HINO TEAM SUGAWARA entered Dakar Rally 2016, which was held in Argentina and Bolivia in South America from January 2 through 16, 2016. Extending their record of consecutive finishes since the team first entered the rally in 1991 to 25—and crowning their seventh straight victory in the Under 10-litre Class with a one-two finish—the team’s two trucks put on a stunning performance that placed them on par with many of their larger rivals, finishing in 13th and 31st place in the overall trucks category.

In preparation for this year’s rally, the team’s trucks, which were based on the HINO500 Series, received upgrades to their A09C-TI engines’ air intakes and modifications to their control systems to improve output and handleability. Combined with their upgraded suspensions, which were carefully honed through real-world trials carried out at Rally Mongolia in August 2015, these trucks were given a considerable boost to their racing capabilities in preparation for the Dakar Rally.
Of the team’s two trucks, Car 1 was crewed by driver Yoshimasa Sugawara and his new navigator Mitsugu Takahashi. Car 2 was piloted by the team’s ace driver Teruhito Sugawara and navigator Hiroyuki Sugiura, a duo who greeted their fifth Dakar Rally together.
On the support side, the team’s assistance squad was again joined by Katsuyuki Nagoshi from Hino Motors’ Engine Engineering Div. as the team’s engineer; Seiichi Suzuki from Japan Racing Management, the team’s parent body, as mechanic leader; and Masaki Nakamura from Hino Motors’ Vehicle Planning & Production Engineering Div. as mechanic sub-leader. In addition, Kohei Shimazaki from the Technical Research Center joined the team as the driver of the support car that transported the mechanics.
Also on the team were four of Hino’s best and brightest mechanics: Masaki Tagoku (Tokyo), Masato Kondo (Shizuoka), Nozomi Tonoike (Kagawa) and Hideyuki Sakaguchi (Kyushu), who were chosen from among the numerous mechanics who applied from Hino dealerships nationwide.

Marking the eighth year since the event was relocated to South America, this year’s rally kicked off in Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina, and coursed through Uyuni in Bolivia before reaching the finish line in Rosario, Argentina, taking contestants through 13 stages and a total distance of 9,039 kilometers, of which timed stages (Special Stages) made up 4,320 kilometers. The start line was initially set to be in Peru, but the country unfortunately had to cancel its bid to host the event in September.
Possibly due to this change, the first half of the race was a stream of stages that presented contestants with relatively few challenges. Meanwhile, the weather refused to stabilize throughout the duration of the race, with intense winds and torrential rains forcing organizers to cancel the Special for January 3, while a slew of other complications forced them to shorten Specials on January 4 and a number of subsequent days as well.
Under these conditions, the team’s HINO500 Series trucks made an impressive display of their potential, racing neck-and-neck with their larger rivals even in the early stages where sheer power was the determinant of the race. On January 9, Car 2 crossed the finish line in Salta, Argentina in 18th place overall (in accumulated rankings), and Car 1 in 41st after suffering a delay from being bogged down. These results meant that the team’s two trucks finished the first week of the rally with a one-two lead in the Under 10-litre Class.

After a day of rest, contestants embarked on the second week of the rally on January 11, when they would be faced with dunes and fesh-fesh (powder sand). The level of difficulty increased precipitously as racers were met with the highlight of this year’s race—the Fiambala Desert—over three days from January 12 to 14. On January 12, Car 2 climbed to 9th overall for the day’s Special, and on the following day clocked the fourth best checkpoint time at one point in the stage. And while the truck got bogged down in a dune area before the finish line and ended up finishing the day in 14th place, its performance was more than enough to show the world what the HINO500 Series trucks were capable of under these harsh conditions. The following day, Car 2 raced the mountain crossing stage under intense heat and crossed the finish line in Rosario in 13th place with little ado, with Car 1 following suit later in the day.

At the podium set up at Rosario’s Monumento Nacional a la Bandera, the team’s crews and staff firmly shook hands with Hino Motors Chairman Masakazu Ichikawa—who had flown in from Japan—before the curtain was drawn on this 15-day event. Once again, the numbers show the intensity of this year’s rally: Of the 347 bikes and cars that started, only 214, or 62%, made it to the finish line. In the Trucks category, only 41 finished out of 55 starts. it to the finish line. In the Trucks category, only 41 finished out of 55 starts.

Result of the truck division

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Summary Race Report (PDF | 2.6MB)

「HINO TEAM SUGAWARA」　Dakar Rally 2016 Team Member

Car 1
Driver: Yoshimasa SUGAWARA
Navigator: Mitsugu Takahashi

Car 2
Driver: Teruhito SUGAWARA
Navigator: Hiroyuki Sugiura

Mechanic leader: Seiichi Suzuki
Mechanic sub-leader: Masaki Nakamura, Hino Motors
Mechanics:
Masaki Tagoku, Tokyo Hino Motor, Ltd.
Masato Kondo, Shizuoka Hino Motor, Ltd.
Nozomi Tonoike, Kagawa Hino Motor, Ltd.
Hideyuki Sakaguchi, Kyushu Hino Motor, Ltd.

Engineer: Katsuyuki Nagoshi, Hino Motors, Ltd.

Route Map

Special Stage（SS）：　4,320km
Connection：　4,719km
Total Distance：　9,039km (Only for the truck division)

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Number of Entrants

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