Paris Dakar 1988 DAF Truck

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Helen and I looked really hard at the 1995 Dakar, but decided it was a $100,000 deal and we just couldn't justify the cost (or the risk) with 2 sub 4 year olds.

Still would have been the event of a lifetime. I could die happy after doing Dakar. The Australian Safari was something special but nothing by comparison.

I saw this beast once live at truck show in Meijel/Netherlands. It was a huge truck and loud!

Zuffen you made the right decision. Family is everything.

Zuffen has certainly done some beaut stuff.

Sounds like his wife was a part of the team. They will always regret it, no matter the justifications. The safe ship never sails far from the shore. I also have regrets on missed opportunities rejected for "safety" reasons and think, looking back, that although it might have been marginal with the resources at hand it would have been doable with 20/20 hindsight.

Pity we can not see into the future.

Lang that is so true

I dunno how why or why not, but I do know my biggest regrets in life so far are the things I didn't have the balls to do at the time for mamy different reasons

Biggest regret by far is not going to the Ord river on the last land release

Paul

This monster across from us now would plough its own track in a Dakar. It just seems to grow in size each day.

Is it an ex-army Unimog?

It has the Merc emblem on front. My thoughts are ex Army for sure. Don't want to scratch the paint any to find out. It is huge to stand next to.

Lang, we haven't done 1/4 of the cool stuff you and Bev have done.

In 1993 I ran the Aussie Safari in a Porsche 911 with a friend as Helen was pregnant. Broke the car on the 2nd day and retired.

In 1994 Helen and I ran a Range Rover DAKAR (essentially a Rangie with a plastic body. We split the fuel tank in the Simpson near Cordillo Downs and limped into Birdsville where we welded it up. The next day we crossed the Simpson South to north in a car full of fuel fumes as the carpet on the floor was saturated. We could have died at any moment over the next 4 days (the tank did split again) and that sobered up our idea of the DAKAR.

We won the National Division for our efforts.

As it turned out Helen was pregnant so our youngest was along for the ride!