N° 054 - TEAM JIM BEAM TURKISH TEAM
- MERKIT
- Kemal
- TUR
- 07/06/1960
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Kemal Merkit: “Another ten years before switching to cars!”
Newt year, Kemal Merkit might have an assistance during the Dakar. Maybe. But that isn’t his priority. No, the Turk has already taken part in four Dakar rallies and has finished three without any extra help. Another year without assistance wouldn’t be too much of a problem. But what he would like to change for 2009 is the team. This year he will be the only Turkish representative in the rally with his compatriot Kutlu Torunlar.
In one year, he would like to come back “with a big Turkish team with at least one car and two bikes”. Indeed he feels that “the Dakar is getting more and more popular in Turkey. The media coverage is a lot bigger and last year hundreds of people waited for me at the airport when I returned home form the Dakar”.
Kemal Merkit would indeed like to make the path he set even wider after being the first Turkish biker to take part in the rally in 2000 and the first to reach the Senegalese capital in 2002.
Until he gets a bigger visibility on the race, Kemal Merkit continues in the same tracks of a rally where he feels comfortable despite the difficulty of the course. “I’ve been doing bike competitions since I was thirty years old. I competed on several occasions in the rallies of Dubaï, Tunisia and the Atlas. I don’t feel tired. I believe I still have ten years of riding ahead of me before switching to cars”, says this 47-year-old father of two. It is indeed true that his hobbies – windsurfing, riding bikes and snowboarding – are perfect to keep a decent condition.
