“Race for tomorrow” 1

On the 2018 Dakar there will be two South African car crews registered. One with former winner Giniel De Villiers, the other with two newcomers, eager to discover the joys of the Dakar adventure who earned their spot after winning the Dakar Challenge during the Botswana 1000 Desert Race. Hennie De Klerk will indeed be living his long term dream behind the steering wheel of the Volkswagen Amarok he bought and modified especially for the event. At his side will be a man with whom he has never competed, Gerhardt Schutte, but has a lot of off-road experience in South Africa or more recently during the China Rally. Well aware of the huge task to take on, Hennie, a successful businessman and part time bee keeper just wants to reach the finish with a motto in mind: Race for tomorrow…

H.D.K.: “I’m the only one in the family who drives car competitively. I started by racing on the track in a Porsche 924 and won the South African championship in 2010. And then I switched to off-road. The Dakar is the reason I started competing in the South African championship. I had that iconic picture in my head. Despite not knowing about it, the Dakar was my ambition. And so I decided to prepare seriously as soon as 2012 for this long term dream. When I bought my Amarok last year, it decided me to come and since then I’ve been on several trips to Namibia to train in the dunes. That for me is the most important thing. The ambition is to finish. With my co-driver we have a motto: “race for tomorrow”. It’ll probably be my first and only Dakar, so I need to bring the car home. For that, I’ll be racing at 80% and Gerhardt needs to calm me down. We’re not professionals so we also want to enjoy ourselves.”