Sertões Rally

When you thought that the Dakar Rally is the biggest off-road event of South America, you are completely wrong. Already 27 years a rally is riden in Brazil with the name "Rally Dos Sertões", which means as much as Rally from the inner lands.
In 1991 the rally, in which only 34 motorcycles participated, started under the name Rally São Francisc on a track between São Paulo and Marceió. In 1993 the name was changed into Rally dos Sertões, referring to an old book from Euclides da Cunha about the Amazon region: Os Sertões (War in the inner lands).

In 1995 the rally became international by participation of, amongst others, Edi Orioli, Fernando Gil and Jordi Acarons. In that year also 4x4 cars entered the rally. In 1996 Marcos de Moraes and Dunas Race obtained the rights and their goal was to make the rally the biggest in the world. In 2008 the rally started to count for the FIA World Cross-country championship. This resulted finally in an event where 2000 participants compete and that drags along a large caravan of supporting staff and brings a huge amount of tourists to the villages on the route. Thus economically speaking a good thing for the often poor inhabitants of these villages.
But of course al those people and racing activities also bring a lot of carbage. Therefore the Rally dos Sertões has started an Environmental Action department, which clears up the mess and arranges the compensation for damaged roads and things like fences with the local population. In the meantime the event has grown to a big social happening which gives a boost to especially the medical help for outlying villages.

Now the motorcycle stamps.
The stamps have the value to get commercial post from the 1st category delivered. I have tried to understand the Brazilian prices, but one stamp with this value costs less than 10.00 R$, and another stamps with the same nomination costs 31.80 R$. 1 Brazilian Real (R$) is around 0.21 euro.
Next the images. The stamps have been printed in sheets with blocks of each four different stamps.

On the stamp with the quad we see the route from 2019, with next to it the quadriciclo from Wescley (with the c in the middle) Dutra, a quad of own construction, photographed in the 2018 rally. The seven stages of that year together counted 3607 km, a distance that Dutra managed to complete in 35 hours, 7 minutes and 34 seconds.

The motocross rider on the second stamp that is interesting for us is the 45 year old Brazilian Jean Azevedo on a Honda CRF 450RX. In 2004, 2005, 2015 and 2017 he was overall winner of the rally, and in 2018 winner of one of the stages. Azevedo is factory rider for Honda and participates in Cross-countries all over the world: Dakar (18 times participant and in 2011 winner in the Supers class), North Africa Rally, Roof of Africa and many others. Jean also has a moto‑cross‑country school in Brazil, and now thus also his own stamp.

The 2019 rally started on August 24th in Campo Grande, and finished in Aquiraz on September 1st, 8 days later. The route passed along 40 cities in 7 provinces. Both cities have their own first day cancellation:

In 2020 Brazil celebrates its 200th anniversary, and the Sertões strives to be at that time the biggest rally event in the world. We will see!

Hans de Kloet

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