Kamaz dominates podium as Dakar Rally concludes

Russia's Kamaz-Masters team has swept the podium at the 2013 Dakar Rally in the truck category. Top driver Eduard Nikolayev claimed the win, while teammates Airat Mardeyev and Andrei Karginov took the remaining two spots. It was the debut win for Nikolayev at the major annual rally, while the Kamaz-Masters truck team produced a dream comeback and claimed their 11th title following a poor showing last year. “For me, it's a dream come true, a dream which began five years ago when I got into a racing Kamaz for the first time as a mere mechanic,” Nikolayev said, adding, “It's simply incredible! I'm on cloud nine.” The 34th annual rally, which moved from Africa to South America in 2009 due to security reasons, kicked off January 5 in the Peruvian capital Lima, and finished on Saturday in the Chilean capital Santiago. The rally spanned over 8,500 kilometers of desert and mountainous tracks in the Latin American countries of Peru, Argentina and Chile. The awards ceremony will take place outside La Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago on Sunday. The other two winners in the motorcycles and cars categories are no strangers to the sport either: French nationals Cyril Despres and Stéphane Peterhansel.