South African woman wins the Ranger Odyssey 2015!
After 12 days of challenging driving throughout northern Namibia – Liane van Dyk has been announced as the winner of the Ranger Odyssey 2015!
The Ranger Odyssey involves travelling over 2000 km through the remote Damaraland and Kaokoland regions of Namibia. Contestants were assessed and scored daily on their driving ability, camp etiquette, general knowledge, vehicle maintenance, leadership skills and overall demeanour.
The announcement was made at the Ford Go Further event in Sandton – just in time for Women’s Day!
The 23-year-old computer programmer and part-time DJ beat 19 other contestants for the title – including 13 from South Africa, two each from Nigeria and Ivory Coast, and one each from Angola and Mozambique.
“We had a fantastic group of dynamic and very competitive contestants in this year’s Ranger Odyssey, and it was great to have five African countries represented this year,” says Tracey Delate, General Marketing Manager, Ford Motor Company of Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Liane was among the front-runners throughout the event, and showed consistently high scores in all of the aspects, from driving right through to the general knowledge tests. Her energy and enthusiasm also shone through, making her one of the clear favourites, and we are delighted to see her win the 2015 title,” Delate added
Liane has won herself a Ford Ranger to drive for a year, as well as R5000 fuel per month, which should come in handy. Especially since Van Dyk describes herself as, “an adventure junkie that’s built for the outdoors and off-roading.”
The 20 finalists jetted off from Johannesburg to Windhoek on 23 July to begin their amazing journey through some of the most challenging, yet beautiful terrain that Namibia has to offer. Involving battling through Desolation Valley, sub-zero nights and Namibia’s highest mountain – the contestants were faced with the most spectacular and challenging 4×4 trails.
In an interesting twist for this year’s event, there were two elimination rounds where the two lowest-scoring contestants left the group on day four, and another three departed on day eight.
Check out the Chevrolet Safari Drive Day Gallery!
During the 2015 Ranger Odyssey, contestants were given the opportunity to propose their own corporate social responsibility initiatives. Jacobus Muller (28) won the humanitarian project competition, along with the combined pot of “Ranger Odyssey Dollars” from the contestants to get his proposal off the ground.
He will be helping to develop a crèche that features a windmill system that delivers essential water and also provides power-generating capacity, thus enabling it to be energy efficient and self-sustaining.