Summarize

Having conquered the Atacama Desert en route to his historic 2018 Dakar rookie victory and then racing through the Sahara earlier this year during his fine performance in the Moroccan performance, Pretoria race driver Hennie de Klerk now has the Arabian Desert squarely in his cross hairs and he, navigator Johann Smalberger and the TreasuryOne Amarok team prepare for an all new adventure in the Saudi Dakar 2020 in January.

“TreasuryOne Motorsport is delighted to announce that we are on our way to Dakar 2020 in Saudi Arabia,” Hennie confirmed on Monday. “We conquered the Atacama on our Dakar debut last year and then had an incredible run in the Sahara in Morocco earlier this year. "Now we are off to a fresh Dakar challenge in the Arabian Desert!

“We have a full program in place leading up to the Dakar from 5-17 January 2020, starting with a run in the Kalahari Rally early October, but we will be involving our fans in the build-up and we are asking everyone to join me in my Hennie Push Up Challenge. “We are offering fifteen lucky fans the chance to come for a spin with me in the hot seat of our TreasuryOne Amarok in our last local testing on 24 September, before we tackle the Kalahari Rally.

“How it works is simple — I will be doing 6000 push-ups during September to bring my Dakar training regime into better perspective — one push-up for each kilometre we will race during Dakar 2020 and I invite you to join me, make a video of you doing your own your push-ups and to post your video to our Facebook page via the link below. “No need for you to do 6000 push-ups, but the best fifteen videos posted on or before Thursday 19 September will win a lap in the car with me! “So come on — get pressing up — we look forward to making that a really special experience for our winners!”

De Klerk and Smalberger and the team already completed a successful test in the Amarok in the Namibian dunes in August. “We had a good test in Namibia and ran 250km in the dunes, where besides a few small issues, the TreasuryOne Amarok ran like a train. “Next step is our last test and prize ride and then the Kalahari Rally — we are really looking forward to that — it’s a great rally with some serious navigation and will make for good training for the Dakar. 

“After that it’s flat out on our Dakar preparation to be ready well in time to ship the TreasuryOne Amarok and all our kit to Saudi Arabia late in November so it’s there well in time for the 5 January start of the Dakar 2020.

“For now we look forward to your press-up videos — post them at www.facebook.com/treasuryonemotorsport/, subscribe to www.youtube.com/channel/UCbu9zwQOmW-t3gK_pP1I3gQ and keep up with our news on our media home page at www.motorsportmedia.co.za/customer.asp?cusID=88.”