Things Go From Bad To Worse For This Stuck Truck

The Dakar Rally is making its tenth trip to South America this week. According to the grueling rally’s website. “For its 40th edition, the 10th to be held in South America, the Dakar rally is revisiting the Pacific Ocean and the dunes of Peru, which drivers and riders will tackle after a few days sampling the delights of the capital, Lima. Competitors will then head through to Bolivia, for a welcome rest day in the festive atmosphere of La Paz. Argentinian aficionados top the podium when it comes to enthusiasm and good humour, and the most joyous of them will be waiting to acclaim the riders in Córdoba, host to the Dakar finish line for the first time.”

As always, the action is fast and furious as competitors in the five categories battle each other for supremacy in the day’s long affair. The huge fields of entrants means more opportunities for things to go wrong, opening the door for incidents like the video below shows, where the simple act of trying to help a fellow racer out could turn disastrous. That’s exactly what happened when truck class competitor Roberto Recalde found himself mired down in the loose desert sand, a fellow racer stopped to help, but the good deed quickly became a regret when Recalde’s truck decided not to roll forward, but tumbled down the hill in a series of bone-jarring barrel rolls.

The truck eventually came to rest on all four tires, but it looks like the suffered some pretty heavy damage. Whether or not Roberto was able to continue isn’t clear, but you can bet if he did, he was extra careful to avoid situations that put him in such a precarious predicament.

The race is currently in the third stage, not even a quarter of the way through it’s two week completion. That means there’s a lot of racing left to do, and plenty more opportunities to get stuck in the sand. Hopefully anybody else who does that is able to extract themselves a little more smoothly than this.

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