Karel Loprais (4 March 1949 – 30 December 2021) was a Czech

rally raid Rally raid, also known as cross-country rallying, is a form of long distance off-road racing that takes place over several days. The length of the event can be as short as 2–3 days for a cross-country baja to as long as 15 days with marathon ra ...

driver and six-time winner of the

Dakar Rally The Dakar Rally (or simply "The Dakar"; formerly known as the "Paris–Dakar Rally") is an annual rally raid organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation. Most events since the inception in 1978 were staged from Paris, France, to Dakar, Senegal ...

in the

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame constructi ...

category.

Career

He started working in Tatra,

Kopřivnice Kopřivnice (; german: Nesselsdorf) is a town in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 21,000 inhabitants. It is an industrial town, known especially for the vehicle manufacturer Tatra. Administrative parts Villages o ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, as a factory worker in 1967, later becoming a

test driver In motorsport it is common to have one or more test drivers who work with the mechanics to help develop the vehicle by testing new systems on the track. In specific motorsports Formula One In Formula One, the term third driver is used to designa ...

. He competed with a

Tatra 815 The Tatra 815 is a truck family, produced by Czech company Tatra. It uses the traditional tatra concept of rigid backbone tube and swinging half-axles giving independent suspension. The vehicles are available in 4x4, 6x6, 8x8, 10x8, 10x10, 1 ...

truck in the Dakar Rally for the first time in 1986,Sverak, Jakub
"The call of the road"
. ''

Prague Post ''The Prague Post'' was an English language newspaper covering the Czech Republic and Central and Eastern Europe which published its first weekly issue on October 1, 1991. It published a printed edition weekly until July 2013, when it dropped th ...

'', 21 February 2001. Retrieved on 17 May 2013. Dead link. being disqualified from the 2nd place for arriving late to the last stage start. He competed 19 times between 1986-2006 and claimed six titles (1988, 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2001), four second places (1987, 1996, 2000, 2002), one third place (1992), two fourth places (1990, 1991) and one seventh place (2004). After his second victory in 1994, when he placed at the 6th place in the common auto-camion category some media started to call him ''Monsieur Dakar''. After the Dakar Rally he took part in the Paris-Moscow-Beijing rally in 1993 (3rd place), the Master Rallye in 1995 (4th place) and the

UAE Desert Challenge The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

in 1999 (3rd place) and 2000 (2nd place).

Personal life and death

Loprais was the uncle of Aleš Loprais who is also a rally raid truck driver. Loprais died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

at a hospital in Nový Jičín on 30 December 2021, aged 72.

Dakar Rally results

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Loprais, Karel 1949 births 2021 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic Sportspeople from Ostrava Czech rally drivers Off-road racing drivers Dakar Rally drivers Dakar Rally winning drivers Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic) Rally raid truck drivers