Team HRC were present this morning as the route for the forthcoming 39th edition of the Dakar Rally was announced. The race, in South America, will run through Paraguay -new country in this race.
Race organisers in Paris outlined how the three capital cities of Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina will stage the start, the rest day and the race finish of the 2017 Rally Dakar. Team HRC will once again be participating with a revamped team to be announced shortly.
The Honda factory team in the competition – Team HRC – will feature in the great Dakar odyssey, which this year adds another new country, Paraguay, to the lengthy list of nations who have staged the historic race. Paraguay’s capital Asunción will host the race start with Honda and the other competitors setting off from the Guaraní region on January 2nd in an area that is unknown to most riders. Another of the key dates unveiled was January 8th, where the entourage will get a well-deserved rest day midway through the competition in the Bolivian capital La Paz. The trans-Andean country will be home to five of the competition’s stages with the final week’s rallying taking place almost entirely in Argentina, where the race is due to end on January 14th in Buenos Aires.
The world’s most important off-road event will play out over 9000 kilometres with a determined Team HRC with sights firmly set on the top step of the final podium in Buenos Aires. Before doing so riders will have to make it over a multitude of terrain types: crossing Paraguayan jungle tracks, navigating across the Bolivian salt-flats, climbing to over 4000 metres and eating sand in the Argentinean dunes. All of this in a rally that will include two marathon stages and lengthy special stages.
Team HRC will soon be back in action: next month the squad will take part in the first of the Dakar Series 2017 in Morocco with the Merzouga Rally from 21st to 27th May in the Moroccan Sahara Desert.