Jon’s team not only finished the 2013 Dakar, they finished 11th Overall in the car category and only 25 seconds behind 10th place.
As usual the Dakar throws curve balls at you, this year the usual ones such as punctures on rocks, getting stuck in dune basins etc, but the main one described by the Dakar organisation as a “Meteorological Armageddon” was a small Tsunami travelling towards Jon and Geoff as they were driving up a dry (supposedly) river bed, it was about 500 metres away and about 1 metre tall, they exited the river bed just in time.
Whilst driving around the Tsunami following mountain passes, other river beds and canyons, the car slid off a small ledge and onto its left side đ
The emergency helicopter arrived to scope out the situation and tried to convince Jon and Geoff to quit the rally and return in the chopper, what! wrong answer, try again.
The dogged determination, failure is not an option attitude and calmness of the duo led to the hatching of a cunning plan, they then spent the next 7 hours digging out about 2 tons of sand and rock, then made 2 mounds to use to manually jack up the car and back onto its wheels again.
By midnight it was on its wheels but too dangerous to continue in the dark, they slept in the car, in the rain, now wet and cold shivering until sunrise.
At sunrise, the swollen river had reduced in size, so the duo drove the rest of the stage back to the bivouvac.
Lady luck was with them that day (yes really) because the stage had been cancelled 2 hours before they rolled (but they didn’t know) and the following day was rest day, so the roll and night out didn’t affect their rally time at all, very lucky indeed.
The mechanics straightened the car and replaced the missing windows, the highly motivated adrenalin fueled duo then went onto acheive 2 top ten stage results and finished the toughest rally in the world 11th overall.
Here at Lanonyx we are delighted with the result, a result that places our Jon Aston as the highest placed brit on the 2013 Dakar and (we have been told) the 4th highest placed British Navigator on the Dakar since it started in 1979 đ
The full story and pictures as it unfolded can by found at