Sponsorship of "Starikovich-Heskes" race team from Cyprus at the Dakar 2017

About the team

From meeting Nasser Al-Attiyah to participating in the Dakar 2017 rally

In Cyprus in 2015, Roman Starikovich met Nasser Al-Attiyah, the legend of the Dakar rally for the first time. At that moment, the Autolife team was born – Nasser inspired Roman to participate in the competition and in August 2015 Roman started gearing up for the race very actively. At this time, Desert Warrior rally car was ordered, which the team members call "Bumblebee".

A bit later, a real luck favored the team once again: Nasser introduced Roman to one of the most famous women in motorcycle sport history, Annie Seel, who took part in Dakar rallies seven times. All together, they travelled to Morocco for training where they found Bert Heskes, the Autolife team co-pilot-to-be.

Having completed the team, guys continued preparing for the race more intensively, including participation in several local races in Cyprus. The team was victorious in three of them, but during the competition in Famagusta, Bumblebee turned upside down and, as a result, the team was disqualified.

Bert Heskes commented on this as follows: "I guess we needed to turn upside down at least once before the Dakar, just to know what it feels like".

Roman Starikovich, the team’s pilot, is an experienced racer, who covered more than 60,000 off road kilometers in Australia, Africa, and Europe.

Pilot
Роман Старикович
NAME

Roman Starikovich

BORN

23 October 1973, Smolensk, USSR

PROFESSION

CEO Orpheus Group

OFF ROAD EXPERIENCE

Cross African Expedition Port Said 2008
Trans African Expedition Alexandria 2009
Transmediterranean Expedition 2010
Australian Round Expedition 2011
East Safari Rally 2016
Palmtree Rally 2016

Bert Heskes, the co-pilot, who has already participated in the Dakar rally in 2016.

The team rides Desert Warrior race vehicle, developed by Rally Raid based on Land Rover gear.

Co-pilot
Берт Хескес
NAME

Bert Heskes

BORN

21 June 1962, Amsterdam, Netherlands

PROFESSION

Interim Manager

OFF ROAD EXPERIENCE

Expedition style off road travel since 1998
Dutch National Championships T1.1 and T1.2
German Baja 300
Libya Rally (5th overall)
Dakar support in 2007
Dakar co-pilot 2016