“We were just planning to go and spectate…”

Originally son and father crew of Adriaan and Riaan Botma had planned to just to go out and watch the Dakar. It wasn’t until they went onto the rally’s website and discovered that they could actually enter the Dakar Classic for a relatively affordable sum that they decided to compete themselves. Having driven all over Africa -including Angola, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Zambia and Botswana- in Toyota Land Cruisers, the indestructible 4x4 was the logical choice. There just remained the small problem of finding a suitable example to buy but eventually, after a bit of searching, they tracked down a 1993 HDJ-80 in Spain. It had already competed in the Dakar Classic in 2022 and after asking a friend of theirs based in Portugal to go and check it out, a deal was struck. Neither Adriaan nor Riaan have ever taken part in a car race before, let alone a regularity rally but they are busy reading up on the rules in preparation for January. As experienced bush mechanics, the two property developers will be relying on their own skills to keep their car running. In addition, in a nod to the Dakar’s rustic origins, they will be carrying all their own gear with them!

A.B.: “We’ve always followed the Dakar and have a friend, Schalk Burger who’s raced in the event before, but we have no motorsport experience ourselves. For us this is a dream come true but for sure it’s going to be a steep learning curve. We haven’t actually laid eyes on the car yet and I won’t get to see it until I come over in November and load it onto the boat going to Saudi. But I’m not particular worried. The car has been properly prepared and we know how to fix them if anything goes wrong. It’s going to be a big adventure and we’re really looking forward to it.”