Reiger Suspension Equips Winning Vehicle at Dakar Rally
Tough off-road dampers were found on five of the top 10 finishers in the desert raid event…
For the 11th time, a competition car equipped with Reiger Suspension off-road dampers has won the Dakar Rally. It was the first win for Saudi Arabian driver Yazeed Al Rajhi, piloting his Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux T1+ #201 with co-driver Timo Gottschalk.
In all, Reiger Suspension, a Dutch chassis manufacturer and part of the KW group since 2021, was used on five of the top 10 race entrants, including racers who finished in first, fourth, seventh, eighth and ninth places.
Reiger-equipped vehicles also secured 10-of-12 stage wins and top-five finishes in the Challenger, SSV and Truck categories.
Most racers call the Dakar Rally the toughest rally raid in the world. Competitors drive more than 4,800 miles over 14 days through the deserts of Saudi Arabia, navigating scree and gravel plains, dunes and wadis. Numerous KW group motorsports customers were there this year, relying on Reiger Suspension for their rally raid prototypes, side-by-sides and trucks.
The tough, competitive conditions in the deserts of Saudi Arabia are simulated on a special endurance test bench at KW automotive’s headquarters in Fichtenberg, Germany, where the dampers are subjected to rigorous testing, simulating the entire track profile of past Dakar routes, the company noted in a press release.
The tests are rigorous, subjecting the dampers to vertical accelerations of up to 24 feet per second to simulate the impact of jumps and boulder crossings.
Throughout the entire Dakar Rally, Reiger was directly on-site with a service truck. The mobile workshop has four dust-protected, air-conditioned and fully equipped cabins for all conceivable service work. Thanks to the robust Reiger Suspension dampers and meticulous preparation, most jobs were routine maintenance work such as shock oil service.
Reiger damper technology will be available for road-legal off-road vehicles and pickup trucks in 2025.
