Team de Rooy in action on this year's Dakar Rally. For the 2008 edition of the desert adventure the Dutch team will use Iveco engines.

The organisation of the Lisboa-Dakar has made the 30th edition of the mammoth rally event than ever. Almost 6,000 kilometres against the chronograph over 15 days, and the connecting stages are shorter. The rally will start on 5th January 2008 in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, and will end on 20th January in Dakar, Senegal.

The caravan will pass through Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal; due to political unrest they won’t visit Mali. The rest day will be on Sunday, 13th January 2008, in Nouakchott, Mauritania. Just like last year, the entry is already full in July with 350 requests for the motorbike league, 220 requests for the car league and 100 entries for the truck list.

Obviously the Team de Rooy will be present although it took some time before the De Rooy family gave the go-ahead to start with the preparation of the vehicles. However they have said good-bye to DAF Trucks as the truck manufacturer was no longer able to spend time on the development of rally engines due to their own development activities. Therefore, father and son de Rooy had to look for another engine, and they finally the 13 litre Cursor engine from Iveco.

In the spring of this year they got in touch with Iveco Schouten, an Iveco dealer with several branches in the Netherlands. This contact resulted in a commercial agreement followed by tests in Tunisia. At that time it was not known what the requirements of the FIA would be with regard to the building-in of the engine, so this meant also a postponement of the construction.

In the meantime the Team is working very hard on the construction of the three rally trucks and the two assistance trucks. The trucks are being built on the basis of the Ginaf configuration with the 13 litre Iveco-engine. The crew of the rally trucks of the Team de Rooy has undergone few changes. Jan de Rooy will have the familiar face of Danny Colebunders beside him, while Gerard de Rooy rides with as well his friend Tom Colsoul and Arno Slaats. Hugo Duisters will drive the fast assistance truck in the rally and will be assured of the assistance of his regular partner and navigator Yvo Geusens. In total there will be only two new faces in the five vehicles.