An experienced driver and a professional rally car, a recipe for success?

Vincent Thijs is not new to the game of driving a rally-raid, he’s been doing it for about 10 years now. Last year he participated in the Morocco Desert Challenge with a new and improved car: a Toyota Hilux Overdrive with a 5L V8 engine from a Lexus, the perfect car for driving in the desert at full speed.

A very experienced driver and professional rally car would seem like the recipe for success but Vincent and his team experienced some bad luck during the 10th edition of the Morocco Desert Challenge in 2018. During driving in the dunes the car did not flip over once.. but twice! During these flips some parts were lost but they were still able to drive. Until bad luck struck again: the gearbox broke. Unfortunately this meant the end of the rally for Vincent. 

Now they have rebuild the entire car, all parts have been taken apart and put together again. In February Vincent and his navigator Tom practiced in the woods in Germany and in March they did a training in the dunes of Morocco. Whereas with other cars they had the problem of driving up the dunes, with this car the challenge is in driving down. During this training, all their fears of driving in the dunes disappeared and they had a lot of fun! 

Next Thursday the trucks with the car will leave with Almería, Spain as their destination where they will take the boat to Morocco the Monday after. We wish him Vincent, Tom and their team good luck next week during the Morocco Desert Challenge!

Watch the video to see his experience from the 2018 edition of the Morocco Desert Challenge