The Year of the Yellow Dog for the racers of the famous Dakar rally started with failures. Injuries and breakdowns are happening to participants daily. This time, it was the Arabian racer Yazid Al-Radji who was unlucky, as he was crossing the Peruvian desert in a Mini.
Dakar Rally 2018: The Wrong Turn
As it became known, a breakdown on the road cost the participant time, and to catch up with the competitors, the driver decided to shorten the route using a local map. Traveling along the coastal zone, on smooth and flat sand, was comfortable, but an experienced Mini pilot did not expect dangers on the track. Wet sand, literally, sucked the vehicle into the ocean.
The driver and navigator were genuinely frightened, as they could not pull the SUV out of the trap, and waves tried to drag the vehicle into the ocean abyss. It is unknown how the episode would have ended if Chilean racer Boris Garafulich, also in a Mini SUV, had not driven by.
In a statement to the media, the Arab racer justified himself by saying that he got lost at the fork in the middle of the desert and chose the wrong turn. However, experts claim that with an experienced navigator and a map in hand, getting lost is impossible. It is reassuring that other participants also prefer the beach over sandy dunes; otherwise, a stranded vehicle would simply have been carried away into the ocean.
