The Dakar Rally begins in Peru on Saturday, and Yokohama Tire shares that it is sponsoring Ssanyong Motorsport’s entry in this year’s event. It will supply the SsangYong Motorsport Tivoli DKR vehicle with Yokohama Geolandar M/T G003 mud-terrain tyres.
Cooper Tire 4×4 ambassador Xavi Foj is preparing to enter his 28th consecutive Dakar Rally – the tenth he has competed on Cooper tyres. For the 2018 rally, Foj’s Toyota Land Cruiser 150 will be shod with the all-new Cooper Discoverer S/TMAXX POR – a tyre he assisted in developing for extreme off-road adventures.
In order to build on its successful performance during the 2017 Dakar, BFGoodrich has prepared for the next edition of the world’s most demanding cross-country rally by developing a bespoke new tyre: the BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KDR2+.
Three days, four hours and 54 minutes – this is the time Rainer Zietlow and his team took to drive their Goodyear-shod Volkswagen Amarok V6 TDI from Dakar to Moscow. Zietlow, together with Russian blogger Peter Bakanov and journalist Georgy Gloube, arrived in the Russian capital shortly before 10am on 25 April, having passed through ten countries as they covered 7,995 kilometres (4968 miles) in record time.
Last month the KAMAZ-Master rally team not only secured a one-two win in the truck category at the Dakar Rally 2017, it was also victorious in the truck section of the Africa Eco Race. Tyre maker Continental states that these two rallies “marked the beginning of a product cooperation” between it and the Russian KAMAZ-Master team. As part of this cooperation, Continental tyres were fitted on the KAMAZ-Master race trucks and all support trucks.
Despite leading the event for several stages and successfully battling terrible conditions, Team De Rooy had to settle for third and fourth places in the truck category of the 2017 Dakar. Driving Iveco Powerstar 4X4s equipped with standard Goodyear ORD tyres, Dutchman Gerard De Rooy in truck #500 and Argentinian Federico Villagra in truck #502 covered 5,300 miles of the challenging terrain, finishing close behind the two Russian Kamaz trucks. The remaining two Team De Rooy trucks finished 16th and 17th out of the 50 trucks that entered.
The 2017 Dakar Rally finished on January 14, and Peugeot Sport and BFGoodrich – which returned to the world’s most famous cross-country rally after a four-year absence – monopolised the podium following the two-week event’s conclusion in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Cooper Tire Europe will support its ambassador Xavier Foj, supplying Discoverer STT Pro tyres to Foj Motorsport for his 27th Dakar Rally. The Foj Motorsport Cooper Tire team has completed a series of rigorous test sessions in the run up to what is considered the toughest endurance event in global motorsport, taking place on 2-14 January 2017 in Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia.
In 2016 Cooper Tire continued to support the World Rallycross Championship and European Rallycross, also providing tyres to Dakar Rally veteran Xavier Foj, who has taken on the challenge an impressive 26 times. Meanwhile, Avon Tyres burnished its reputation as master of classic motorcycle race tyres, underlined in the Isle of Man this year with victories for Avon in both the Senior and Junior Classic TT races, for John McGuinness and Michael Dunlop respectively.
The De Rooy team, winner of the 2016 Dakar rally truck class, is returning to defend its crown on Goodyear Offroad ORD tyres. Gerard De Rooy and his team chose the tyre for its four race trucks as well as fitting Goodyear Omnitrac mixed service tyres to their service trucks. The team will target a repeat success with the support of the tyre manufacturer, which will provide testing and back-up.
BFGoodrich Tyres will return to the 2017 Dakar Rally as the official tyre supplier. The news marks a return of the brand as a major force in the rally, which starts in Asunción, Paraguay in January; BFGoodrich tyres will be back on a wide range of competitors’ vehicles for the first time since 2012. In support of this, the brand will roll out the BFGoodrich Dakar Service Center, through which competitors will benefit from 24/7 technical expertise. The rugged terrain and unpredictable elements racers face over two weeks and more than 5,000 miles of punishing competition across three countries is described as exactly the sort of proving ground BFGoodrich seeks. The brand that created the first radial all-terrain tyre in 1976 and has since claimed many off-road racing victories around the globe will equip roughly 300 vehicles at Dakar with race tyres designed and constructed to withstand the punishment of the terrain.
The De Rooy truck team recently won the Dakar 2016 rally truck category, driving on standard Goodyear ORD off-the-road truck tyres. The event, which concluded on Saturday 16 January 2016 covered approximately 9000 kilometres in 13 days on the toughest terrain that Argentina and Bolivia can offer, the Dakar – or the ‘Odyssey’ as it is known – is acknowledged as the world’s toughest race.
Cooper Tire Europe and Foj Motorsport are putting their final plans in place for the 2016 Dakar Rally, as Cooper Tire Europe ambassador Xavier Foj confirms his 26th entry into the world-famous endurance event. Foj’s Toyota Land Cruiser 150 is similar to the models in which he claimed two Dakar victories, and he will fit the recently launched Cooper Discoverer STT Pro tyres. Unveiled in October 2015 the new tyre is designed specifically for adventurous driving, with balanced performance characteristics across a range of off-highway surfaces – sand, tarmac, and even the thickest mud.
Following extensive testing in Spain and Morocco, the 2012 Dakar race-winning De Rooy team has chosen Goodyear ORD off-the-road truck tyres for the three Iveco trucks it has entered into ‘the Odyssey’, the 2016 Dakar race. The tyres to be used are size 375/90R22.5 Goodyear ORD tyres. This size is unique to Goodyear and replaces the 14.00R20 fitment the De Rooy team previously used. The size 375/90R22.5 tyre retains the same overall diameter and width as the 14.00R20 but the larger rim diameter provides greater brake clearance, thereby improving heat resistance.
Cooper can lay claim to being a leading brand within the 4×4 tyre market, with one of the stronger ranges of any manufacturer. Its tyres are selected for many applications, with the world’s most gruelling off-road endurance event, the Dakar Rally, perhaps the most notable for the challenge it presents to rubber. Cooper tyres are utilised by rally legends such as Xavi Foj, whose team is supported by the brand; links such as this help the manufacturer to underline its presence within this segment. Foj used the Discoverer S/T Maxx to take a podium finish in Buenos Aires this January, in what was the Spanish driver’s 25th Dakar Rally.
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