A.H.
- There is a legendary Dutch passion for Dakar trucks, but Ad first started to love it with 2-wheels vehicles. He comes from a family that practices motocross, and he started watching the race with them when he was only 6 years old.
- Ad is the stepson of his driver, Ben de Groot. Their connection facilitated his entry into rally-raid. He says it without hesitation: he probably would not have had this opportunity without it. A family united by love and passion for motorsports… what else?
- A former bikes competitor in the Morocco Desert Challenge, Ad is still passionate about motorcycles. He has restored his bike, now ready to race, and should be doing enduro in 2025. But the Dakar is still a truck business for him! He lines up for the fourth time in a row with his father-in-law Ben.
2025 AMBITIONS
B.d.G.: “I’ve always loved anything with an engine and was just happy to follow from the sidelines, with the media or doing some small rallies by myself in Morocco, etc. But I finally did my first truck Dakar in 2022. The best Dakar is the one you finish; to enjoy and complete it are the most important goals. If you survive, you go on the podium and you need to be happy with it, no matter the pace. A small item can kill your race, even more for a truck. We are an excellent and united team, trying to make it to Shubaytah! Three weeks a year, I do it to completely empty my mind, and then start again in my business.”
A.D.: “The 2024 race has been a good one for us, as we didn’t have a lot of issues. We were here to finish, so we didn’t have the pressure of improving our result of fighting for top-positions. It has been a good race and we hope that it will be the same this year. Our aim is just to finish the race, because it’s a hard rally. I will try to do a good navigation. It’s not a very hard task but you need a bit of feeling for it. I think I have it, and I trained it with my son on the Dakar videogame!”
