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Land Rover-sponsored Race2Recovery set sail to Dakar

Whitley Wednesday 4th December 2013. Race2Recovery, the only disabled rally-raid team in the world, have successfully loaded their compliment of race and support vehicles on the ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation) ship bound for South America for the start of the 2014 Dakar.

The team drove its two Defender-based Wildcat rally raid cars, one T4 competition truck, one T5 support truck and two Land Rover Discovery support cars to the Le Havre port in France and successfully passed scrutineering under the watchful eye of the ASO. Their vehicles join over 650 other competitor vehicles in a ship that set sail from Le Havre bound for South America last weekend.

The scrutineering event gives fans and competitors alike an early indication of the sheer size and logistical challenge of running the Dakar. Hundreds of competitors from all over the world gathered to scrutineer bikes, trucks and cars in the various race classes.

This year's race will start on January 5th 2014 starting from Rosario in Argentina and for the first time will enter Bolivia crossing the Andes and concluding 14 days later in Valparaiso in Chile.

The Race2Recovery team set-off in the dead of night driving all its road-registered vehicles to Portsmouth overnighting on the cross-channel ferry to Caen, France. The following day, an hour's drive ensued to Le Havre which saw the giant race trucks and agile Wildcats mix with local traffic attracting much supportive attention en route.

Pav Taylor, Team Manager, who was blown up by an IED in Afghanistan said: "I'm delighted and relieved that the cars have successfully passed through scrutineering. We used the drive from Caen to Le Havre as a short shakedown exercise and made some minor adjustments on the way.

"We learnt so much from our inaugural year and we are putting that knowledge into practice for 2014 so I am confident we're ready. Obviously our aim is to finish again and we're aiming to climb the standings."

The two Discoverys provided by Land Rover as part of its sponsorship package will support Race2Recovery along the assistance route and will provide vital support to the team throughout the 14 day epic. Excellent on and off-road capability is absolutely essential to the team's success. The vehicles carry front-mounted winches, roof racks and will run on standard all-terrain tyres. Land Rover's Terrain Response will be used in difficult situations to aid the team to deal with the various demanding landscapes synonymous with the Dakar.