Karel Loprais

Karel Loprais (born March 4, 1949 in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech rally raid driver and 6-time winner of the Dakar Rally in the truck category.

He started working in Tatra, Kopřivnice, as a factory worker in 1967, later becoming a test driver. He competed with a Tatra 815 truck in the Dakar Rally for the first time in 1986, 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 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).

...
Wikipedia