The first position in the truck category of the Africa Eco Race was taken by the crew of Andrey Karginov. According to the pilot’s words, despite the fact that the length of the special was only 85 km, there were quite many cunning surprises that could cost them precious minutes.
“At the start the organizers never prepare challenging specials, they give the sportsmen an opportunity to “roll into” the race. But the legends for different competitions are written by different people: for Dakar in the South America – they are one, for the Silk Way Rally – other, and for Africa Eco Race – third. So, you have to get used to it. Anyway, today you could get into a serious adventure, if you go for a result, so we didn’t hurry and smoothly “rolled into” it,” – explained Andrey Karginov.
The crew of Sergey Kuprianov was 6th to finish.
“In general we enjoyed the stage, as we reached the finished line. It was the first time we drove on our new tires on Moroccan stones. It is tougher and the truck skids more. We had to get used to it”, - said Sergey Kuprianov.
Unfortunately, the stony tracks gave an unpleasant surprise: we had to change the wheel.
“We overran two trucks very fast, but on approximately 22nd km punctured a wheel. So, we had to change it. While we were changing it – other trucks overran us. As a result we didn’t manage to catch them up on such a short special. But it is only the first stage. The more interesting will be the race”, - promised the pilot.
Results after the 1st stage
1. KARGINOV Andrey 01:06:17
2. VALTR Jaroslav + 00:03:52
3. JACINTO Elisabete + 00:08:33
4. TOMECEK Tomas + 00:09:02
5. KOVACS Miklos + 00:09:09
6. KUPRIANOV Sergey + 00:15:50
7. DARAZSI Zsolt + 00:20:19
