Motorsport: Dakar - driving support

If you're following the 32nd Dakar Rally, spare a thought for the logistics the race teams face.

The Dakar lasts 14 gruelling days plus just one 24-hour rest, and the VW team alone must carry 50 tonnes of material, including everything from spare bolts and tyres, to powdered soup.

A team of 80 people in 23 service vehicles supports five works cars and their drivers along the challenging Argentina to Chile route. And they're not just mechanics - there's even a physiotherapist aboard the VW juggernaut.

This is a challenging event. Days stretch from 182km to 600km, with the total reaching 9030km before the finish. The cars traverse difficult terrain, cross the Andes twice, and reach as high as 4726m above sea level as they cross the San Francisco Pass in the Andes.

Four of this year's day-long stages will be held in the Atacama Desert.

Reportedly 100 times drier than Death Valley, the region boasts several weather stations that have never recorded rain.

Four drivers sharing two VW Touareg-based cars will defend last year's diesel victory, when factory driver Giniel de Villiers and co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz won by under nine minutes.

That's if they survive; the race is hard on machines, and those 23 service vehicles are packed with parts. Five thousand are required to assemble each Touareg, more if you include the 224kW diesel engine.

That motor has been improved on last year, with alterations to the turbo charger and its intercooling. VW has also worked on brake cooling and gearbox reliability, while the car uses a new BF Goodrich-developed all terrain tyre shared with VW's biggest challenger, BMW.

Of course, this Touareg barely resembles either the vehicle selling in NZ showrooms, or the update launching at the Detroit Motor Show next week and on sale here in October.

But the Amarok ute that's supporting it is the production car Kiwis will see around September, with both two- and four-wheel-drive variants.

They will be powered by a 2.0-litre diesel unit boasting 400Nm of torque at a super-low 1500rpm, put to the wheels via a six-speed manual transmission.