Teams competing in the 2021 Dakar Rally should now apparently add helicopter collisions to the rally hazard list. As if Dakar wasn’t dangerous enough already.
Watch this Kamaz get a sweet lift after rolling over a dune at high speed, only to cut the skid of a low-flying press helicopter:
The scene unfolded in the 12th and final stage of the rally, along the Yanbu-Jeddah route in Saudi Arabia. The truck you see here belongs to the KAMAZ master team and was driven by Anton Shibalov.
Imagine how fast Kamaz would shake off an entire helicopter without missing a beat. That rig is definitely not the right combination of mass and inertia to mess around with. Someone should tell the pilot of that helicopter to respect everything so big so quickly.
Despite the struggle with the rotary wing, the Russian team’s No. 501 truck came second in the final stage of the event, and another KAMAZ master truck, No. 507, took first. That led the team to victory and marks his 18th overall win in the Dakar Rally.
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Such a record makes all the bangs and wear well worth it for the winners. In fact, the damage to the truck was in no way serious, and the helicopter’s skid does not appear to have caused any damage to the truck cabin. Although I don’t think the truck’s structural integrity was ever in question.
The next question is more to the point: what happened to the helicopter? In the video, we see the helicopter pull away quickly after locking the truck. And it doesn’t seem to have taken any major damage. The truck gets more coverage in the clip than the plane, but we can see that the helicopter pilot has learned the lesson and then leans back a bit, sending the Kamaz forward.
We are glad the helicopter was not unbalanced enough to cause a crash. It could have ended very badly. But it ended happily – if not for the helicopter, then certainly for the truck.