Apparently, teams participating in the 2021 Dakar Rally should now add helicopter collisions to the rally risk list. As if Dakar weren’t dangerous enough already.
Watch as this Kamaz gets a little sweet after rolling a dune at high speed, only to cut off the glide of a low-flying press helicopter:
The scene took place in the 12th and final stage of the rally, along the Yanbu-Jeddah route to Saudi Arabia. The truck you see here comes from the main KAMAZ team and was driven by Anton Shibalov.
Think of how quickly Kamaz would set aside an entire helicopter, never losing pace. This platform is definitely not the right combination of mass and inertia with which to wrap. Someone should tell the pilot of that helicopter to respect anything so big, going so fast.
Despite the conflict with the rotary wing aircraft, truck no. 501 of the Russian team took second place in the final stage of the event and another master truck KAMAZ, number 507, came first. This led the team to victory and marks theirs 18th overall victory at the Dakar Rally.
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A record like that is sure to make all the blows and traps worthwhile for the winners. In fact, the damage to the truck was by no means serious and it appears that the helicopter skid did not cause any damage to the truck’s cabin. Although I don’t think the structural integrity of the truck has ever been questioned.
The next question is more specific: what happened to the helicopter? In the video, we see the helicopter take off quickly after trimming the truck. And it looks like it hasn’t suffered any major damage. The truck has more coverage on the clip than the plane, but we can see that the helicopter pilot learned his lesson and then lags a little behind, letting the Kamaz move forward.
We are glad that the helicopter was not unbalanced enough to cause an accident. Things could have ended very badly. But he ended up happily, if not by helicopter, sure by truck.