With former rally stars Markku Alén and Miki Biasion at the wheel, Italian truck manufacturer Iveco, will be bidding for outright victory on the 2006 Lisboa-Dakar Rally with the huge and powerful 13-litre Trakker 190T44 truck when the team takes to the start ramp tomorrow morning in Lisbon, Portugal.

This year's 28th edition of the famous cross-desert race to Dakar will be Iveco's second official participation. Last year, with the smaller Eurocargo 140E24 4X4 truck, and with Alén and Biasion both on the driving strength, the former finished the event in a highly impressive seventh place, although it was one of the few leading truck entries to boast an engine of less than 10-litres. For the 2006 edition Iveco have developed the 13-litre Trakker 190T44W in a bid to claim overall race honours, while a pair of the smaller Eurocargo 140E24 trucks complete an ambitious five-vehicle entry, which will once again be run by Motorsport Italia Srl. Alen and Biasion will be joined in the team by experienced Spanish veteran Josep Vila Roca.

The 28th edition of the race, will start from Lisbon tomorrow morning, and race across the North African desert before arriving on Dakar on 15th January 2006. The rally, which saw the entry list close in July in all categories, will set off for the first time from Portugal, with 508 teams in the race, made up of 240 motorbikes, 188 cars and 80 trucks, along with 240 assistance vehicles.

After two new style specials which will be contested on European soil, and the competitors timed over approximately 200 kilometres, the caravan of motorcycles, cars and trucks will arrive in Africa where they will cross Morocco, Mauritania (a rest day will occur in Nouakchott), Mali, Guinea and Senegal, with the finish of the race being judged on the banks of Lac Rose. During this long trip, a total of 9,043 km including almost 5,000 km of special stages, the emphasis will be on a return to navigating, the founding principle of rally raids. GPS functions are being deliberately reduced this year, obliging drivers and co-drivers to navigate exclusively according to information given in the road-book. Moreover, several measures, such as fixing a speed limit (160 km/h) and reducing autonomy for bikes, have been adopted with a view to improving safety conditions for competitors and local populations.

In the truck category Kamaz, who have dominated the competition with multiple Dakar winner Vladimir Tchaguine (who lines up this year in Kamaz truck No 508) and last year's winner Firdaus Kabirov (No 500) will see their dominace challenged this year by DAF, Tatra, Mercedes, Hino and Iveco.  A question mark remains concerning the Dutch DAF team who still aren’t yet sure of being able to start the rally tomorrow after having failed to pass yesterday's scruitineering. They need the FIA to send them the correct license to allow them to start the event. The clock is ticking down for the big blue trucks entered by the De Rooy family, and only tomorrow morning will tell if they can hope to head to Portimao on New Year’s Eve for stage 1 of the Dakar Rally.