Breslau Rally 2013: Trucks Part 1

This is the second of four posts of photo albums from the Breslau Rally 2013.

There were thirty trucks in competition at the Breslau Rally in Poland this year. Thirteen of them were in the over 7.5 ton category. After sorting through our photos, we had so many interesting ones that we decided to split them into two parts so the posts would take less time to load.

In this second post of our Breslau Rallye photo series, we’ve collected our favorite truck photos from from Days 1-4. The photos are arranged in rough chronological order, and for Tatra fans there are a number of photos of the Svoboda Tatra Team throughout the series.

From the Prolog, on the Motorcross track at the Lausitzring (EuroSpeedway Lausitz), starting with the 6×6 Volvo 306 (TGB13) of Harry and Janny Van Steijn, which was actually classed with the cars,

the field was composed mostly of Mercedes Unimogs and MAN KATs, but not only German teams. This one driven by Gildas Carnet is from France.

The IFA L60 of Harald Chemnitz, Philipp Beier and Thorsten Moeler.

The Svoboda Tatra was a colorful exception.

The next opportunity we had to get photos was on Day 4 on the stage around the bivouac at Drawkso Pomorski:

The following series of photos from one of the most difficult passages of the day gives a good idea of a typical Breslau Rallye mud hole. It took Remmer Deharde and Manfred Cordes over 30 minutes to cross this one in their MAN KAT 1.

Although they roared into the water with lots of power,

they quickly became stuck in the mud and had to use the winch.

As they were attaching the winching strap, another car started across and also became stuck in the mire right beside them.

The car was faster winching, so they had to move their cable to let it pass.

While they ware setting up again, another car attempted the crossing on the right and made it through, so their teammates in the “Pirtek” MAN 10 T GLW tried their luck with the same tack,

but got stuck.

Meanwhile, a Suzuki started out on the other side and got stuck too.

The winch on the MAN KAT 1 is on the PTO, so while it’s powerful, it’s also slow. The Suzuki wasn’t going to wait, and the cables became tangled.

They had to disentangle them to get through.

When the way was finally clear, they winched out,

also pulling through another Suzuki that came up behind to take advantage of the ride.

Shortly afterwards, the Volvo 306 made it through with a whoop and a holler but without having to winch.