Hans Bekx from Sint-Oedenrode was at the start of the Dakar Rally twelve times. In 1998 he got lost during his first Dakar Rally with Normal singer Bennie Jolink in Africa and in 2011 he dropped out on the first stage in Argentina after a serious crash. He also experienced a lot in the intervening years. He is currently watching the Dakar Rally held in Saudi Arabia with suspicion.
Hans Bekx cannot suppress a laugh when he thinks back to his first Dakar Rally in 1998. In Africa he rode together with singer Bennie Jolink, who served as his navigator. It was a special adventure. “I had a lot of fun with Bennie,” says Bekx. “But he was a fool and it didn’t matter to him. It never really went well and we got lost all the time.”
But Bekx himself was also as green as grass as a driver. “It was quite a challenge and I didn’t know anything yet,” he continues. “That was evident from the first dunes we encountered. They were only five or six meters high, but we just stopped because we thought we would never get out again. ‘We shouldn’t drive through those,’ Bennie and I said to each other. We really knew how to blow toots.”
But in the years that followed, everything turned out well and Hans Bekx became a seasoned Dakar rider after all. “I was always very keen to win the first stage, because then the team’s noses were immediately pointed in the right direction. I have always enjoyed working together in a close-knit team the most. I still miss that. every year.”
“Today it’s different,” he continues. “Then mechanics want to be paid by the hour or they want to be home on time. No, not in our time. We got together after a Dakar Rally in February and were already tinkering in the shed on March 1. There was a different mentality.”
“I thought this is going to be a boxing match with trucks around it.”
The trucker from Sint-Oedenrode experienced highs and lows during his Dakar participations. For example, in 2005 he was second in the general classification, but was disqualified for a minor incident immediately after the penultimate stage. His plastic bumper would not comply with the regulations.
“That happened just after the finish,” says Bekx. “But we were 165 people from Brabant and they were very angry about it. At one point I thought: this will be a boxing match with trucks around it. But it went well.”
“It was mainly incompetence on the part of the organization,” he continues. “Because a year later, everyone was suddenly allowed to drive with such a bumper. It was also much safer, so it made no sense. But the French mentality came into play. It was all favoritism at the time. They should just deal with France take a kick out of Europe, haha.”
“Going through a right-angle bend at 140 kilometers per hour was not possible.”
Bekx experienced another memorable moment in Argentina in 2011, where he crashed in the first stage. “Going through a right-angle bend at 140 kilometers per hour was not possible,” he says now, laughing. “We had driven ten kilometers and I parked the truck in a ditch. It was a tap and it happened. It goes so fast. I wanted to keep driving, but everything was as crooked as a hoop.”
Bekx follows the current Dakar Rally on television, but with suspicion. For him, the romance is gone. “We just packed our things and went to win. I think that’s what they want now, but it’s different. The experience is different. They all go to the gym and stuff, but I’ve never seen it inside.” “To drive a good rally, you have to have everything right and everything has to be paid for.”
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This year, Omroep Brabant is also closely following the Dakar Rally. Watch a new episode of Bivak Brabant Dakar every evening on YouTube and in the morning on TV and don’t miss any of the adventures of the Brabant participants in the desert.