MOTORING NEWS - Hino Motors of Japan aims to rewrite the record book in the 2018 Dakar Rally which starts on 6 January in Peru, with a rest day in Bolivia before finishing in Argentina on 20 January.
This will be the 40th edition of the very demanding Dakar Rally and the fourth to be staged in South America.
The demanding route will be made up of 5 000km of timed racing stages and 4 000km of road sections between the timed stages.
Hino was the first Japanese truck manufac-turer to enter the Dakar Rally in 1991.
It will be aiming for its third consecutive 1-2 finish and ninth straight win in the class for trucks with engines under 10-litre capacity.
It will also be the 35th consecutive entry by driver and director of Hino Team Sugawara, Yoshimasa Sugawara.
Yoshimasa, nicknamed "Iron Man of the Dakar" and now 76, entered the motorcycle category of the Dakar Rally in 1983 and has competed in every event since then.
His partnership with Hino began in 1992 when the rally ended in Cape Town.
His 34th entry in the 2017 Dakar was recognised as a Guinness World Record.
Yoshimasa's son, Teruhito, is the team's lead driver and last year achieved his eighth consecutive win in the under 10-litre category, rewriting the record book, which had previously seen Hino notch seven successive class wins between 1996 and 2002.
Team Hino Sugawara is ready to tackle the challenges of the Dakar Rally 2018.
The team will again enter two Hino 500 four-wheel drive trucks with turbo-charged, 9-litre engines developing 515kW at 2 400r/min in Truck No 2.
This is to be crewed by Teruhito Sugawara and navigator Mitsugu Takahashi.
The other truck is slightly downrated at 493kW at 2 300r/min. Truck No 1 is to be crewed by Yoshimasa Sugawara and navigator Katsumi Hamura.
In both cases the engines deliver 2 314Nm of torque at 1 200r/min. Transmission is via a six-speed gearbox with hi-lo shifting. Each truck carries 700 litres of fuel.
Significant changes have been made to the suspension and other aspects of these racing trucks since the 2017 Dakar Rally.
In addition, the team has participated in the Silkway Rally and Rally Mongolia in the intervening months to ensure the trucks are both fast and reliable as the team prepares to take on the rigours of the 2018 Dakar Rally.
Team Hino Sugawara will be backed up by a team of technicians selected from Hino dealerships in Japan. There are 44 other entries, made up of 12 brands, in the truck category for the 2018 Dakar Rally.
MAN is the most popular brand in the field with 11 entries.
The remainder of competing brands are: Mercedes-Benz and DAF (5 each), Kamaz, Iveco and Tatra (4 each), Maz and Renault (3 each), Hino (2), Ginaf, Scania and Liaz (1 each).
"While the top positions in the truck category of the Dakar Rally are dominated by monster trucks with engines having capacities of more than 10 litres, the Hino team continues to battle with its rivals under the motto 'small can prevail over large'," said Yoshimasa Sugawara.
"We are very proud that we continue to rewrite the records on reliability by bringing together Hino's engineering capabilities in truck design, development, manufacturing, and servicing expertise, with a closely-knit team that has accumulated a great deal of experience over the years.
"We are looking forward to the challenges that the 2018 Dakar Rally will throw at us."
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