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Karel Loprais (4 March 1949 – 30 December 2021) was a Czech rally raid 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 t ...
'', 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 in 1999 (3rd place) and 2000 (2nd place).


Personal life and death

Loprais was the uncle of
Aleš Loprais Aleš Loprais (born 10 January 1980 in Olomouc) is a Czech rally raid truck driver. Loprais has a long association with Tatra and has been a frequent participant of the Dakar Rally, having also won the 2011 Silk Way Rally in the truck category. ...
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 quick ...
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