Teams participating in the 2021 Dakar Rally must now apparently add helicopter crashes to the rally’s hazard list. As if Dakar was not already dangerous enough.
See how this Kamaz gets a sweet lift after rolling over a high-speed dune, just to stop the skidding of a low-flying press helicopter:
The scene took place in the 12th and last stage of the rally, along Yanbu-Jeddah route in Saudi Arabia. The truck you see here is from the KAMAZ-master team and was being driven by Anton Shibalov.
Think about how fast Kamaz would get rid of a helicopter like that, without missing a beat. This equipment is definitely not the right combination of mass and inertia to move. Someone should tell the pilot of the helicopter to respect anything so big, going so fast.
Despite the fight with the rotary wing aircraft, the Russian team’s 501 truck took second place in the final stage of the event, and another KAMAZ master truck, 507, took first place. This led the team to victory and marks its 18th overall victory at the Dakar Rally.
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A record like this will surely make all the blows and scrapes worthwhile for the winners. In fact, the damage to the truck was not serious and the helicopter’s skid appears to have caused no damage to the truck cabin. Although I don’t think the structural integrity of the truck has been questioned.
The following question is more direct: What happened to the helicopter? In the video, we see the helicopter moving away quickly after hitting the truck. And it doesn’t seem to have suffered much damage. The truck gains more coverage in the clip than the aircraft, but we can see that the helicopter pilot learned his lesson and then moves away a little, letting the Kamaz advance.
We are happy that the helicopter has not lost its balance enough to cause an accident. Things could have ended very badly. But he ended up happy – if not for the helicopter, at least for the truck.