Volkswagen kindly invited AUTOSPORT to be part of its Dakar experience in 2011, and things were going well until Peter Mills got his Amorak stuck on a sand dune somewhere in Chile...

Imagine if a passing Monegasque Monsieur broke down at Sainte Devote just before the Monaco Grand Prix, or if the start at Le Mans were to be spiced up by a stranded hire car at the Dunlop Chicane.

Try as I have to erase the shameful episode from my recollection, my overriding memory of the year was the excruciating moment on January 12 when the Volkswagen Amorak in which I was riding as a passenger lodged itself in soft sand on stage nine of the Dakar Rally.

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