Rally Raid goes on regardless of Covid and worldwide disruption. I have my concerns about whether Dakar is going to happen in early 2021 but many organizations are pushing forward with events including the Baja 1000 coming up in Mexico, a host of rally raid events in Europe and South America over the past month or so and upcoming two events in the Middle East. So…some of us have gotten on with the business of living life….
Baja Portalegre is a big annual event that has a fairly lengthy history and brings out some big names. This year it was Dakar regulars Bernhard Ten Brinke and codriver Tom Colsoul taking home the win behind the wheel of a top flight Overdrive Toyota Hilux.
Nissans didn’t take the win (unsurprising!) but did have a number of respectable showings in what looks like a particularly wet and sloppy event. Five of the 29 finishers were behind the wheel of Nissans. Three of these were Navaras and two Pathfinders, finding themselves in 14th, 18th, 21st, 26th and 29th places out of 29 finishers. One Nissan ended as a DNF being the Navara of Nuno Tordo. Of additional note is that the 18th place finisher in Ronald Van Loon and 21st place Stefan Carmans were both VK56 Navaras manufactured by the RedLine Motorsports effort from South Africa who continues to produce these high end vehicles for Privateers across the globe. Photos of some of these vehicles in action at the Portalegre below.
