Los Llovera/Llobera, uncle and niece without limits

In September an earthquake was registered in Andorra, within the Llovera/Llobera family: the petite girl Margot (26), the youngest of the three sisters, would go to the Dakar with her uncle Albert (56), the two together in a truck.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
30 December 2022 Friday 06:39
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Los Llovera/Llobera, uncle and niece without limits

In September an earthquake was registered in Andorra, within the Llovera/Llobera family: the petite girl Margot (26), the youngest of the three sisters, would go to the Dakar with her uncle Albert (56), the two together in a truck...

–Avia Carmen got angry. She didn't tell me anything, she told Albert... –Margot discovers.

–He released me: “Can't you have a normal co-pilot?” He is afraid that we will both be in the rally, but I think he understands it perfectly,” says Albert, the uncle, an experienced pilot of everything, in a wheelchair since he was 18 years old due to paraplegia, who does not hesitate to affirm that his 8. º Dakar, together with Margot, will be “very special”.

Uncle-niece was an unexplored formula in the mythical rally, where kinship is common in the caravan. That Albert Llovera and Margot Llobera ended up in the same vehicle was a very feasible option. They were predestined... because of the uncle, according to the niece's confession.

–I started riding a motorcycle –very late, at the age of 17– as a way to go to the Dakar, because it was the most financially viable option. Everything has been a very unconscious process in order to live the thousand and one stories that Albert explained to me. It doesn't stop. A meal with him is one anecdote after another. I didn't want to be in an office for 14 hours, I wanted this,” explains Margot, an Industrial Design engineer, who competes as a motorcycle racer in the Baja World Championship (she was 3rd in her second year), and as a co-driver in the Spanish Championship of raids with Jorge Pelechano.

In the Dakar, Margot has participated twice; In 2018 he made his debut doing assistance and press work in the Himoinsa team, and last year he made his debut in competition as a co-driver for Mercè Martí, although he had learned the tasks of navigator “from Gerard Farrés, from Mathieu Baumel (co-driver of Al Attiyah) , by Monica Plaza and Cristina Gutiérrez”.

Therefore, in the eyes of her Uncle Albert, Margot was already ready to take another leap. “He had to be given an opportunity to explode”, or to climb: from going almost at ground level as co-driver in a side by side (a light car), to dominating the road at two meters high as a truck co-driver, a Ford Truck 4x4, with a 13,000 cc engine and 1,050 HP of power.

None of this distresses the niece, brave and determined, with astonishing calm, despite the fact that she has only done a test in the truck, a few kilometers behind a military jeep in Poland.

–In the end, it is like going from the motorcycle to the car. Obviously things change. I will have the advantage of seeing everything earlier because I am higher up. I have practiced little, but I have absolute confidence in Albert. I must get used to the unique sensations of riding in a truck: swallow the potholes, it seems that you are going to burst the nose and continue on your way –explains Margot Llobera, who has something gained: she never gets dizzy.

For Albert, a versatile driver like few others – he has raced four Dakars in a truck, two in a buggy and one in an Isuzu, as well as knowing how to drive on snow, ice, dirt, asphalt, sand dunes, stones…–, the contribution to his right It's essential. He has had some of the best co-drivers on the market, such as Lucas Cruz (now with Carlos Sainz), Àlex Haro (Nani Roma took him), Ferran Marco (he went with Carlos Checa)… “They all steal them from me”. Maybe they'll swipe Margot if she does it right...

–She is very focused on what she does, I have chosen her because she has a pack that I like. She gets very involved, lives it and fights. If you add to that a first experience as a co-driver in the Dakar, in which he did very well, I think we can be good at it,” predicts Albert, convinced that the project with Ford Trucks, despite being “very embryonic”. , with only six months of gestation, has potential. “The truck is very robust; The idea would be to finish the Dakar as high as possible. And if the project goes well, it will have more to do”.

For Margot, her first Dakar by truck will be one more dose of the adventure she's always dreamed of. “Over the years I have realized that I am very happy on the Dakar. As bad as it goes, I know this is my place. I want to be there no matter what, take advantage of the opportunities that they give me”.

PS: It's not a typo. They write the family surname differently, Albert with V and Margot with B. The niece explains it: "The father (grandfather Francisco Xavier) wrote it when signing with B, and my father inscribed his three daughters with B to retrieve the origin of the surname. The rest of the family continues to do it with V.”

At the door of the truck, next to the Andorran flag and the blood group, uncle and niece are the Lloveras. Both with v.